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Essential Oils for Performance Optimization

A woman with a ponytail is jogging outdoors, wearing a black athletic jacket and white earphones. She is looking to her right, with vehicles and an underpass in the background. Her hair appears to be blowing in the wind.

Essential Oils are being used by professional athletes to optimize physical and mental performance during high-pressure competition.

Research found that essential oils can play a role in preparing the body and mind for optimum performance and expediting physical recovery by enhancing mental function and reducing the effects of fatigue.

Oils possess powerful chemical constituents—including analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and antispasmodic constituents—that can be used to enhance athletic and cognitive performance by:

  • Priming the body and brain for peak performance
  • Increasing oxygen flow to the body and brain
  • Enhancing endurance
  • Relaxing and soothing sore muscles
  • Reducing preventable injuries
  • Accelerating recovery time and wound healing
  • Improving cellular repair and regeneration capacity
  • Relieving chronic joint and muscle pain
  • Assisting in detoxification of the body to improve cellular function and performance!

 

How Essential Oils Enhance Performance

Essential Oils—and their chemical constituents—may help optimize physical and mental performance by supporting the following functions:

 

Circulation

Healthy circulation is critical for delivering oxygen and nutrient-rich blood to the body and the brain while simultaneously allowing toxins and waste to be eliminated in the kidneys and liver.

Essential oils can help improve circulation by relaxing the blood vessels and improving the health of the blood vessels.  This allows more blood to circulate through them, improving circulation. Essential oils can also help the veins contract, stimulating blood flow.  Essential oils may also help alleviate triglycerides that can form and restrict blood flow.

Circulation™ blend supports healthy circulation to deliver oxygen and nutrient-rich blood to the body and the brain, while simultaneously carrying toxins and waste to the kidneys and liver to be eliminated.

Apply 2-3 drops of Circulation™ on the sides or back of the neck, over the left clavicle, on the wrists or ankles to support energy, brain endurance, and warmth of the distal extremities, like the fingers and toes.

READ THIS NEXT: 10 Signs for Poor Circulation

 

Boost Mental and Physical Energy and Stamina

Essential oils contain oxygenating compounds, including esters, aldehydes, ketones, alcohols, phenols, and oxides, which help boost energy.  Oils can cross the blood-brain barrier, which can help carry oxygen to your brain to enhance energy levels and focus.

Rosemary can relieve anxiety, reduce stress, and improve focus and concentration. It also aids sleeplessness and insomnia.

A 2012 study found that essential oils boost cognitive skills and mental prowess.

Essential oils are rich in sesquiterpenes, a subclass of the large terpene chemical family that is abundant in essential oils derived from plants including black pepper, cedarwood, frankincense, ginger, myrrh, patchouli, sandalwood, spikenard, and vetiver. Essential oils high in sesquiterpenes have been shown to help oxygenate your brain. Sesquiterpenes are carbon chains that do not contain oxygen molecules but seem to pull oxygen in. This may be one reason why essential oils high in sesquiterpines increase oxygen levels in the brain when inhaled or topically applied to the skin around the head.

Circulation™ is formulated with several oils known to be high in sesquiterpenes, including Black Pepper, Ginger, and Frankincense, that deliver oxygen to the cells. Apply 2- 3 drops of Circulation™ on the sides or back of the neck to improve oxygen flow to the brain.

READ THIS NEXT: Enhance Brain Circulation with Essential Oils

 

Lymph Flow

Essential oils can improve lymphatic system functionality, which can help flush out toxins and reduce inflammation of the blood vessels, improving blood flow throughout the body.

Lymph fluid flows through the lymph nodes, where toxins are filtered out. Unlike the cardiovascular system, the lymphatic system has no heart to pump the liquid through the body.

The more you can help the lymph fluid flow, the more quickly you can move toxins out of the body, alleviating obstacles to performance enhancement.

When you physically push yourself with exercise, muscle fibers tear and repair. Fluids – including blood and lymph—help clean up and flush away debris. In one study, manual lymph drainage massage resulted in an improvement in the regenerative capacity of muscle cells, and thus improved the recovery rate.  Supporting lymphatic drainage improves post-exercise recovery and regeneration.

Applying Vibrant Blue Oils Lymph™ before exercise to the lymph nodes—sides of neck, under the arms, and around bikini line (where your leg creases when you lift it)—helps increase circulation of the lymphatic system, leaving you feeling lighter, stronger, and healthier.

 

Pain Relief

Essential oils contain antispasmodic, painkilling, anti-inflammatory, decongestant, and antioxidant effects that can help reduce pain and inflammation.

For example, research found that external application of peppermint extract raised the pain threshold in humans. Peppermint aroma was also found to be effective on perceived physical workload, temporal workload, effort, and anxiety.

 

Reduce Inflammation

Essential oils have been proven to reduce inflammation, which relieves joint pain and aids in flexibility and recovery.

Inflammation slows down the signal to your muscles so they can’t fire at their full potential. A muscle’s strength is only as strong as the signal from your brain.  Every muscle cell is connected to your brain through your nervous system. You may know the feeling of brain fog, when thinking becomes fuzzy.  The same thing happens to our muscles when our brain is not firing at full speed. The signal becomes fuzzy.

