Essential oils have been around for thousands of years. In the last century, we have developed synthetic pharmaceuticals and as a consequence, the plant-based medicines were put on the back burner. There is now a resurgence with people and healthcare professionals seeking natural ways to heal the body, mind, and spirit.
There are hundreds of essential oils with each having its own scents and healing properties. Some can help alleviate symptoms of certain sleep disorders like simple sleep disturbances –insomnia and even more problematic issues like sleep apnea.
We all know that getting a good night’s sleep is essential to maintain a healthy body and to stay productive in our daily lives. And today, you can improve your sleep quality by adding a few drops of essential oils in your sleep routine. Let’s take a look at the best essential oils for sleep.
What Are Essential Oils?
Essential oils are extracted from plants, flowers, fruit, leaves, bark, and roots. Distillation and expression remain the best ways to extract the aromatic essence of these plants and isolate it in oil form.
The oils can then be used in aromatherapy and other beneficial applications for health, beauty, and household purposes. Essential oils are not meant to be ingested unless they are food-grade specified.
How to Use Essential Oils?
Our sense of smell is a powerful tool that we sometimes take for granted. Scents can impact our moods, can relax us, and can also help reduce uncomfortable symptoms of certain health issues.
Essential oils can be used in diffusers, inhaled directly, incorporated into products, or sometimes applied directly on the skin.
Benefits of Essential Oils
Each essential oil has its own unique characteristics that make them beneficial to help reduce symptoms of certain common health issues.
Energy Booster: Peppermint, grapefruit, lemon, rosemary, lemongrass, and eucalyptus are recommended essential oils when you need that extra boost.
Help Digestion: When facing stomach issues, you can reach for certain essential oils to help restore proper digestion. Oils like ginger and peppermint are good to bring things back to normal.
Reduce Anxiety/Relaxation: Chamomile, Bergamot, ylang-ylang, geranium, lavender, and rosewood are all proven to relax and reduce stress and anxiety.
Balance Hormones: Hormonal imbalances and thyroid problems are common and can benefit from essential oils. Certain oils like clary sage, geranium, and thyme can help balance estrogen and progesterone levels in your body.
Improve Immunity: Peppermint, eucalyptus, frankincense, ginger, lemon, and oregano are all great immune boosters to help your body fight infections.
How Can Essential Oils Help with Sleep?
Now how can essential oils help you get a better night’s sleep? Some oils have been proven to help people attain and maintain deep sleep. Having a relaxing fragrance in the bedroom while you sleep can help calm the mind and the body leading you into a restful and restorative sleep.
While some oils help calm the mind and the body to get a better night’s sleep, others help to clear the airways to reduce certain problems like sleep apnea and snoring.
Studies are underway to assess the exact impact essential oils have on sleep. The initial reports hint that we are only beginning to understand the power of certain essential oils on our health and well-being.
Best Essential Oils for Deep Sleep
- Lavender
Lavender oil has been shown to be very effective in treating insomnia, and its most valuable value is that it is suitable for all types of insomnia, including those caused by physical discomfort, anxiety and excessive brain use. The safety of lavender essential oil has long been widely demonstrated. You can add 1 drop of lavender essential oil to the baby’s bath water, so the baby can sleep better. For children, you can apply one or two drops of lavender essential oil directly to their pajamas, encouraging them to sleep soundly. Adults use lavender essential oil to help sleep with more methods, no matter it is a few drops directly on the pillow or used to bubble bath, all lead to great results.
Recommended Brands of Lavander Essential Oils:
Plant Therapy Lavender Essential Oil
Artizen Lavender Essential Oil
- Roman Chamomile
Chamomile is well known for its calming qualities and is often used as a tea to drink before bedtime. Chamomile essential oil has excellent medical effects, including relieving anger, restlessness, tiredness, irritability, hysterics and, more importantly, insomnia and even nightmares.
Recommended Brands of Roman Chamomile Essential Oils:
Essence-Lux Roman Chamomile Essential Oil
Healing Solutions Roman Chamomile Essential Oil
Plant Therapy Chamomile Roman Essential Oil
- Marjoram
Marjoram essential oil has the properties of anesthesia and tranquilization, which has special effects on soothing emotions and can fight against depression, sadness, tension, and anxiety. Insomnia patients can get a sweet night’s sleep after enjoying the warm water bath or massage of marjoram. Marjoram blends well with sweet orange or lavender essential oils for an attractive scent that doubles as a sleep stimulator. Marjoram, with its warm nutty aroma, is the most masculine of all sleeping oils and is, therefore, best suited to men with insomnia.
Recommended Brands of Marjoram Essential Oils:
Pure Gold Sweet Marjoram Essential Oil
doTERRA Marjoram Essential Oil
Artizen Sweet Marjoram Essential Oil
- Ylang-Ylang
Ylang-ylang oil has a sweet fragrance and is therapeutic for the nervous system. It is also a natural mood depressant and is helpful in fighting the mood of depression and shock, thus reducing nightmares.
Recommended Brands of Ylang-ylang Essential Oils:
Healing Solutions Ylang-ylang Essential Oil
Pure Gold Sweet Ylang-ylang Essential Oil
- Valerian
Valerian essential oil is extracted from a root and is widely used as a sleeping aid tea.
It can regulate the natural hormone circulation of the human body, reduce the activity of nerve excitement conduction in the brain, calm tension, help shorten the time to fall asleep, improve sleep, make sleep deep.
