Essential oils are commonly used in aromatherapy treatments and provide therapy for various conditions, including headaches, stress, anxiety, and improving sleep. These oils are extracted from plants, flowers, herbs, roots, and leaves.
Let’s learn a bit more about essential oil blends for sleep in this aromatherapy guide.
The oils are prepared to create a fragrance by pressing or steaming various plant parts, such as the fruit, bark, roots, or flowers. While essential oils offer a pleasant blend of aromas, these concentrated scents are beneficial for treating many illnesses and chronic conditions, including better sleep.
If you’re interested in using essential oils to improve the quality of your sleep, it’s important to choose pure, natural extracts, so you can enjoy the best of their properties when you meditate, take a bath, practice yoga, or gently exercise.
How Are Essential Oils Used in Aromatherapy?
Aromatherapy is an ancient practice that uses essential oils and similar scents to provide therapeutic benefits. Various essential oils are blended to create specific results, such as a diffuser blend or sleep essential oil blend inhaled through a candle or diffuser or sprinkled on linen or bedding.
Aromatherapy oils stimulate certain parts of the brain and nervous system when the scent molecules are inhaled. This process impacts the emotional part of the brain, the amygdala, which can alleviate tension and stress while promoting deep sleep.
When you work with pure essential oils, it’s important to ensure you don’t have any allergies to certain plants or flowers before you begin. While it’s possible to experience mild irritation when you work with certain essential oils, especially when applied as a topical cream or treatment, natural essential oils are generally safe and provide significant benefits.
You’ll find that when you dilute oils in a carrier oil, you’ll avoid adverse reactions to your skin and avoid allergic reactions.
Once you choose the right essential oil diffuser blend to support a night of good sleep, you can use these oils in various ways by absorbing them into your skin, during massage therapy for body care, adding a few drops to your bath, or in a candle.
The Best Essential Oils for Quality Sleep
Which essential oil blends are best for promoting quality sleep? There are many essential oils to choose from, though specific blends are commonly used to improve your ability to enjoy a good night’s rest.
When specific aromatherapy blends are used for relaxation and reducing stress, you’ll enjoy a deep sleep without interruption and feel refreshed and focused in the morning.
Lavender Essential Oils
Lavender is a pleasant aroma that improves sleep quality and promotes deep relaxation. As one of the most popular scents, lavender is popular in soap, bath oils, potpourri, and essential oils.
Lavender oil is relaxing, and just a few drops in a bath or diffuser can ease stress and anxiety, along with soothing music or sounds. You can use lavender on its own, create a sleep blend with a drop of pine, or witch hazel.
This aromatic oil can be used in various ways to improve restful sleep. Begin using lavender oil one or two hours before bed by adding a few drops to a diffuser, sprinkling a couple of drops on your pillow or bedding, or applying it directly to your hand, wrist, or feet. Lavender provides a powerful scent you can dilute with distilled water by adding ten drops into a spray bottle and spraying over your favorite pillow or blanket.
Sweet Marjoram
Sweet marjoram essential oil is a great scent for a sleep diffuser blend, and it offers a distinct odor like oregano and blends well with coconut oil. When blended with shea butter or coconut oil, this spicy oil can be applied topically for body care and to relieve stress.
One of the best ways to apply this essential oil blend is with a roller bottle by blending coconut oil with sweet marjoram. Apply the oil to the bottom of your feet or around your neck and shoulders to improve your sleep quality.
Another wonderful way to use this blend as plant therapy is to diffuse your room. You can do this before you sleep or dilute the mixture with water, adding just five drops into a spray bottle, then spraying the mist over your bedding or cushions to create a calming effect.
Roman Chamomile Essential Oil
Chamomile essential oil is one of the best essential oils for aiding sleep. You may be familiar with Roman chamomile as a tea, an ingredient in skin cream, or other topical products. It’s well known for its calming effect and ability to reduce anxiety, anger, and irritability. Chamomile, or Roman chamomile, is ideal for adding to your diffuser just before bed as you stretch or meditate.