Parasympathetic® blend reduces inflammation by triggering your vagus nerve to release anti-inflammatory neurotransmitters. Reducing brain inflammation means a faster brain.  An inflamed brain is also a slow brain, which sends delayed signals to muscles, impacting your athletic performance.

vIn the parasympathetic state, your vagus nerve communicates with the rest of the body by releasing the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which acts as a brake on inflammation, inhibiting the production of pro-inflammatory messengers.

Research has shown a substantial decrease in inflammatory symptoms from stimulating your vagus nerve to activate the parasympathetic state.  Research also shows that vagus nerve stimulation restores the body’s natural balance. It reduces the over-production of the chemical messenger that causes chronic inflammation, but does not affect healthy immune function so that the body can respond normally to infection.

Topically applying the Parasympathetic® oil on your vagus nerve (behind the earlobe on the mastoid bone) helps calm inflammation and improve communication between your body and brain to help improve exercise performance and modulate your inflammatory response.

READ THIS NEXT: Parasympathetic for Inflammation

 

Enhance Recovery

Your tissues and organs need to recover after intense usage. Poor recovery is often experienced as tightness or physical pain.  Essential oils can help improve recovery, relieving pain and inflammation in the muscles and joints, which helps repair tissues and enhance performance.

More specifically, the muscles supporting much of your lower back are related to the adrenal glands and provide significant support to the pelvis and lower back. When your adrenal glands are under more stress than they can handle, these muscles will be directly affected, and the support to the lower back will be lost, leading to low back pain and even downstream issues, like knee pain.  A fun fact, when the adrenals are off, they can throw off leg length, with one leg presenting as longer than the other, resulting from a twisted pelvis.  This disparity in leg length often contributes to knee and hip problems, especially during long hikes or runs.  To help balance the adrenals and with them, the muscles supporting the low back, apply Adrenal® on the lower mid-back over the adrenal glands (one fist above the 12th rib on each side).

With oils such as Thyme, Rosemary, Manuka, Galbanum, and Frankincense from bushes, herbs, flowers, and tree resins, Adrenal® helps you ground and balance on your hike. The formulation also includes key oils for pain, such as Rosemary, which is good for relieving back, muscle, and joint pain, and Thyme, which is also an antispasmodic, good for joint, muscle, and back pain.

Finally, Adrenal® can help boost your energy levels during vigorous exercise.  Adrenals help regulate your energy levels by secreting the hormones that regulate your energy production and storage. Your adrenal hormones are primarily designed to provide back-up energy in stressful situations.  All too often, pushing your body too hard or too fast during exercise can register as a stressful experience.  When your adrenals are taxed from mental, physical, or emotional stress, it can trickle down to poor support of the muscles supporting your pelvis and lower back.

Applying Adrenal® blend over the adrenal glands (low back, one fist length up from the 12th rib) can help to balance and support energy and reduce or avoid low back pain during workouts.  Read More about oils to enhance your workout HERE.

READ THIS NEXT: Improve Strength with Essential Oils

 

Respiration

Essential oils have been shown to improve respiratory function, stamina, and performance.

They can wake up your body and mind before engaging in a challenging mental or physical activity. They promote deep breathing via inhalation.  This increases oxygen intake, which helps to increase energy.

Shallow breathing limits oxygen intake, limiting the amount of oxygen that can nourish your cells and support your mental and physical performance. Deep breathing enhances oxygen, which helps catalyze metabolic reactions and processes that convert oxygen into the chemical form of energy known as adenosine triphosphate or ATP, improving performance.

A study on the effects of peppermint on exercise performance found that runners who supplemented with peppermint oil experienced improved respiratory efficiency, heart rate, and blood pressure, and also reported lower levels of perceived workload.

Peppermint is known for its analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, antioxidant, and vasoconstrictor effects.  It is known to relax bronchial smooth muscles and increase ventilation and brain oxygen concentration, which can help you optimize your performance. A similar study found that inhaling spearmint and orange oils improved athletes’ lung function and exercise performance.

Breathe™ blend contains three types of Eucalyptus oil, a potent antiseptic, expectorant, and decongestant that can help clean and strengthen the lungs.  Breathe also contains Peppermint essential oil, whose expectorant qualities may help support upper respiratory congestion caused by asthma, bronchitis, allergies, cold, or flu.

To use, apply 1- 2 drops topically on throat and upper chest (Breathe™ contains a lot of hot oils and can turn the skin red.  . We therefore recommend diluting with castor oil, coconut oil, or olive oil before topical application). Breathe™ can also be inhaled using steam inhalation (Place 2 to 3 cups boiling water + 5 drops of Breathe™ in a bowl, cover your head with a towel, close eyes and bring face close to the bowl and gently inhale the steam) or used with a hot wet towel compress to the lungs and throat areas.

READ THIS NEXT: Essential Oils for Breathing

 

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References:

 

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About The Author

Jodi Cohen

Jodi Sternoff Cohen is the founder of Vibrant Blue Oils. An author, speaker, nutritional therapist, and a leading international authority on essential oils, Jodi has helped over 50,000 individuals support their health with essential oils.

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