Recommended Brands of Valerian Essential Oils:
Healing Solutions Valerian Essential Oil
Artizen Valerian Essential Oil
Pure Gold Valerian Essential Oil
- Sweet Orange & Neroli
Sweet orange essential oil tastes sweet and refreshing. It is the safest and most economical way to treat insomnia. Neroli oil, which is very similar to the nature of sweet orange essential oil, not only can cure tension and depression but also is famous for treating insomnia, especially insomnia caused by anxiety. For insomnia, sweet orange and neroli are good to alternate, and both are good to mix with lavender.
Recommended Brands of Sweet Orange & Neroli Essential Oils:
Artizen Sweet Orange Essential Oil
NATRÄL Sweet Orange Essential Oil
- Jasmine
Jasmine essential oil has been proven to help with relaxation and also reduce sleep disturbances. When diffused in the bedroom during the night, it can be just as effective as sleeping medication.
Recommended Brands of Jasmine Essential Oils:
Woolzies Jasmine Essential Oil
Pure Gold Jasmine Essential Oil
Aura Cacia Jasmine Essential Oil
- Clary Sage
Clary Sage essential oil can be used to relax you before bedtime and has also been proven to help with unpleasant menopausal symptoms such as depression.
Recommended Brands of Clary Sage Essential Oils:
Healing Solutions Clary Sage Essential Oil
Edens Garden Clary Sage Essential Oil
Red Silk Organic Clary Sage Essential Oil
- Bergamot
Defusing the aromatic citrus Bergamot essential oil while you sleep will help clear your mind of stressful thoughts that will promote restful sleep. It is especially suitable for the treatment of depressed insomnia patients.
Recommended Brands of Bergamot Essential Oils:
Healing Solutions Bergamot Essential Oil
Artizen Bergamot Essential Oil
Plant Therapy Bergamot Essential Oil
- Sandalwood
Sandalwood essential oil makes people feel thoughtful and clear, and it can soothe nerves and anxiety. It is especially helpful for people who are easily upset by little things and suffer from insomnia.
Recommended Brands of Sandalwood Essential Oils:
Healing Solutions Sandalwood Essential Oil
Essence-Lux Sandalwood Essential Oil
Gya Labs Sandalwood Essential Oil
- Benzoin
Benzodiazepine is the best essential oil to stimulate and soothe sadness, and it is also effective for insomnia patients with external depression.
Recommended Brands of Benzoin Essential Oils:
Pure Gold Styrax Benzoin Essential Oil
Deve Herbes Pure Benzoin Essential Oil
Absolute Aromas Benzoin Essential Oil
Best Essential Oils for Sleep Apnea
- Peppermint
Peppermint is widely used as an anti-inflammatory and has properties that can help clear airways to help reduce obstructions during sleep, thus alleviating symptoms of snoring and sleep apnea.
Recommended Brands of Peppermint Essential Oils:
Artizen Peppermint Essential Oil
Majestic Pure Peppermint Essential Oil
Handcraft Peppermint Essential Oil
- Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus is another plant that can help with sleep apnea by clearing the nasal passages and airways.
Recommended Brands of Eucalyptus Essential Oils:
Healing Solutions Eucalyptus Essential Oil
Artizen Eucalyptus Essential Oil
Handcraft Eucalyptus Essential Oil
- Juniper Berry
Juniper berry essential oils can help clear mucus and reduce allergy symptoms. It’s also a great scent to add to your diffuser at night to help reduce snoring and other unpleasant sleep problems.
Recommended Brands of Juniper Berry Essential Oils:
Healing Solutions Juniper Berry Essential Oil
Artizen Juniper Berry Essential Oil
Pure Gold Juniper Berry Essential Oil
Tips and Tricks for Using Essential Oils
You can use essential oils in a variety of ways. Try a few to determine which fits best into your lifestyle and provides the best benefits.
- Use a diffuser.
- Put a few drops into your hands and inhale deeply.
- Spray your room, pillow, bedding with a diluted spray that contains drops of essential oil.
- Take a bath and add essential oils to the water.
- Apply and massage directly on your skin.
Bedroom aromatherapy is the simplest, fastest method to help sleep. Start aromatherapy about 1 hour before bed and the fragrance can accompany you to sleep until dawn.
Bedroom aromatherapy formula:
1) 3 drops marjoram essential oil + 2 drops neroli essential oil + 1 drop lavender essential oil;
2) 2 drops bergamot essential oil + 2 drops juniper essential oil + 2 drops marjoram essential oil;
3) 2 drops chamomile essential oil + 2 drops neroli essential oil + 2 drops lavender essential oil.
For people with severe sleep disorders, aromatherapy massage is the best choice before going to bed. You can choose 3 favorite soothing and sleeping essential oils, 6 drops in total, and add 25ml of basic oil to make your own sleeping massage oil, or try the following sleeping compound massage oil:
1) 2 drops chamomile essential oil + 2 drops sweet orange essential oil + 6 drops lavender essential oil + 25ml base oil;
2) 4 drops benzoin essential oil + 3 drops marjoram essential oil + 3 drops neroli essential oil + 25ml base oil.
Sleeping pills come with a variety of unwanted side-effects like grogginess in the morning. The best thing about using essential oils to get a good night’s sleep is that there are no side-effects.
Remember to purchase oils that are 100% pure and that are listed therapeutic grade to get the best oils possible. The National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy is a great resource to get more information regarding essential oils and how you can benefit from them.