Cedarwood Essential Oil
Cedarwood oil offers a woodsy, soothing scent that promotes sweet dreams. It’s a powerful scent that helps alleviate insomnia symptoms and works like a natural sedative, so you can use it regularly as part of your bedtime routine. Cedarwood promotes immunity and health and helps fight against cold viruses and similar conditions.
You can apply a few drops of this essential oil directly to your linens or pillow or add it to your diffuser. This smokey, woodsy aroma blends well with lavender to create a robust and relaxing experience before sleep.
Ylang Ylang Essential Oil
Ylang-ylang is a potent essential oil that originates from South Pacific and Asian rainforests. It provides a fragrant, pleasant scent that creates a relaxing environment in your home, bath, or bedroom. This potent essential oil blends well with jasmine and rose and is best to use in the evening to soothe tension and alleviate anxiousness.
If you apply this blend to your skin, it’s best to mix it with coconut oil and apply it to your shoulders, chest, and upper back. Ylang-ylang is commonly used in shampoo and conditioning products for hair care, which can also provide a relaxing effect if you shower before bed.
Clary Sage Essential Oil
Clary sage oil is an excellent treatment for depression and anxiety, which is often used as complementary medicine to ease troubled thinking and adverse emotions. It’s a powerful fragrance that lifts your mood and helps you glide into a restful sleep. Clary sage oil is ideal for a diffuser or with drops on your pillow or blanket before bed.
Bergamot Essential Oil
Bergamot oil is an excellent remedy for various conditions, including chronic pain, inflammation, and high blood pressure. It’s a natural anti-inflammatory with anti-bacterial properties, which can boost your body’s natural immunity. Bergamot oil is excellent for treating insomnia while reducing heart rate and soothing your mind, so you’ll enjoy a restful sleep.
You can apply this essential oil on its own or blend it with lavender or ylang-ylang. It’s a potent fragrance, which can be diluted with water in a spray bottle or by adding a few drops into a steaming pot of water.
Sweet Orange Essential Oil
This refreshing essential oil is a wonderful deodorizer that refreshes your home’s environment while providing a gentle, sedative effect. Sweet orange helps reduce anxiety and stress while stimulating your senses and helping improve focus.
It’s also beneficial in improving digestion, lifting your mood, and providing relief from seasonal allergies. It’s a great essential oil to use during spring, when allergies are most common, by adding a gentle mist with a diffuser or spray bottle.
Choosing the Right Essential Oils for Better Sleep
When you decide which essential oils are best for your evening routine, choosing high-quality, natural oils designed for therapeutic purposes is vital. Since there’s no certification for high-grade oils and aromatherapy therapies, reviewing which products are best can be challenging.
It’s crucial to research brands to ensure they are extracted from quality sources. Pure, organic essential oils are best. Read labels, including the plant’s full name and other natural ingredients.
When evaluating products, ensure the company or manufacturer is reputable, with good reviews and ratings. Many quality companies have been around for years and established a solid reputation for providing excellent essential oils and fragrances.
The bottle or container should be dark-colored and made of glass, which helps preserve the essential oils, which are concentrated and need to be protected from spoilage. While some companies market fragrance oils as essential oils, they may contain chemicals or unnatural ingredients unsuitable for aromatherapy.
You’ll notice a range in pricing, which tends to be higher for quality essential oils, and this is to be expected. Investing in quality essential oils, even if they cost more, is important, as you’ll notice that some products are more reasonable than others. Ideally, you’ll want to try several brands and fragrances to find the right blend and product for improving sleep.
Final Thoughts
Enjoying a good night’s rest is integral to a balanced, healthy lifestyle. Essential oils play an important role in lifting your mood, calming your nerves, and relieving stress, which helps improve sleep.
You’ll find various forms of aromatherapy offer excellent benefits as you integrate them into your routine, especially before bed, whether you apply a few drops onto your pillow, spray your linen, or use a diffuser. When choosing a quality blend of essential oils for sleep, you’ll find it provides a calming effect that leads to a restful night.
