Life is stressful. It just is. If you’re anything like me, you feel like you get to a place where it seems like things are balancing themselves out, and then, boom. Something forces its way in, throwing everything off track again! Boo.
But, you’re also always open to finding ways to add things into your life that can reset you, reduce stress, make life simple, and balance your mood (and hormones!).
Stress is what disrupts our internal balance. When stress is consistent, we’re getting flooded with negative responses and eventually our internal systems have a hard time keeping up. Poor guy, right!? Getting rid of the stressors isn’t always an immediate option.
We have so much going on. Kids, careers, activities, friends & family, house upkeep, relationships, side hustles, finances, and everything else that pops up. It’s busy, it’s hard. Sometimes it feels unmanageable.
To top it all off, the top 5 leading causes of death in the US are linked to stress. The good news is that therapeutic services, like massage, can reduce these harmful consequences caused from stress, and are becoming more and more essential to ensuring a healthy lifestyle amongst the stress we’re faced with.
Essential oils have been a part of my life for a while. My mom’s a lover of lavender, so this has always been a big one in my house. It’s been a staple in my own house since moving out because it is such a big player for my mom. Mostly I’ve kept it around to add to my baths, but I’ve expanded my love for oils over the years.
So it felt like a no-brainer to add essential oils to massages. I am all about stacking benefits, and the two go hand in hand when it comes to combining multiple benefits into one.
Here are three reasons that essential oils and massage is a must for stress reduction:
- Healthy Anxiety Reduction: Lavender specifically is one of the most widely grown essential oils. Known for its calming effect, there’s more and more research showing its effect on reducing anxiety as well. Makes sense when you think about what the opposite state of anxiousness is! Massage can activate your parasympathetic nervous system – the rest and digest. The opposite, our sympathetic nervous system- is your flight or flight, to give you some comparison. Adding lavender oil into a relaxation massage can escalate these stress management benefits. In fact, there was a research study that concluded that lavender essential oil has the same effect as anxiety reducing medication!
- Natural Sleep Aid: Sleep is essential. In fact most of us aren’t getting enough, and we often cut sleep in an effort to get more done, or have trouble getting enough sleep because of all of the stress in our life. Lavender oil has been shown to increase the level of deep sleep time. Both massage and lavender oil are able to calm the nervous system which is essential for a restful night’s sleep.
- Tension Headache Management: Stress can result in painful tension headaches. Lavender oil can support the reduction and intensity of headaches caused by stress. Massage of the neck and shoulders has been shown to significantly reduce tension headaches within a week, and continue to reduce the frequency through continued treatment. Win win for both. Headaches don’t have to be a pain in your neck!
Massages at RELEASE Massage & Wellness come with essential oils and blends that can be both safely inhaled, and also safely added topically to massage treatments with a high quality carrier massage cream.
