Why You Need Lavender Essential Oil for Your Next Headache
You’ve might have heard that Lavender essential oil is a guaranteed cure for tension headaches. I wouldn’t go that far, but it is a great oil for to have around for many reasons, including an achey head.
Pardon my lack of banter today, but it’s been a crazy week and I really feel the need to go (figuratively) dunk my head in a vat of lavender. Imma keep this short and sweet so I can get a few minutes of self-care in before my next client arrives.
Why Lavender?
For me, lavender is a must have essential oil in my medicine chest. When it comes to relieving headache pain, it’s right up there with peppermint, which I wrote about in February. (Read that post here.) They work in different ways of course, so today I’m going to tell you why lavender essential oil can help your head to stop hurting.
Here are the properties that lavender will bring to the job:
- Analagesic – It’s a pain reliever, so yeah… it will help relieve your headache pain.
- Anti-hypertensive – High blood pressure (hypertension) has many symptoms and effects on the body with headache being one of them. Note: Both stress and pain increase blood pressure. So, even if you don’t normally have high blood pressure, when you’re under stress or in pain it goes up. Sometimes enough to cause a headache.
- Anti-inflammatory – If any part of your headache is due to inflammation, lavender’s got you covered.
- Anxiolytic – It reduces anxiety. Among the many physical effects of anxiety on the body are: dizziness, fast heartbeat, irritability, muscle aches, muscle tension, and headache.
- Muscle relaxant – Since most tension headaches are due to tension in the neck muscles, getting those muscles to relax often relieves or at least reduces the pain.
- Sedative – In aromatherapy terms this doesn’t mean it induces sleep (although it might), it simply means that it calms the nervous system, which is responsible for much of the stress response which might be causing your headache.
- Spasmolytic – It helps calm muscle spasms, so if your neck or head muscles are spasming, lavender will help calm them down.
How to Use Lavender Essential Oil for a Headache
First – dilute your lavender essential oil in an unscented carrier oil or lotion to 5%. Seriously. Less is more with this stuff. If you use too much lavender it becomes stimulating instead of calming and that’ll just increase your headache.
Second – apply to tight/stiff/dense neck muscles, including the base of the skull.
Third – if the pain is really intense at the temples or forehead, go ahead and apply a very small amount to those areas. Make sure to stay away from the eyes, though. It will not only burn like a mofo if you get the oil in your eyes, it could potentially blind you. Proceed with caution, and only do this if the pain in these areas is severe.That’s it. Short and sweet like I promised. Time for a few minutes of self-care. Might I suggest you do the same?
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