Diffusing: The Discreet Way to Health

Essential oils are at the core of my health and beauty habits. There are three ways to administer essential oils, each application has its own benefits, and can be key in how you want to use a specific essential oil to obtain the best results for which you desire. The three ways are topical, aromatic, and internal. I will be spending the next few weeks focusing on the three applications of essential oils. I will begin with the aromatic application of essential oils. Everyone wants to know; how do they smell? Believe it or not, you may not discern a particular smell of an essential oil, but it is still impacting you.

 First let me explain that aromatherapy refers to the use of essential oils. It is not restricted to the application of oils aromatically. There are different reasons to administer essential oils in one of the three ways I outlined. Although when I work with a customer addressing severe health challenges, we may attack the condition or disease on all three levels. Our bodies are all different and require individual approaches to health.

 Aromatic use of essential oils is perhaps the most effective and easiest way to use the oils for health benefits. Each oil has emotional and physical benefit properties. In this article I will focus on how oils diffused impact our bodies physically, following up next week with the emotional benefits and chemistry involved with diffusing essential oils.

 One reason essential oils are so powerful, up to 60 times more powerful than herbs, is that you are taking the distilled essence of the volatile aromatic compounds found from thousands of different plant species around the world. These compounds may be found in the leaves, needles, petals, peel, stems, seeds, or bark of a plant or tree.

 These compounds are all natural, and act in concert within the essential oil to bring you the same benefits the oil brings to the plant or tree. These compounds are produced by the plant to protect the plant from insects or disease, to aid in reproduction, promote growth or repair from injury, and generally stay healthy. I once heard someone say, “Plants produce essential oils for protection because they can’t run!” What these self-produced compounds can do for the plant, they can do for us. It is all in the chemistry.

 Essential oils serve multiple functions for a plant, therefore essential oils may have more than one benefit for us. It is all about the chemical constituents, the compound groups, and their abundance or percentages found in each oil.

 I will give you an example with Frankincense, used for thousands of years.  Frankincense is steam distilled from the resin of the Boswellia tree and is composed 87-88% of the compound group Monoterpene Hydrocarbon. There are three major constituents defining Frankincense as a monoterpene hydrocarbon: a-pinene (45-48%), limonene (9-11%), and a-thujene (7-11%). What this means is that the primary compound group Monoterpene Hydrocarbon chemically in our bodies promotes a healthy inflammatory response; supports healthy immune, nervous, and digestive functions; relaxes and calms while at the same time promoting vitality and energy, as it is also purifying for the skin.

 Frankincense additionally contains small quantities of the compound groups Ester, Monoterpene Alcohol, and Sesquiterpene Hydrocarbon, with traces of other compound groups. These compound groups contribute to the cleansing, soothing, and calming aspects of Frankincense. Frankincense as with all essential oils, work at the cellular level. The oil molecules are so small they can cross through the cellular membrane into the heart of the cell to do their work. Just in this brief description you can see that Frankincense is truly the “King of Oils” because it addresses so many needs or issues both emotionally and physically.

 First diffusing essential oils cleanse the air from pollutants and environmental threats. Diffusing removes toxins and most oils chosen for diffusing are chosen because they also smell good. They will not just cover odors, they will eliminate the foul odors at the source.

 Most importantly, diffusing essential oils is the quickest and most efficient way to get oils into your body. Here is my favorite example. If you are going to have a surgery that demands a general anesthesia, they apply a mask to your face, release a gas for you to breathe, and ask you to count backwards from ten. If you are like me, the few times I have had a general anesthesia I don’t remember getting past seven! This demonstrates how fast something enters our system when we inhale it.

Diffusing provides a fine mist that contains an essential oil of choice. There are two ways diffused oils enter the body. We inhale the oil when we inhale the mist, as well as the oil mist lands and is absorbed into our exposed skin. The skin is the largest organ in the body, and when an essential oil touches your skin, it goes directly into your blood stream. Remember essential oils are extremely small and can therefore enter your pores and penetrate your skin to enter your blood stream through capillaries near the skin’s surface.

 When we breathe in essential oils there are multiple actions that take place to have the oil enter the body. First as with penetrating the skin, the essential oil in the mist penetrates the nasal lining, is partly absorbed into the capillaries into the blood stream, and also goes deep into our lungs. In the lungs the oil is absorbed into the lung tissue as well as the blood vessels in the lungs. When essential oils are absorbed into the body aromatically through the lungs and blood vessels, this promotes the oil distribution throughout entire body, at the cellular level, very quickly. When the essential oil enters your body via the bloodstream and lungs, it is very effective in supporting physical needs our body may have such as protecting us against environmental and seasonal threats.

 I referenced Frankincense earlier. You saw that the chemical constituents and compounds in Frankincense work at the cellular level to aid in anti-inflammatory responses and a healthy immune response. Think about inhaling Frankincense and the support it gives your body when it is attacked by environmental threats. This is one example of the power of essential oils when they are diffused. Next week I will share with you the power of diffusion at the emotional level and how that impacts our physical health as well.

 Bonus Tip: As I write this article, it is the time of year for seasonal threats. Here is the perfect diffusion protocol for attacking those seasonal threats that bring on itchy eyes, sneezing, and perhaps a runny nose. In a diffuser with water add 2 drops each lavender, peppermint, and lemon. Diffuse. If you don’t have a diffuser apply one drop of each oil into the palms of your hands, rub together, then lift to your nose and inhale deeply. Alternately you can take these (CPTG only!) oils internally in a drink, in a veggie cap, or straight in a teaspoon.