Your joints enable movement. They connect two or more bones in the body, providing support and maintaining the body’s structure. This allows for a wide range of fluid movement, from simple bending to complex activities like running and jumping.
Your joints are the essential connections between bones and tissue, allowing for fluid movement and stability while maintaining your body’s structural integrity.
Each joint contains an intricate network of tissues, including cartilage, which cushions and protects the bones, reducing friction and wear; ligaments, which provide stability; and tendons, which connect muscles to bones.
When healthy, this complex system works harmoniously, allowing for smooth, pain-free movement and stability throughout daily activities.
What Can Go Wrong With Joints?
Inflammation in the joints can contribute to swelling and fluid buildup, which may press on surrounding nerves. This may also release chemicals that may irritate nerve endings within the joint. This can contribute to joint pain, discomfort, and sensitivity to movement.
Joint inflammation occurs when the immune system or damaged tissue releases chemicals that cause swelling and other symptoms in a joint. It can affect just one joint in response to injury or systemic joint inflammation throughout the body.
When a joint is inflamed, the blood vessels around it dilate to allow more blood to reach it. White blood cells—which play a crucial role in your body’s immune response—rush to the inflamed site, where they work to fight any infection or irritant.
This response leads to inflammation in this area. The joint may feel hot or painful, and the inflammation may intensify the pain of an underlying injury or infection. In the short term, inflammation may help your body remove damage and promote new tissue growth. This is a healthy kind of inflammation. However, chronic inflammation can damage the joint and compromise movement.
Symptoms of Compromised Joint Function?
When fluid builds up in the tissues around the joints, you might notice symptoms like:
- Morning stiffness that lasts for more than an hour
- Decreased range of motion
- Stiffness upon standing, Low back pain or discomfort standing up
- Loss of motion or reduced range of motion
- Pain or aching in the joint or around the joint
- Discomfort in joints when climbing stairs or reaching overhead.
- Painful movement or difficulty moving, bending, or straightening the joint.
- Swelling fluid in the tissues around the joints or enlarged joints.
- Warmth or a feeling of heat or warmth near the joints
- Noisy joints or clicking, grinding, or snapping sounds when moving the joint
- Redness or discoloration of the skin around the joint
- Tenderness or sensitivity to touch around the joint
- Numbness
- Pain elsewhere, such as joint pain and swelling, can affect more than one joint at a time, or you may modify activities or patterns of movement because of the pain
Joint pain has been linked to other inflammatory conditions, including arthritis, fibromyalgia, gout, hypothyroidism, lupus, Lyme disease, and sarcoidosis.
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Essential Oils for Joint Health
Topically applied essential oils may help support your body’s natural ability to manage the inflammatory response by supporting healthy fluid (lymph and blood) movement and enhancing fascial mobility.
Essential oils are known for their anti-inflammatory properties, especially when applied topically to joint tissue for easy absorption. They can penetrate tissues effectively, offering support exactly where it’s needed most.
As you may know, your lymphatic system helps to transport inflammatory cells, fluid, and antigens from the site of inflammation to the lymph nodes. It also helps to resolve inflammation and reduce swelling by draining away harmful substances and facilitating immune cell trafficking, essentially acting as a “clean-up crew” for inflamed tissues.
Similarly, tight and restricted fascia may contribute to joint swelling and inflammation, as fascial constrictions can interfere with fluid drainage in joint tissue. Your fascia is a thin connective tissue casing that surrounds and supports your joints, muscles, and organs. It also has nerves that make it almost as sensitive as skin.
Although fascia looks like one sheet of tissue, it has multiple layers with liquid in between designed to stretch as you move. When healthy and hydrated, the fascia is slippery and flexible, allowing for smooth movement and proper joint function.
When stressed, it thickens, tightens, and can become sticky. When it dries up and tightens around joints, it can limit mobility, limit fluid drainage, and contribute to limited mobility, leading to reduced joint mobility and discomfort.
Penetrating essential oils work synergistically to create warmth—which helps bring back the tissue’s elasticity—and break up congestion while relaxing tissues and releasing constriction and congestion. This helps support lymph drainage by stimulating the lymphatic system, releasing adhesions and fascial restriction, increasing circulation, and decreasing tissue swelling. This blend may help ease a congested lymphatic system and reduce joint inflammation by supporting the fluid dynamics of the lymphatic and fascia systems.
As you know, lymph and fascia lie just below the skin, so topically applying essential oils to the skin allows easy and immediate access to the fascia and lymph. The skin is your largest organ and is relatively permeable to fat-soluble substances like essential oils.
4 Essential Oils for Joint Health
Anti Inflammatory™
Anti-inflammatory essential oils may help alleviate joint pain, reduce inflammation, and encourage the regeneration of damaged or stressed joints.
Essential oils contain plant compounds like polyphenols and flavonoids that have been shown to improve blood flow and reduce inflammation.
Anti-Inflammatory™ contains ginger, an excellent antioxidant that helps reduce inflammation and kill bacteria to heal infectious areas. Ginger oil is a rubefacient, which means it is warming in nature. This helps dilate capillaries and increase blood circulation.
It’s perfect for chronic joint pain, stiff muscles, and tendons and ligaments that need softening. When applied topically, ginger directly inhibits vanilloid receptors to soothe nerve pain, increase blood flow, reduce inflammation, and relieve achy pain. The blend also contains Frankincense™, which contains beneficial compounds called Boswellia acids. It has been known to support comfortable movement and maintain healthy joint tissue.
Apply 2-3 drops of Anti Inflammatory™ to any inflamed area of the body or the bottom of the feet 3x daily.
Lymph™
Your lymphatic system plays a crucial but often overlooked role in joint health.
