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Chronic Disease, Emotional health, Environmental Concerns, Essential Oils, Kids Health, Natural pain relief, Organic lifestyle, Toxin-free living, Women's health

Why Is Everyone So Excited About Essential Oils?
excited about essential oils
There was a time in American history when essential oils were only used by traditional healers, massage therapists, and subculture flower children. But now, we have modern families, business owners, and even medical doctors using them in their homes and professions.  Why is everyone so excited about essential oils these days?

Here are 5 reasons why I believe essential oils are back to stay! After reading them, you may decide to incorporate them into your lifestyle too!

Why essential oils popular?

1. We need alternative healthcare

Essential oil knowledge was lost when modern medicine became popular in the United States. This is because people used to think Western medicine was more evolved, and therefore should have greater respect. Some innovations, like life-saving surgeries and fertility procedures are truly miraculous.  However, this standard of care is only focused on palliative measures.  It doesn’t address the root cause of health imbalances. We need and expect more.

We’re realizing that Western Medicine is not making us healthier. We are wising up and asking:

WHY is this happening to me?

WHAT does my body need to be healthier?

HOW can I maintain health?

Nature, traditional medicines, alternative health practitioners, and your own intuition are the best guides.

Essential oils are gifts from nature that help support physiological functions, improve mood, control infections, and thereby add to our health.

2. Essential oils are effective alternatives to toxic products

We are living in a toxic soup that triggers many health problems in our population. Visit EWG.org to learn more about pesticides, herbicides, antibacterial agents, and other threats in our environment. They’re still legal in the U.S., even they disrupt hormones, destroy gut flora, decrease immunity, and cause cancer. Therefore, it’s up to manufacturers to remove them from their products or up to consumers to stop buying them.

Essential oils can clean our homes and bodies. Many families make their own home and personal care products using essential oils. There’s also some trusted companies who provide ready-made products using essential oils.  These are safe and effective replacements to toxic conventional products found on grocery store shelves.

3. Essential oils have been used effectively for thousands of years

Did you know essential oils have been used from the beginning of history? Ancient Chinese, Indian, Greek, and Egyptian civilizations prized them for their beauty enhancing, spiritual, and therapeutic value. So even though they are new to Americans, that’s not so in the rest of the world.

Our culture is starting to respect older modalities like my profession of Chinese Medicine, as well as using Essential Oils. I would not call it a trend.  Americans are just now seeing what has always been around – an awakening of sorts!

4. People want to feel empowered & resourceful with health choices

Many people these days don’t believe that “doctors know best”. It’s important to have a health practitioner as a guide or for a different perspective.  However, most people have the awareness to know when they’re well or not though, and whether it’s an emergency. They know how to research and experiment with natural remedies and determine if they’re working.

Moms in particular, want to trust their instincts more.  They want to be resourceful and feel empowered with their choices, just as our ancestors were. They know their children better than anyone else! It’s easy for them to use essential oils and they’re accepted well by their children. Experience shows them that essential oils work well to manage illness in the family and to boost their health.

5. There’s tons of research to support essential oil efficacy

Each year, hundreds of research studies validate essential oil efficacy. Here are just a few that show essential oils can improve one’s health naturally:

  1. Protective essential oil attenuates influenza virus infection: An in vitro study in MDCK cells
  2. The Effectiveness of Aromatherapy in Reducing Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
  3. The effects of preoperative aromatherapy massage on anxiety and sleep quality of colorectal surgery patients: A randomized controlled study

Certainly, the excitement behind essential oil use is backed by a compelling need! Do you want to try them out too? Visit my natural products page for more information on the oils I recommend. With over 20+ years of experience using them, I can help answer any questions you have as well!

Essential Oils, Gut Health, Kids Health, Natural Remedies, Natural Sleep Support, Seasons, Summer, Supplements, Toxin-free living, Women's health

Essential Oils You’ll Need For A Naturally-Healthy Summer
Healthy summer kids essential oils

Summer is a favorite season for many people, but it comes with certain challenges. Longer stretches of powerful sunlight, warm-weather pests, and eating unhealthy foods on family vacations are just some of things that can dampen one’s enthusiasm for summer fun. Be prepared with these essential oils for summer challenges to keep your family naturally healthy and happy all season long!

