BY DR. ARNAN SISSON

JULY 14, 2018

I’ve got to admit many essential oils get a bad rap. Folks just aren’t sure if they actually work. They may have over heard a neighbor or two rant and rave about how they used vanilla or lavender to help some sort of problem they had. But the question in the back of your head most likely is, was that just a fluke or is it actually proven to work?

Today we’re going to talk about an essential oil that actually does have a good bit of scientific proof under its belt, and not just that but many of my clients and me included have used this oil to great effect. This essential oil is no other than Lavender!

Lavender is being shown by the research to have a large effect on a few things. The first is anxiety and looking at all of the effects of this oil, this one seems to be the most powerful one. Along with this its been shown to improve depression that’s linked with anxiety.

Just general relaxation levels where shown to also improve with lavender. Studies have compared the use of lavender against placebos (“sugar pills”), and lavender beat it many times when folks were put in stressful situations.

So aside from anxiety, depression, and general stress, lavender has been shown to have minor effects on a few other things that are definitely worth mentioning. First would be blood pressure. Lavender has been shown to reduce high blood pressure minimally for a short period of time.

 Secondly its also been responsible in helping migraine suffers. These folks took lavender at the onset of a migraine headache and the total pain intensity was shown to drop. Along with this, folks that have insomnia or general anxiety reported improvements in sleep with lavender before bed time.

With all of these studies its recommended for folks that want to try lavender to try it either in pill form or inhaled in the form of aroma therapy. If you are taking this orally, you want to try 80-160mg. If your planning on using this in an inhaled form, then the studies recommend breathing it in for 30 minutes in a well-ventilated room. So, all in all I’d say lavender is one of those essential oils that actually works, its not just smoke and mirrors.

If you are stressed it would be definitely be a safe bet that lavender could give you some relief. I always tell folks that life is too short to have constant anxiety and stress.

Along with lavender many folks find some great relief in massage therapy as well.

If you’d like some additional help with your stress or anxiety, feel free to call our practice at (804) 493-0002 or click here to set up your 100% free massage therapy phone consultation.  This is a great service where we figure out what massage techniques and general approaches would provide you the largest amount of relief in your stress levels.