Your lymphatic system collects and filters excess fluid, inflammatory mediators, and damaged cells from inflamed tissues and returns them to your bloodstream through lymph nodes—which are concentrated around your joint area. This helps manage and alleviate fluid buildup between cells that can contribute to pain and inflammation.
Clusters of lymph nodes are located in key joints—like your knees, groin, neck, and armpits—to move lymph throughout the body efficiently. They connect to a network of lymph vessels, which help drain away inflammatory fluids, essentially acting as a “clean-up crew” for inflamed tissues.
If lymphatic flow becomes sluggish around joints, it can lead to fluid accumulation and increased discomfort.
The oils in Lymph™ may help move fluid out from joints to reduce inflammation and swelling, which can contribute to immobility and pain.
When the lymphatic fluid gets congested, cellular waste lingers in the joints, triggering inflammation and pain. Here’s what’s happening: Tissues can become inflamed and painful when circulation slows and inflammation builds. In other words, poor fluid flow or stagnation will present as pain. It’s interesting to note that fluids build up in the damaged area when you are injured, which is why throbbing and pain occur.
Fluid flow becomes compromised when trauma (physical or emotional) occurs. This causes the tissues to contract, twist, and compress, obstructing fluid flow. When blood and lymphatics flow freely, the tissue can perform its physiologic functions without impedance.
Research shows that your lymphatic vasculature plays a crucial role in regulating the inflammatory response by influencing the drainage of cellular fluid and inflammatory mediators.
Research demonstrates that when you break up lymph congestion, flush excess fluid from within tissues, and allow cells to release toxins, “significant improvements were found in lowering pain intensity.
To enhance lymphatic flow and drainage, generously apply Lymph™ on the hip crease and back of the knee to help increase lymphatic drainage and circulation. Enhancing blood flow to the knee accelerates healing as nutrient-rich blood is reintroduced into the area.
After applying Lymph™, you can gently pump your joints. Use the flats of your hands instead of your fingertips to allow more contact with the skin to stimulate the lymph vessels. Apply light pressure—just enough pressure to gently stretch the skin as far as it naturally goes. Then, release the pressure and let your skin come back to its original state. If you can feel your muscles underneath your fingers, then you are pressing too hard.
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Fascia Release™
Fascia helps stabilize joints by surrounding and connecting the muscles and tendons that act on them.
Lack of circulation and motion sometimes causes the fascia to “adhere” to the joint’s ligaments and bones—contributing to stiffness, discomfort, lack of flexibility, and loss of mobility in and around the joints.
Fascia can help with functional movement by reducing friction between structures. However, fascial compartments may also become tight and prevent the normal movement of blood into and out of the compartment.
Fascia Release™ may help release adhesions and fascial restriction, increase circulation, and decrease swelling in the tissue around the joints.
As you may know, fascia lies just below the skin, so topically applying essential oils to the skin allows for easy and immediate access to the fascia. The skin is your largest organ and is relatively permeable to fat-soluble substances like essential oils. For example, essential oils easily penetrate layers of restricted fascia, creating warmth to break up congestion, increasing circulation, lymphatic drainage, and mobilizing adhered tissue.
Essential oils can revitalize and de-stress the fascia and muscles, quickly breaking down inflamed, fibrous tissue and removing toxins from the painful area.
The essential oils in the Fascia Release™ blend are uniquely formulated to unravel deeply held tensions, constrictions, and energetic blockages in your tissues to reduce pain, improve blood and lymphatic circulation, and release fear, repressed emotions, and tension held in the body (organs, muscles, tendons, bones, and joints) or the mind.
Circulation™
Circulation™ inspires increased circulation to the joints. Enhancing blood flow to the joint accelerates healing as nutrient-rich blood is reintroduced into the area.
Circulation™ blend, combined with manual movement of blood and lymph in the extremities, may help increase fluid circulation, reduce swelling, promote lymph angiogenesis, or create new lymphatic vessels to increase flow capacity.
Essential oils, like Circulation™, can help improve circulation by relaxing the blood vessels and improving their health. This helps more blood circulate through them, improving circulation in the process. Essential oils can also help the veins contract, stimulating blood flow. For example, Cypress oil has been traditionally used to enhance circulation and support lymphatic movement. When applied around joints, particularly in areas where lymph nodes are concentrated, it can help promote healthy fluid balance and reduce swelling.
Applying 2-3 drops of Circulation™ on the sides of the knee may help support circulation. Circulation™ works especially well in combination with Lymph™ to help flush out toxins and reduce inflammation of the blood vessels, further improving blood flow throughout the body.
READ MORE ABOUT: Circulation
Application Points
Some of my favorite joints for essential oil application include:
Ankles: Often overlooked but crucial for balance! Apply Fascia Release™ blend around your ankles using gentle circular motions and point-and-flex sequences.
Wrists: To help with cold hands, apply oils around your wrists before weight-bearing poses. You can combine this with wrist circles and finger stretches.
Knees: For knee pain, topically apply Fascia Release™ blend on the front of the knee and Lymph™ on the back of the knee to help increase lymphatic drainage and circulation. After applying Lymph™, you can gently pump the back of your knee in a rolling, upward motion (making a “J” shape). Repeat 10 to 15 times. Place one hand on your shin and the other on the back of your lower leg, just below your knee. Gently stretch the skin towards your upper leg and release.
Hips: Release tight hips by generously applying Lymph™ and Fascia Release™ on the hip crease to help increase lymphatic drainage and circulation. Enhancing blood flow to the knee accelerates healing as nutrient-rich blood is reintroduced into the area.
Shoulders: Generously apply Fascia Release™ on the shoulders and Lymph™ under the armpits.
Featured Oils:
- Anti-Inflammatory™ available here
- Frankincense™ available here
- Lymph™ available here
- Fascia Release™ available here
- Circulation™ available here
