Best Ways To Use Ayurvedic Essential Oils

Ayurveda is a gift to mankind and it follows the implausible elements of nature. This safe science trusts and believes that human being is a part of nature and his illness should also be treated in a natural way using the gifts of ‘Mother Nature’. Here comes the importance of Ayurvedic essential oils which are derived from the natural plant extracts. These oils have therapeutic properties for which it has been used since ages in traditional medicine and folk medicine.

In the recent times, you might have heard about the essence and effective use of essential oils in Aromatherapy but won’t you get surprised if I say that Aromatherapy itself is one of the ways of healing holistically in Ayurveda? This ancient therapy of curing human beings have suggested numerous ways of using Ayurvedic essential oils and the best ways are here for your guidance.

  1. Aromatic bath: A popular adage goes like this ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’, as Ayurveda insists highly on keeping yourselves and your environment clean, it prescribes taking bath twice daily either with the use of herbs or Ayurvedic essential oils in your bath tub.  Adding few drops of essential oils to your bath tub will give you a refreshing bath, which would be energizing and help you stay calm physically and emotionally.
  2. Essential oils massage: You work all day long all through the week; won’t you feel that your mind and body needs some ‘Quality Time To Rest’? Don’t need to go in search of quality time to rest, instead your life partner can help you discover it apparently with a caring massage with the sweet-smelling Ayurvedic essential oils. You can also try exploring the real sense of relief and peace after a systematic massage by an Ayurvedic expert in a nearby Ayurvedic center if you really feel like having a space for yourself. Ayurvedic massage with healing essential oils are often said to alleviate stress, trigger your olfactory sense, make your skin supple and give a never before newness to your life.
  3. As a vitalizing household cleaner: Home is the best place to give a great start to everything and everyone of your family. Why can’t you try complimenting your home by adding few drops of refreshing essential oils to your floor cleaner, washing machine and at the time of washing your dishes and cleaning your toilets? Lemon essential oil is often recommended for laundry, cleaning dishes and other general cleaning as it has the potential to remove tough, oily and greasy stains. You can also try using essential oils with clean, fresh, flowery and woody aroma to bring the real effects of nature even when your doors are closed.
  4. For skin care: Nothing other than certain selective Ayurvedic essential oils can caress your skin and take better care of them. You can use a wide range of skin-friendly essential oils like lavender essential oil, lemon essential oil, rose essential oil, sandalwood oil, ylang ylang essential oil, palmarosa essential oil, tangerine essential oil, mandarin essential oil, chamomile essential oil, geranium essential oil and few other. You can add few drops of any of the above essential oils in your favorite lotions, creams, carrier oil, carrier lotion, cocoa butter etc, to get set with your ultimate skin care pack.
  5. Diffuser/Air-Freshener: Using essential oils in your diffuser or in your Air-freshener will help you kill germs, bacteria and other harmful viruses in the air while giving you an everlasting aroma especially in the rainy season.
  6. Cold/Warm Compress: Circulation problems, sprains, muscular tension and other pains can be easily treated either with a warm or cold compress. It will be a brilliant idea if you add few drops of essential oils with absolute healing properties like peppermint oil, eucalyptus oil etc to your compress the next time when you feel like getting instant remedy from excruciating pains like menstrual cramps.
  7. Vapor inhalation/ Facial steam: Adding few drops of Ayurvedic essential oils like Eucalyptus oil or Peppermint oil to steaming water and inhaling the steam will help you keep away from the persisting problems like sinus, bronchitis, cold, flu etc. You can also add few drops of refreshing oils like lavender oil or other cleansing oil like chamomile oil to warm water and use it as a facial steam for deep cleansing.

Note: The way of using Ayurvedic essential oils plays a dominant role on its healing potential. Do not use essential oils directly to the skin as more pure the oil, more concentrated it is.

Reference Links:

  1. Essential Oils by Wikipedia
  2. Methods of Application by Nature’s Gift
  3. How to Use Essential Oils Effectively by David Crow, L.Ac. Published in Yogi Times
  4. What is Aromatherapy by National Association For Holistic Aromatherapy

Ayurvedic Ways of Treating The Disgusting Dysmennorhea

Dysmennorhea is often sickening and agonizing. Severe menstrual pain that comes before or on the onset of cyclical menstrual periods is referred to as Dysmennorhea. It lasts for 1 to 3 days of menses and is often accompanied by vomiting, dizziness, depression, headache, nausea, stress, fatigue and bloating. The discharge of the prostaglandins and oxytocin hormones during menstruation is the basic reason for primary Dysmennorhea. The best way to treat this threatening physical condition is with the use of Ayurvedic treatment that can completely cure Dysmennorhea without any adverse side effects.

It’s nature’s law and the beauty of nature often ends up in gifting all the biological complexities to the most elegant, steel-hearted and the greatest creation in the world, none other than ‘Women’. Generally women scrawl in pain during their regular menstruation and whisper a solid statement that says ‘Why everything for women? Right from menstrual pain to labor pain, why everything for women and nothing for men?’ Young ladies, never curse your creation and love to cherish it as Ayurveda considers human body as a temple and appreciates your individuality.

Blessed are women: Men have higher risks of heart disease than women as the female hormone called estrogen is active till menopause and the impurities in the blood are often discharged during your cyclic menstrual period. You are safe because of your reproductive cycle!

Ayurvedic treatment for Dysmennorhea: Ayurveda has its own magnificence in treating each health condition. It treats Dysmennorhea according to the Vata, Pitta and Kapha body types.