Essential Oil Remedies for Summer Challenges

Bug repellent

Do you have a family member who is a mosquito magnet?  That would be me, in my family.  So believe me, plant power is safer and equally effective at keeping them at bay than DEET-containing concoctions!

The recipe below incorporates dōTERRA Terrashield, which actually works fabulously on it’s own. The additional oils kick the power up a few notches.

essential oil bug repellent

Insect bites & stings

If pests get past your defenses, try these essential oil remedies to soothe the pain, itch, and swelling (from Modern Essentials, 8th edition):

Bee/Wasp/Hornet stings – After removing stinger, apply a cold compress of Roman Chamomile to the area for as long as possible.

Mosquito bites – apply lavender (diluted as recommended in chart at bottom) to the bites every few hours.

Spider bites – Dilute basil as recommended and apply as a cold compress to the area.

Tick bites – Don’t add oils to remove the tick or they may inject their toxin into the wound! Pull out the whole tick out close to the mouth without twisting. It’s wise to save the tick to get it, and the person bitten, examined by your doctor. Apply 1 drop of lavender to the wound every 5 minutes.

Sunburns

For minor sunburns, mix 10 drops of lavender with 1/4 cup water in a small spray bottle. Be sure to shake well so the oil is suspended in solution before spraying over the affected area.

Poison Oak

Though the red color on the “leaves of three” makes this plant more recognizable in the summer, avoiding it can still be tricky when it comes to kids and pets.

Rose, lavender, and Roman chamomile are all indicated for helping to relieve the itch. However, with conditions like this that ooze blisters, sometimes adding oil alone can spread the rash. You may want to look into combining the power of essential oils with a drying calamine lotion, or see an acupuncturist/Chinese herbalist for a drying solution like this one.

Indigestion

Eating heavily processed, greasy, and low quality foods at amusement parks or on the road can lead to an upset stomachs, gas, bloating, constipation, and/or diarrhea. DōTerra’s DigestZen blend can help immensely with all of these symptoms! Ginger, Fennel and peppermint are the main oils in this blend that help ease discomfort and can regulate the bowels. These oils have also been reported to help relieve food poisoning, stomach bugs, or motion sickness.

You may also consider increasing your whole food supplements to fill in any nutrition gaps, keeping your gut flora happy and your immune system working well while away from home.

Cooling down

Combine 2-3 drops of peppermint with 1/4 cup pure aloe vera and 1/4 cup witch hazel in a spray bottle. Shake well and mist body as needed to cool down which might be especially helpful at night to prevent restless sleep. This solution can also help easy sunburn discomfort.

Do you have any ideas for using essential oils in the Summer? Please let us know in the comments!  And if you enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends!

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Essential Oils, Kids Health, Natural Remedies, Women's health

Natural Remedies To Resolve A Cold Quickly
natural cold remedies

Here’s several natural remedies for the common cold that work for my family and clients. I hope they keep you healthy all season long!

There’s a lot we can do to keep our bodies healthy and strong.  However, sometimes a few sleepless nights, a rushed plane trip, or a sugar binge can be just the thing to get our immune system off track. 

Then, BAM! We have a cold.

It happens. Now the priority shifts from prevention to how to shorten the cold’s duration so we don’t miss too much work or school, to prevent secondary infections like sinusitis & bronchitis, and to make sure it doesn’t spread throughout the entire family.

What are the first things you should try? Here’s a bit list of many natural remedies that work for my family and clients that I’d like to share with you…

Natural Home Remedies For The Common Cold

1. Rinse Your Nose With Warm Salt Water

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know that I’m a yogini and a huge fan of the practice Jala Neti. In Western terms, it’s nasal lavage, or simply rinsing the nasal passages with warm salt water. It removes allergens & impurities from your nostrils, and keeps rhinovirus from setting up shop in your nose (thereby helping to prevent sinus and ear infections if you’re prone to them).

So at the first inkling of a cold, this is my primary treatment. You can use a neti pot with clean, warm salt water or use one of the many saline nose sprays that you can find at health food stores (easiest for very young kids).

