How to Use Young Living Essential Oils
HOW THEY WORK - Therapeutic-Grade Essential Oils work differently from any other natural substance. Their unique features are that they:
Pass easily through our skin and cells membranes.
Diffuse through the entire body within half an hour.
Go directly to the brain through the olfactory bulb.
Affect our feelings and thoughts because smell is our most emotional sense.
Perform multiple functions because of their structural complexity: This is why one essential oil can do so many different things for you all at once--physically, emotionally, and mentally--with just a few drops in the air or on your skin.
1. Our first recommendation for using essential oils is to put them on the bottoms of your feet! If this sounds surprising, just consider that for literally thousands of years, Chinese healers have used acupuncture and acupressure on the bottoms of their clients' feet to achieve healthy changes throughout the whole body. Because of their unique molecular structure, the oils will travel throughout the body, to wherever they are needed, in less than half an hour.
2. Diffuse your essential oils in the air. You can purchase a Young Living Diffuser that sends the oils into the air in an extremely fine mist that will hang in the air for several hours. DO NOT use diffusers that use heat! Heating essential oils changes their chemistry. (Also, keep your oils away from bright light or any sources of heat.) In general, we recommend starting with no more than 10 minutes the first day. Let your body get used to the infusion of oxygen. After a few days you might diffuse more often or for longer. Once you feel comfortable with 15 minutes, that is generally a minimum amount for purifying the air of germs, etc.
3. Lastly, you can add certain essential oils to water or food for exquisite flavorings--refreshing, spicy, cooling, relaxing, etc. For medicinal use: Ingest oils / Take internally in gelatin capsules. Yes, you can eat them!
Caution: The recommendations made here are specifically for use with Young Living Essential Oils - not any others. The reason is simply this: We know the quality of Young Living's oils, but not others. And to use these techniques safely and to achieve the desired effects, your oils should meet the same high Therapeutic-Grade standards as do Young Living Essential Oils.
Our oils support the body and its systems in the healing process - they are agents of energetic change that seem to enliven and strengthen us in the direction of wellness--physically, mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually.
Individual responses to essential oils can be as varied - Go slowly. On your first day, start with only one or two oils. Your body may not be used to the amount of oxygen and other healing substances that the oils can provide. You want to be as aware as you can of the effects of each oil that you use so you can get to know each one well. Give yourself a few days to adapt. After that, once you see how you respond to them, you can expand your style.
Diluting your essential oils - If you are new to the oils or have fair or thin skin, you can dilute the oils with a pure vegetable oil such as V-6 Mixing Oil or edible coconut oil (ie. Nutiva). Even if you have tough skin, there may be places on your body where it's thin and more sensitive, like the center of your chest or under your arms. Putting certain oils undiluted on your skin could be irritating. However, if you dilute the oil, you'll be able to keep the action gentle.
"Hot" oils - In general, the oils that will tend to feel "hot" or "spicy" are the spice oils, such as Clove, Cinnamon, Peppermint, Oregano, etc. Dilute these oils to "cool" them down, and be careful not to rub your eyes after using them as they'll give you quite a stinging sensation. If this should happen, just put some vegetable oil on a tissue or paper towel and smear it over the affected area. It will cool off in a matter of seconds.
Sometimes you may need a week or more of applying an oil to tell if it is helping your body. This is especially true if the symptoms you are trying to effect have been chronic-meaning you've had them for a long time. If they took a long time to develop, they probably won't disappear over night with any intervention. So, be wary of overly high expectations when dealing with issues of long standing. On the other hand, the fact is that there are people who have had remarkable, sudden improvements in their symptoms within a day or an hour. Such is the mystery of nature and of people.
In general, let the oil fall out of the bottle a drop at a time. Don't touch the edge of the bottle to the skin. Touching the rim can leave tiny deposits of bacteria or skin that can accumulate over time and decrease the quality of your oil.
Applying on the skin:
The four types of topical application are 1) on the feet, 2) on the ears, 3) on the hands, and 4) anywhere else (including using them in a bath or with a compress).
The first three are set apart because they have places on them that relate to the rest of the body. In other words, if you have a headache, you could try to help reduce the discomfort by putting oil on the points on the feet that relate to the head (the pad of the big toe for the brain, the other toes for eyes and ears, etc.). Or you could put it on the places on the ears that relate to the head, etc. There are various charts, mostly deriving from Chinese medicine, that depict these points on the feet, ears, and hands. You might be familiar with reflexology charts. Helping the body heal by addressing these points is an ancient tradition. D. Gary Young's Vita Flex diagram is based on his own research in measuring electrical frequency changes at different places on the body when oil was placed on the specific points on the feet.
Using the example of the headache, you could choose to support your body with essential oils on the feet (on the pad of the big toe) or right on location: across the forehead, on the temples, on the crown of the head, etc. Similarly, for discomfort in other areas, you can apply oils locally. Cuts, burns, bruises, insect bites, rashes, infections, etc. can all respond well to the topical use of essential oils right on location.
Which oils to use is always an individual matter. There is no one oil for headaches or muscle pain. This is because the cause of the symptoms can be different from person to person. One headache might be from indigestion, or an allergic reaction, or hormonal changes, or stress, etc. Look at the list of oils and the descriptions of their properties. (The "ESP" Essential Science Publishing Essential Oils Desk Reference or the "HIGLEY" Coilbound Reference Guide for Essential Oils are reputable books.) Think about your symptoms and what might be the underlying cause. Take a guess or use your intuition about what oil might be appropriate for you. Try one. If it doesn't do the trick, try another. Even if the oil you choose doesn't help your body turn off your headache, it will have other beneficial effects if only because of the increased oxygenation, antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties, etc. Get to know your oils, discover how they affect you, and know that someone else may respond to those oils in a completely different way. Honor the discovery process in yourself and others.
SAFETY GUIDELINES:
If you ever feel heat or discomfort from using an essential oil, putting a pure vegetable oil on it will "cool" it off within seconds.
Do not use the "spicy" oils (such as Peppermint, Cinnamon, Thyme, etc.) on the throat or other delicate areas. Use them on the feet or other areas where the skin is less sensitive.
Pay attention to specific notices on your oil bottle labels. Sometimes you'll see a recommendation not to go out in the sun after using certain oils.
Don't put essential oils in your eyes or directly into your ears.
If pregnant, consult your "how-to" book for oils that are appropriate and inappropriate.
It's a good idea to first mix oils intended for a bath with a dispersing agent, such as Bath Gel Base or a mixture of bath salts.
Diane Vanas, Young Living Essential Oils Independent Distributor Sponsor #379181