  • Ayurvedic herbs: The science of life suggests the use of effective herbs like Sweet fennel, Lemon balm, Pasque flower and Dong Quai, popularly known as the tonic for assisting the reproductive health of women. It also suggests the use of combination of Aloe vera with black pepper.
  • Ayurvedic essential oils: Using Ayurvedic essential oils with emmenagogue, analgesic and antispasmodic properties are trusted to treat womanly problems like Dysmennorhea, Amenorrhea, Leucorrhea and much more. Few such special essential oils with emmenagogue properties are Clary Sage essential oil, Rosemary essential oil, Angelica essential oil, Lavender essential oil, Juniper essential oil, sweet fennel essential oil, Jasmine essential oil, Myrrh essential oil and Peppermint essential oil can balance your hormones and help alleviate the painful menstrual cramps. Gently massage any of these essential oils or a blend of two or three to calm your nerves and soother your abdominal pains.
  • Yoga asanas: Ayurveda suggests practicing asanas like Padmasana for lessening menstrual pain as it gradually improves blood circulation in the lower part of the body while steadily enhancing metabolism, treating hormonal imbalances and control menstrual pains.

Ayurveda recommends the intake of healthy diet with green leafy vegetables, fresh fruits, and food items rich in magnesium like banana, barley, whole grains, broccoli, spinach, artichoke, beans and few others. Drink lot of water to restore the energy levels. Ayurveda also insists on the detoxifying system called Panchakarma that cleanses and removes the toxic substances from your body assisting in improved circulation and stress-free living.

Reference Links:

  1. Painful Menstrual Periods / Dysmennorhea – Symptom Evaluation by Med India
  2. Aging and Heart Disease by Heart Health Women.Org
  3. Angelica Sinensis by Wikipedia
  4. Padmasana and Benefits by answers.myYOG.com

(E)- Cinnamaldehyde

Cinnamaldehyde is a pale yellow gelatinous liquid and an organic compound, which is responsible for the taste and smell of the cinnamon spice. Its molecular formula is C9H8O or C6H5CH=CHCHO.

It is also identified by various names such as 3- beta-phenylacrolein, (E)-Cinnamaldehyde and cinnamic aldehyde. The essential oil in the bark of the cinnamon trees contains almost 98% of Cinnamaldehyde.

Attributes of Cinnamaldehyde:

Cinnamaldehyde is responsible for rendering the taste, rich flavor and aroma in the most renowned Cinnamon spice.

Therapeutic uses of Cinnamaldehyde:

Many of the health benefits of Cinnamon and its effect on metabolism is due to the presence of Cinnamaldehyde in it. It helps to fight against tooth decay and bad breath and so the herb of Cinnamon is used for enhancing oral health. The antifungal and antibacterial property of Cinnamaldehyde helps to reduce infections.

Cinnamaldehyde restricts the harmful blood platelet clotting, which would otherwise result in insufficient blood flow. This is accomplished by preventing the production of arachidonic acid that is responsible for anti-inflammatory responses from the cell membranes.

As an anti-bacterial and anti-fungal agent:                           

Cinnamaldehyde exhibit anti-microbial activity. The antimicrobial nature of Cinnamaldehyde was proved by the study conducted at the University of Illinois, Chicago.  It had been found that Cinnamaldehyde prevents above 50% of the bacterial growth in the oral cavity. It is especially effective for preventing the growth of bacteria and other pathogens in the tongue.

According to a study titled “Antimicrobial Activities of Cinnamon Oil and Cinnamaldehyde from the Chinese Medicinal Herb Cinnamomum cassia Blume published in The American Journal of Chinese medicine, Cinnamaldehyde effectively inhibits the growth of various segregates of bacteria including gram positive and gram negative bacteria, fungi including yeasts, filamentos molds and dermatophytes. Thus Cinnamaldehyde possess anti-bacterial and antifungal properties.

Anti-diabetic property:

Since the primordial times, Cinnamon has been used to treat diabetes in China and in India. The anti-diabetic nature of Cinnamon is due to the presence of cinnamaldehyde.  According to a study conducted on the streptozotocin(STZ) induced male diabetic wistar rats, it had been found that by administering Cinnamaldehyde at different doses, it had considerably reduced the plasma glucose level and simultaneously increased the plasma insulin level.

Further, oral administration of Cinnamaldehyde markedly reduced glycosylated haemoglobin, serum total cholesterol and triglycerides and increased the hepatic glycogen and HDL (High Density Lipoprotein) cholesterol. Thus, Cinnamaldehyde exhibits hypoglycemic and hypolipidaemic effects in STZ induced diabetic rats.

As a flavoring agent:

Cinnamaldehyde is mainly added to foods and medicines to enhance its quality in terms of aroma and taste. It is used as a flavoring agent in liquid refreshments, ice-creams, chewing gums and candy. It is also used in perfumes to recreate the magic of fruity and interesting fragrance ranges.

Insecticide and Mosquito repellent:

Cinnamaldehyde is an effective animal repellent, which is used to repel animals like cats and dogs. It is also used as an efficient insecticide for mosquitoes. It had been found that about half of Aedes aegypti mosquito larvae are killed by an amount of 29 ppm of cinnamaldehyde in 24 hours.

Cinnamaldehyde is also used as a fungicide. It is also used to prevent corrosion in steel and other ferrous alloys in corrosive fluids like hydrochloric acid.

Reference Links:

Cinnamaldehyde by Wikipedia

Cinnamaldehyde – A potential antidiabetic agent by Entomology Research Institute, Loyola College, India

Antimicrobial Activities of Cinnamon Oil and Cinnamaldehyde from the Chinese Medicinal Herb Cinnamomum cassia Blume published in the American Journal of Chinese Medicine