Lavender Essential Oil

If you are just beginning your journey with essential oils, lavender is the perfect oil to start with! It is considered to be one of the safest oils for both children and adults. It is easily paired with other oils to create beautiful, floral scents as well as promoting mental clarity and relaxation. It is also effective in reducing skin irritations, reducing fevers, and it aids in a restful night's sleep.

Lavender essential oil is a natural muscle relaxer and painkiller. It acts as a powerful antioxidant, protecting many organs, most notably, the kidneys and brain. It is calming and effectively induces restful sleep and relieves anxiety and depression symptoms.

Promotes Healthy Skin and Hair
Lavender essential oil is wonderful for the skin and hair. It is a nourishing oil that can help treat bacterial, viral, fungal, and parasitic infections, as well as rashes, cuts, burns, and aging skin. It is particularly effective in alleviating rashes that are caused by allergic reactions because it inhibits histamine release. Because of its antimicrobial properties, it can prevent common scalp issues like itchy scalp and dandruff, making your scalp and hair stronger and healthier! It fades scars and tightens skin, while also alleviating undereye circles.

Pain Relief
Lavender has anti-inflammatory properties that make it an effective natural pain reliever. It relaxes muscles and relieves tension making it a highly effective headache remedy. In a migraine study, 71% of migraine patients reported having at least some symptom relief compared to 48% in the placebo group when the oil was inhaled. It has also proven to provide menstrual cramp relief and aid in relieving PMS symptoms.

Antioxidant Properties
Lavender essential oil has powerful antioxidant properties. It has neuroprotective effects against oxidative stress according to this rat study. Oxidative stress occurs when there is an imbalance between antioxidants and free radicals in the body. Free radicals are highly reactive agents that can cause large chain reactions in your body resulting in oxidation of cells. Antioxidants neutralize free radicals without causing harm to themselves. Lavender fights against oxidative stress because it significantly increases the antioxidant enzyme activity of the three most effective antioxidants, superoxide dismutase (SOD), Glutathione peroxidase-1 (GPX), and CAT.

Nervous System Support
Because it has such powerful antioxidant properties, lavender has proven to be effective in treating the effects of Alzheimer’s Disease, ischemic stroke injury, and seizures. Although more research is needed, it is a promising Alzheimer’s treatment because it fights oxidative stress so effectively, therefore protecting neurotransmitter activity and synaptic plasticity. It proved to protect neurons in this rat study, furthering the point that lavender has neuroprotective properties. Because of these properties, lavender has also proven to be effective in helping to treat ischemic stroke injuries and lessen the effects of seizures. Lavender extract exhibits anticonvulsant and antispasmodic activity primarily by blocking calcium channels. In a mice trial, it greatly reduced the severity of convulsions while also increasing the span of time between convulsions.

Natural Diabetes Remedy
Once again, because of lavender’s wonderful antioxidant properties, it protects against the increase of blood glucose levels while also increasing antioxidant enzyme activity. This helps to manage some of the symptoms of diabetes such as weight gain and hunger pangs. Also, because of this, lavender decreases lipoperoxidation (the oxidative degradation of lipids in cell membranes). This makes for an overall healthier liver and kidney in diabetes patients. While this one study does provide hope for a natural treatment option, more research is definitely needed.

Other Uses:
Lavender is very versatile, making it hard to categorize each and every benefit it can provide! Some other uses include:

• Reduces fevers
• Aids digestion
• Relieves ear infection (from warm compress-NOT to be used in the ear canal)
• Kills lice and eggs
• Freshens laundry
• Purifies the air

Cautions:
While, generally speaking, lavender essential oil is a safe essential oil, always dilute with a carrier oil and test skin for sensitivity. Discontinue use if skin irritation, nausea, vomiting, or headache occur after using lavender essential oil.

If pregnant, nursing, or taking any medications, consult a healthcare professional before use.
These statements have not been approved by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Sources:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22517298/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23351960/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23808618/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24456909/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28319423/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378874199001981
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22789792/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22475718/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5424179/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22895026/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4325408/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24373672/
 

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