True story.
A couple of weeks ago we were camping and one of the kids was overtired and very upset about some mozzie bites. We tried to help soothe her skin with a few different things we had on hand but she was still utterly inconsolable. I think she would have been upset even without mozzie bites to be honest. It had just been one of those days.
Then I remembered I had Valor in my backpack. I’d heard great things about this oil helping to calm nerves and ease tension so I rolled a little over her chest. Kid you not: within 30 seconds, she had stopped screaming. Within a minute, she was asleep.
Maybe that sounds like a load of rubbish or like I’m pulling your leg with some sweet little marketing trick. Certainly that’s what I would have thought a few years ago if you’d told me how essential oils can help with emotions. I only ever used oils for cleaning and diffusing so inhaling them more intentionally or applying topically to help balance emotions was a bit too woo woo for me.
But here’s the thing.
The olfactory system (our sense of smell) is the only one of our senses that is linked directly to the limbic system. The limbic system is our emotional command centre, responsible for memory, motivation and mood among other things.
All these things can have an enormous impact on our emotional state and our sense of smell is often overlooked as a key piece of our wellness puzzle.
This is why essential oils are such powerful tools in your natural health arsenal. Because if you can lower your heart rate, slow your breathing, ease that jaw clenching or calm a racing mind naturally, then your body has a better chance of maintaining wellness.
Stress is a killer, and while essential oils won’t fix the root cause of your stress (in the case of my daughter, exhaustion), they can bring our minds back to a place where we’re more readily able to deal with the root cause (in the case of my daughter, by helping her mind relax enough to go to sleep).
I’d love to hear from you – what’s one way in which your sense of smell has triggered an emotional change (good or bad)?
