10 ESSENTIAL OILS USED FOR INSOMNIA IN AROMATHERAPY

10 ESSENTIAL OILS  USED FOR INSOMNIA IN AROMATHERAPY :

Many essential oils have been proven to be relaxing and conducive to sleep. There are many recipes as well as professional blends, but you can just use a single ingredient. Choose an essential oil for its aromatherapy qualities depending on what issues are causing your lack of sleep.

1. Lavender (Lavendula) - This herb can be grown in your own garden. It’s a bushy plant with pale violet leaves that bloom all summer long. Among its varied uses, it’s good for digestion or as an anti-depressant, it has been found to be especially good at calming the nervous system, relaxing the body and enabling blissful sleep.  This essential oil is one of the more popular aromas to induce sleep. It is typically one of the less expensive varieties, since the whole plant is processed for its essences. There are many varieties of lavender with different properties, and some smell more medicinal whereas others have a sweeter aroma.

2. Neroli (Citrus aurantium amara) - It is used for insomnia, stress, and grief. Neroli is extracted from the blossoms of sweet orange or bitter orange trees.

3. Patchouli (Pogostemon cablin) - Patchouli has been prized for hundreds of years for its sweet, musky aroma, and its ability to bring about a meditative and serene state of mind.

4. Clary sage (Salvia sclarea)-   It is used  for its sedative qualities for insomnia, tension, nervousness, and general well-being. It’s somewhat floral, musky, or the aroma is often mixed with other essential oils.

5. Cedarwood (Cedrus atlantica) - It has a calming and grounding effect. It has a sweet and balsamic aroma this often mixed with other oils, especially lavender, thyme, and rosemary. 

6. Valerian Root (Valeriana fauriei) – It has been used for sleep, relaxation, and calming effects.  It has a musky, woody, balsamic aroma that is often blended with lavender, cedarwood, pine, and patchouli.

7. Chamomile (Matricaria chamomile) - Plant only the flowers are used to make this excellent therapeutic essential oil. As a tea it is know to calm upset stomachs. Used in aromatherapy, it is at its best helping with those who suffer from insomnia. It has a fruity slightly sweet fragrance. Both the German and Roman chamomiles are good for this purpose.

8. Bergamot (Citrus bergamia)- It is a citrus fruit rind.  It does its job by relieving stress and enabling the subject to relax. It has a lovely citrus scent that will make you feel refreshed and give you that sense of well-being. Interestingly bergamot is the main ingredient in earl grey tea. 

9. Sandalwood (Santalum album) - It is wood. To get the right intensity of oil from the trees they must be at least forty years old, but the older the better and a tree eighty years old will produce better oils. Sandalwood is a calming agent; it relieves nervous tension and helps you relax.

10.  Mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco) – It has two different types of oil, one green and the other red. It has several advantages one of which is that it is gentle enough that you can use it with children as well as adults. Interesting the scent is closer to that of a bergamot oil and less like the tangerine it’s expected to smell like. Mandarin oil is a very successful treatment for sleep difficulties almost rivaling lavender. 

Sometimes using a combination of these wonderful scents can help you to feel more relaxed and ready to have a good night’s sleep. So, take lavender, chamomile and bergamot, mix them together using jojoba as your carrier oil (a carrier oil is what you use to mix the other oils into) and then you have a wonderful aromatherapy concoction ready to relax you. You can use these either in a diffuser or on your pillow, or even in an eye pillow. 

There are other mixtures you can make that use similar combinations but are made for different purposes, though the outcome of helping you to relax is still the purpose of the mix. Try a calming perfume, it’ll smell lovely while helping keep you relaxed.