The best essential oil to relieve stress

If you’re like most people, your body is in a state of stress far too often…

Whether you’re fretting over a work deadline, worried about your relationship or feeling frazzled by the state of your finances, it’s easy to let daily life send you into a stress spiral.

But feeling afraid and stressed all the time is no way to live. Even worse, it could eventually take a toll on your physical health… which, in the end, will only create more stress.

But there is a way to stop the cycle of stress and fear… one that could help people with the even most serious fear-based conditions.

Because, truth be told, a lot of people deal with chronic, low-grade stress. But plenty more deal with high levels of chronic stress in the form of diagnosable anxiety disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a condition where you’re in an ongoing state of fear and stress due to some sort of traumatic experience in your life. It’s one of the most serious anxiety disorders, and it’s pretty hard to overcome. But researchers uncovered what could be a simple and side-effect free solution to PTSD-related stress…

The citrusy solution to stress

Researchers from George Washington University recently determined that orange essential oil can work wonders for mice with a fear disorder similar to PTSD…

These mice were conditioned to experience an intense feeling of fear when they heard a specific tone. Some mice also inhaled orange essential oil before and after being conditioned to fear this tone. And guess what happened to these little guys…

These mice displayed a lot less fear than other mice. For mice, freezing (like a deer in headlights) is a good behavioral sign of fear. But these mice froze less often, and when they did freeze, they did so for a much shorter period of time.

“The orange essential plant oil showed a significant effect on the behavioral response in our study mice. This is promising, because it shows that passively inhaling this essential oil could potentially assuage PTSD symptoms in humans,” said Cassandra Moshfegh, research assistant in Paul Marvar’s laboratory at the George Washington University.

You’ve probably also heard that fear negatively impacts your immune system. Well, researchers found that orange essential oil altered this response in mice too. Mice who inhaled orange essential oil had less immune cells activated in their body after the stressful event. And that’s a good thing…

Chronic stress can cause your immune system to go haywire, which is probably why it’s been linked to autoimmune disorders, among other health problems.

Orange oil for everyday stress

If you don’t have PTSD, but you do feel stressed out and fearful quite often, you may be wondering….

Can orange essential oil help me too?

My thought is, if orange essential oil can help with the serious stress and fear that accompanies a condition like PTSD, it’ll probably do the trick for less serious forms of stress and fear too. And there’s been some research to support this notion…

One study conducted by researchers in Brazil found that people who sniffed sweet orange essential oil before taking a stressful test were less anxious during and after the test than those who sniffed tea tree oil or water.

So there seems to be solid evidence behind the stress-busting powers of orange essential oil. That means, there’s no better time to pick up a bottle and add a few drops to your essential oil diffuser, your bath, your wrist (combined with a carrier oil, of course)… or just inhale it straight from the bottle. Whatever you need to do to alleviate the incessant fear and stress that’s taken over your life and find some peace in your day-to-day.