Please watch my video here for simple instructions on how to use a neti pot:

 

2. Boost Your Immune Response With Supplements

This is the time to supplement if you can’t get enough good quality food into your family’s diet.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C can reduce symptoms of the common cold and flu by 85%, but the source and dose of this vitamin are both important. Please revisit our post Is Extra Vitamin C A Reliable Key To Good Health? to learn why increasing your daily intake is wise, how much you should take, and in what form.

Zinc

Zinc has also been proven to reduce the duration of colds if used immediately. Studies show that 75mg of zinc, the equivalent of 3-4 lozenges per day while sick, is needed to get over colds quicker. Lozenges are more effective and safer than sprays. You’ll just want to choose some natural varieties that are very low in sugar.

Echinacea & Goldenseal

Echinacea and goldenseal are Western herbs that many people find useful to help squash out colds. A friend was just telling me that her 7 yr old son took a highly concentrated echinacea tincture on the first day of a viral infection. His fever dropped immediately and he barely had any symptoms the next day.

We keep tinctures of both herbs in our house (and I’m currently growing echinacea in our garden!) However, I tend to use Chinese herbs more for my family and clients, simply because I have more experience with them.

3. TCM Home Remedies For The Common Cold

In our last post, The Wise Agree: Bundling Up Is Necessary To Prevent Colds, we talked about the common cold from the perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

In TCM, Wind-Cold is the term for the initial signs of a cold. What I haven’t mentioned yet is that there is another condition called Wind-Heat that is sometimes a progression of the common cold, or the manifestation of a cold in someone who has a warmer constitution, or even the same viral infection but in warmer weather.

To be treated with TCM, it’s VERY important to know which type of illness you have since the symptoms are quite different and therefore so is the treatment. Of course going to a TCM practitioner for a diagnosis is best. In addition to acupuncture & herbs, practitioners can do cupping and gua sha treatments which can significantly shorten a cold and provide immediate relief for body aches.

Once you have experience in this system though, working with home remedies may get you by just fine if you’re not able to make it into the clinic.

Wind cold

When we catch Wind-Cold we experience a combination of:

  • aversion to cold
  • chills
  • stiff neck & body
  • headache
  • runny nose
  • sneezing
  • clear or white phlegm

The goal is to warm the body and open the pores to “release the cold exterior”, which basically means to induce sweating. We can do this by:

  • Taking a hot bath
  • Massage your neck and upper back with warming oils (see essential oil section below)
  • Eat warm, simple soups like miso with ginger & scallions
  • Drink warming teas with ginger and cinnamon

Be sure that once you start sweating you cover up quickly and stay warm until you’re well. Avoid cold, raw, or greasy foods (definitely NO dairy).

Wind heat

The approach above is NOT appropriate if you have symptoms of Wind-Heat. How does heat manifest in the body?

  • Feeling hot (whether or not there is a fever)
  • Sore or scratchy throat
  • Dry cough
  • Yellow phlegm
  • Congested nose

The goal is to “clear heat to release exterior” and it’s done by:

  • Massaging with cooling oils (see essential oil section below)
  • Drinking plenty of water and cooling peppermint tea
  • Eating only when hungry and then simple foods like miso soup, steamed pears, kelp & seaweed
  • Taking Yin Qiao – herbal formula available at Whole Foods and other health food stores (only appropriate for Wind-Heat since it contains many cooling herbs)

Continue to stay bundled up and avoid cold, raw, greasy foods as well as hot foods like ginger, cinnamon, onion, and garlic.

4. Essential Oils

Aromatherapy is always a first-line treatment in my family. I also use essential oils in combination with TCM treatments in the clinic.

To dilate the nasal passages and improve respiration for family members and clients alike, I diffuse dōTERRA’s Breathe blend. I typically combine this with Frankincense to give the immune system an extra boost.

Combined with TCM treatments, I use Wild Orange plus a few warming oils like Clove Bud, Ginger, or Cinnamon diluted in plenty of Fractionated Coconut carrier oil for Wind-Cold. For Wind-Heat, the Breathe blend mentioned above or anything with a base of cooling peppermint is appropriate.

I hope this information helps prepare you for any colds that you or a family member come down with!

What is your first course of action when you get a cold? Do you have any remedies that we should know about? Let’s help each other out by discussing in the comments!

