I will provide you with a summary of the five blogs I wrote regarding ways to “Make the Holidays Happier and Healthier with Essential Oils.” This way, you can review them and have them in one handy place to skim through for holiday gift-giving and wellness ideas.

With a combination of essential oils, we can now add another opportunity to make our holidays happy and bright.

Below is a compilation of a delightful combination of some of the main attractions from all of my previous posts!

Don’t worry, you don’t have to take part right away, you can still benefit from the ideas and/or learn more about essential oils.

Here’s a run-down of powerful tools that will keep you from feeling run-down. (Like that play on words?)

1. The enticing aroma of Christmas, a welcome smell thatt truly makes one feel the “spirit of the season.”

This blend is a lovely combination of cinnamon, orange, and black spruce. These oils synergize to produce a powerful uplifting and calming fragrance (from the citrus oil, orange) and a potent microbe inhibitor and immune defender (due to the duo of cinnamon oil and the phytoncide-infused spruce oil).

2. Tea tree oil is one of the top contenders for staying healthy during the holidays. You can also use it as a non-toxic cleaner and as a blemish reducer (it’s “hot” so use a carrier oil!)

3. Pine oil is another one of the phytoncide-conifer oils that were mentioned in both challenge 5 and in the blog about using essential oils for finding a green-space-state of mind.

4. Eucalyptus radiata, is a main ingredient in respiratory blends. Eucalyptus oils are well-known for their lung support and microbe balancing properties. This oil contains 1-8 cineole and alpha and beta pinene…. those phytoncides again!

Are we “catching” a winter, tree theme here?

Finally….

I saved the best for last….

5. Frankincense oil (AKA the beloved Boswellia carterii)

I discussed some reasons why I favor frankincense in a previous post:

..high in monoterpenes, terpenes, and specifically alpha-pinene. Alpha-pinene has been demonstrated to have activity on inflammation via a different mechanism than boswellic acids. It is through manipulation of NF-KB, a potent transcription factor in the regulation of pro-inflammatory pathways.¹⁰ Alpha and beta-pinene are also thought to be phytoncides, which are responsible for the stress relieving effect of “forest bathing” and the increase in natural killer cells.¹¹

Finally, the synergism of essential oil is evident in that it contains other components including limonene,with many health benefits.

If you’re a member of this site, I encourage you to watch the webinar on gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Using Essential Oils to Enhance Optimal Living and Self-Care for the Holidays

Of course, there’s other important aspects to optimal living that, along with sniffing essential oils, can benefit your body, mind, and spirit.

As I wrote previously, and here with new references, the following are all important factors as well:

• allowing time for rejuvenation, rest, PLAY, and self-care
• participating in joyful movement, but not overdoing “exercise”
• making nurturing lifestyle choices with compassion (see below)
• spending time with loved ones and friends
• enjoying delicious nourishment that fuels the body and all its senses
  • You could have a goal to eat every dish with the presence of the nutrient we are most deprived of in our diet-obsessed culture, “vitamin P” (AKA pleasure).
• practice self-compassion
  • There’s lots of research on the benefits of self-compassion for physical and mental health.
  • One study even demonstrates that people who use compassion and intuition with eating exhibit better health outcomes and better relationships with food than those who try to rigidly control their eating.

I’ll be continuing to give you more tools to make your winter months more serene and sniffle-free in upcoming blogs. I wish you all a very happy start to the holiday season.

Disclaimer: This information is applicable ONLY for therapeutic quality essential oils. This information DOES NOT apply to essential oils that have not been tested for purity and standardized constituents. There is no quality control in the United States, and oils labeled as “100% pure” need only to contain 5% of the actual oil. The rest of the bottle can be filled with fillers and sometimes toxic ingredients that can irritate the skin. The studies are not based solely on a specific brand of an essential oil, unless stated. Please read the full study for more information.

This material is for information purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prescribe for any illness. You should check with your doctor regarding implementing any new strategies into your wellness regime. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. (Affiliation link.)

Thanks for the images Pixabay!