Lavender™ essential oil, a potent aid for sleep, can be further enriched when combined with other essential oils in a blend.
Lavender, renowned for its sedative, anxiety-relieving, and calming properties, is a key player in promoting restful sleep. Its primary component, Linalool, acts as a catalyst in activating the calming neurotransmitter GABA, a fascinating process that helps calm your mind and body.
While lavender is calming to smell, Lavender™ as an individual essential oil is not a reliable recipe for sleep. It can help the body and the mind relax, which can help support restful sleep. But often, that is not enough as a single oil, especially if other health factors such as stress, anxiety, or certain medical conditions are compromising your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep.
Research and clinical experience consistently demonstrate the pivotal role of Lavender essential oil blends, when used in combination with other essential oils like chamomile, in improving mood and sleep quality.
Similarly, a study conducted a comprehensive comparison of the sleep-promoting benefits of inhaling pure lavender and lavender blended with other oils. The study drew on earlier research that found essential oils like lavender and cedarwood and oils high in the constituent piperonal, which is extracted from plants of the laurel family like bay laurel, improve and promote sleep.
The research found that a blend of essential oils, including components of linalool (found in lavender), santalol (found in Sandalwood), and cedrol (found in cedarwood, cypress, and juniper), promotes sleep by heightening parasympathetic activity. Linalool, a key component of lavender, shows sedative actions and “inhibit sympathetic nervous system activity and heighten parasympathetic nervous system activity.”
These blends, which included lavender, not only improved total sleep time and the duration of sustained sleep periods but also had practical implications by significantly reducing early morning awakening.
Why Does Lavender Essential Oil Helps You Sleep?
Research has shown that lavender may actually alter brain waves and reduce stress. For example, research has found that essential oils, like Lavender™, can bind to the receptors on your cells that receive your body’s calming neurotransmitter, Gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA). This binding helps balance your brain’s level of excitation and inhibition, which is vital for normal brain function and a healthy nervous system.
Lavender™ has also been found to relieve anxiety and calm your nerves. One study even suggested that lavender works as well as the anti-anxiety medication Lorazepam for calming anxiety. When your mind and body relax, your pineal gland releases melatonin, allowing you to drift off to sleep easily.
Scientists also concluded that inhaling Lavender™ essential oil can calm the nervous system and improve brain waves appropriate to a sleep state. “Lavender oil caused significant decreases of blood pressure, heart rate, and skin temperature, which indicated a decrease of autonomic arousal. In terms of mood responses.”
The study also revealed that Lavender™ oil plays a crucial role in enhancing the power of theta (4-8 Hz) and alpha (8-13 Hz) brain activities, which are instrumental in promoting deep, restorative sleep. This finding instills hope and reassurance about the potential of Lavender™ oil to improve sleep quality and increase the time spent in deep, slow-wave sleep.
Researchers, using brain scans to monitor sleep cycles, found that Lavender™ oil significantly increased the duration of slow-wave sleep. This type of sleep is known to slow one’s heartbeat and relax one’s muscles, promoting a sense of calm and allowing for a more restful sleep.
Which blends with Lavender essential oil can help you sleep?
Circadian Rhythm® Helps You Fall Asleep
Lavender, in combination with a proprietary blend of Rose Geranium, Grapefruit, Melaleuca, Myrtle, Balsam of Peru, and Myrrh, helps trigger the natural release of Melatonin from the Pineal Gland, a process that is part of your body’s natural sleep cycle, helping you fall asleep naturally.
If you struggle to fall asleep or experience racing thoughts or worries while lying in bed, you might benefit from supporting your sleep hormone melatonin, which has an antagonistic relationship with the stress hormone cortisol. This means that when cortisol levels are elevated (like when you are worrying about something), then melatonin is depressed. Essential oil blends with Lavender can help the pineal gland return to its innate intelligence and release more melatonin naturally.
Apply Circadian Rhythm® blend to specific locations on the head (top of the skull, back of the skull, and on the skull right above the ears). This method emulates the body’s innate intelligence and has been extremely effective for those suffering from sleep issues and anxiety.
Sleep™ Helps Relax Your Body to Fall Asleep and Stay Asleep
This highly relaxing blend combines Lavender with a proprietary blend of essential oils including Orange, Tangerine, Patchouli, Blue Tansy, Spikenard, Ylang Ylang, Lime Chamomile, and Citronella. Spikenard is a root herb that helps you feel centered, calm, and relaxed. It combines nicely with Lavender to help you drift naturally to sleep. Blue Tansy is also highly calming, helping soothe the mind and body and supporting restful sleep.
Apply Sleep™ on the back of your hands or on the bottoms of your feet to help you wind down before going to sleep and to promote relaxation. You can also apply a drop to a cotton ball and place it inside a pillow case.
Liver™ Helps You Sleep through the Night
If you wake up in the middle of the night, it could be related to your liver being overburdened. According to Chinese Medicine, each organ has a time of the day/night when it is most active. The liver springs into action between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. If you wake up at this time, it could be that the liver is overloaded and toxins are irritating your body, waking you up and fraying your nerves.
Lavender, in combination with a proprietary blend of Peppermint, German Chamomile, Balsam of Peru, ylang-ylang, and Caraway, helps support your ability to sleep through the night.
Applying 2-3 drops of Liver™ over the liver (on the right side of the body under the breast) can help support your liver so it does not experience the overwhelm that wakes you up during the night.
Featured Oils:
Ready to get started? Click the links below to order today:
- Circadian Rhythm® available here
- Lavender™ available here
- Liver™ available here
- Sleep™ available here
Resources:
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31859096
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5376423/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20512042?dopt=Abstract
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19962288?dopt=Abstract
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22612017