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Autumn, Kids Health, Natural Remedies, Seasons, Traditional Chinese Medicine

The Wise Agree: Bundling Up Is Necessary To Prevent Colds
stay warm to stay healthy

Maybe you heard it from your grandmother, or maybe from a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine, like me: you need to stay warm in cold weather to prevent illness!

Until fairly recently, medical doctors believed this was a folk myth – only microorganisms can get you sick, not the weather. And because people crowd closer together indoors when it’s cold, they are more likely to share germs. But researchers at Yale have confirmed now that colder weather (and a colder body) actually slows our immune response, making rhinovirus and other pathogens more likely to get us sick.

TCM practitioners have known this about cold weather for thousands of years. Here’s a greater explanation of why you should listen to them (and your grandmother) when it comes to preventing illness when the temperatures drop.

How Weather Influences Us From A TCM Perspective

Cold is considered one of the “6 Evils”, along with Wind, Heat/Fire, Summer Heat, Damp, and Dryness. This might sound a little wacky to a modern mind, but if you place yourself in a world thousands of years ago when TCM was first developed, it makes perfect sense.

This is simply the way the Chinese explained how humans can be negatively affected by changes in nature. And what is happening outside of us can influence our inner landscape. For our discussion here about illness during cold weather, we are focusing on Cold and Wind.

Cold

External cold can create inner cold from the TCM perspective. Cold is congealing (think of water forming ice). It stagnates our vital energy and inhibits free movement of blood (slowing our immune response). It can also lead to sluggishness and cause muscles to contract & joints to stiffen.

This is why we TCM practitioners suggest that you stay warm in cold weather!

It’s why we use heat instead of ice to circulate energy around stiff, painful muscles & joints.

It’s why we suggest you limit cold, raw foods to the hottest months of the year and eat well-cooked food as well as inherently warmer foods (like onion and garlic if tolerated), during the rest of the year.

And it’s also why we suggest drinking fluids at room temperature or warmer.

Wind

The ancient Chinese Text Nei Jing says that “100 diseases develop from Wind”.

External Wind carries with it microorganisms and allergens. It’s light, airy, changes quickly, and likes to combine with other influences.

When wind is created in the body by itself, we experience dizziness, gas, tinnitus, tremors, and convulsions, depending on where it shows up in the body. When combined with Cold, a condition called Wind-Cold is created, which presents as initial symptoms of the Common Cold: stiff neck, headache, runny nose, chills, and possibly a fever.

Stay Warm to Prevent Wind-Cold Illness

Wind carries Cold into the body (in addition to Heat, but we’re not going there today). Certain areas of the body are more vulnerable than others, particularly the head, neck, and upper back. There is even a point on the upper back called Wind Gate that we use to “release exterior wind” when someone gets a cold. It’s important to stop the “invasion” here before Cold progresses to the Lungs and causes further complications.

But remember, any experience of cold and shivering with any exposed body part can lower your immune response, so these are not the only areas we need to guard.

Staying cooped up indoors is not a healthy option. Getting fresh air is still a good idea.

So how do you prevent Wind-Cold invasion?

Simply…

  • Wear a scarf and hat
  • Cover up immediately when your pores are open, like after a sweaty gym workout or getting out of a hot bath
  • Wear socks or slippers in the house, especially on cold tile floors
  • Wear pants and shoes (seriously Californians!)

Of course there’s still a chance you can get sick.  Your body will be able to cope so much better if you continue to stay covered and warm while you heal from the cold with natural remedies.

In Conclusion

Suffering from the wind and cold is not fun, so why don’t we listen to our bodies and just cover up? I know you don’t want to get sick and you certainly don’t want your family members to get sick either.

Hopefully the information I shared here is enough to encourage you to cover up sufficiently (in addition to eating well and avoiding stress) to protect your immune system and prevent colds. Because not everyone exposed to rhinovirus and influenza gets sick – only those who have a weakened immune system.

Next week we’ll look at TCM treatments you can apply at home if you do actually get ill…

What do you think about keeping your self warm to prevent illness?  As always, I’d love to read your comments and have a discussion about this!

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BrandyFalconLAc

Brandy Falcon, L.Ac., E-RYT