Headaches & Essential Oils

Will Essential Oils Help with Headaches?

Headaches can really affect the quality of your life whether they are occasional or chronic. There are many causes of headaches, including blood sugar imbalances, circulatory problems, hormonal imbalance (such as during menstruation), sinus infections or eye strain, among other reasons.

Headaches can also be due to an emotional response to a situation or what is called stress. So the question is what is stress? The word stress in popular usage has come to mean anything that makes us not feel good with ourselves. Stress is usually meant to be something that comes from outside of ourselves, (i.e. I am stressed out because my alarm clock didn't go off and I was late to work) that then can translate into a headache.

Essential oils can be very effective when used for headaches because of their inherent anti-inflammatory. vasodilating and anti-spasmodic properties. Also, if you are experiencing a stress headache, essential oils have calming, relaxing and balancing properties that work on the physical as well as the emotional level.

There are several ways that you can use essential oils for a headache. You can diffuse them with a cold air diffuser into a room while you rest, you can place them on your temples, the back of your neck or anywhere that you feel your headache comes from.

If your headache is from stress, you can use the essential oils recommended on the stress relief page of this website. In addition you can use:

Peppermint - good for circulation, is cooling and helps to reduce stress and tension.

Balsam Fir - good for muscular pain, is grounding and relaxing.

Eucalyptus globulus - good for sinus infections, is a decongestant and promotes well-being.

Basil - powerful antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxant. Helps fight mental fatigue and is good for Migraine headaches.

Rosemary - enhances mental clarity and concentration, helps overcome mental fatigue, boots alertness and eases anxiety.

References to essential oils refer to therapeutic grade essential oils only

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