Best Essential Oils for Meditation
Living a healthy lifestyle doesn’t end at keeping fit and maintaining your physical health alone. Being mentally aware is also a key part in being healthy. Meditation, among other things, is one of the highlights of maintaining your mental health. It is a mental exercise that helps you to keep your mind at an impressive level of clarity.
Beyond that, meditation is an excellent way to be mentally aware as it helps you to keep your body and spirit calm, alongside your mind. It also helps you to cultivate a peace that comes from within and transforms your physical state to a blissful landscape in your mind. Therefore, it reduces the stress of your daily routine and increases your concentration and focus.
The only problem is, Meditation doesn’t always come naturally.
See, the human mind is a beautiful scramble filled with several thoughts and emitting emotions. As a result, for most people who are just trying out meditation, it may be difficult to get that scramble to quiet down and practice the meditation you need to find clarity and just relax. Getting to that blissful state of mind may also be stressful, because of the noises and other things that surround you, but you can find the focus to meditate with the use of essential oils.
Essential oils are aromatic extracts from plants. In simpler terms, these plants, as well as its parts such as flowers, leaves, stem, roots, barks or resins, contain certain aroma-inducing compounds that can be extracted as oils. Each oil has its unique composition of ingredients that have been proven to have several therapeutic benefits alongside their use in treating injuries and illnesses.
With the improvement in research, it has also been found that these essential oils can be used to achieve a balance between the mind, soul and body, which is the purpose of meditation. As a result, fragrance has become such an important aspect of the most effective techniques. Essential oils used in meditation provide pain relief, as well as stress relief, relaxation, and the mental grounding needed for mental clarity. The fragrant oils help to create a calming environment and maintain focus, especially for beginners.
Now that we have established the importance of essential oils for meditation, you can explore the best options that can be used for your meditation. Highlighted below, are top recommendations for the best essential oils to achieve a serene space and focused mind while meditating.
Here Are Our 10 Best Essential Oils for Meditation
Lavender is a flower that is native to the Mediterranean and it has been recognized to have one of the most calming fragrances. The lavender essential oil is known to have relaxing properties that put you in the right mind frame. Originally, it was used in traditional medicine but, with the aid of research it has been used to promote healing.
A perfect composition of healing and calming, lavender oil is great for your meditation. The active ingredients are not only sedative and relaxing, they also absorb easily and take only a few minutes to be effective, which makes the fragrant oil an excellent choice for beginners in meditation. Additionally, its sedative qualities set it aside as the best essential oil to use during a session of meditation, right before you sleep.
The Lavender oil fragrance also helps you to find clarity with a clear mind to deal with anxious or stressful situations. It is highly effective in relieving tension, lowering blood pressure, and stimulating blood circulation –the perfect combination for relaxation.
Meditating with lavender oil as your essential fragrance puts your mind in a state of clarity and calmness such that you are able to deal with anxiety and feel refreshed at the end of the session. Try lavender oil on its own or blend it with bergamot or rosemary to awaken your natural senses or frankincense, sandalwood and jasmine to simply unwind.
Frankincense Oil
Frankincense has a deep spiritual history that sets it aside as one of the best essential oils for meditation. The frankincense oil is an earthly aromatic concentrate that is extracted from the resin of a Boswellia tree. It has been used for centuries as a healing, beauty and spiritual oil.
Grounding is one of the components of meditation and the fragrant oil from Frankincense helps you to achieve that by creating the mind, soul and body balance. It also helps you to open your mind and find that connection with the inner and higher self that brings purpose to meditation.
Most often, Frankincense oil is used to clear out negative energy and weakness of the spirit in order to create room for improved memory, enlightenment, and heightened senses. During meditation, the earthly smell of the frankincense essential oil creates relaxation and calmness, especially with your breathing as that is the core of any meditation technique. It is a great blend well with oils such as lavender, bergamot, sandalwood, clary sage.
Patchouli Oil
Meditation is highly beneficial, as it helps you to find a sense of peace within yourself but, infusing the fragrance of patchouli essential oil makes it a natural process. Patchouli oil was traditionally used by Asian folk and has been referenced as the scent of the sixties. It has a very earthy fragrance laced with spicy aromas, making it one of the best essential oils for meditation.
The patchouli fragrance creates a calm mind that allows for deep grounding, which is exactly what you need for effective meditation. It is commonly referred to as the oil of peace, thanks to its calming and relaxing qualities.
While patchouli essential oil is excellent for achieving a quiet mind, its benefits for meditation go beyond that. The active ingredients in this fragrant oil have been proven to promote pleasure hormones such as dopamine and serotonin, which are also known as the brain chemicals for happiness and excitement.
Patchouli oil also helps to soothe, balance and harmonize your moods and emotions in such a way that, after the meditation is over, you feel refreshed and fulfilled. Some studies have also shown that the aroma of the Patchouli essential oil can be an aphrodisiac. All in all, it is a great choice of an essential oil for meditation.
Bergamot Oil
Straight off the peel of an Italian citrus fruit comes the bergamot essential oil. This extracted essential oil is a fragrance that has been used in perfumeries for several centuries. It is an amazingly versatile aroma that blends excellently with several other scents.
Bergamot has a wonderful citrus aroma that works effectively during meditation to uplift your mood and help with stress relief. Extensive meditation practices may lead to sore muscles but, while the bergamot essential oil is great for calming your mind, it is also beneficial as a pain reliever to soothe the soreness. All of these make the bergamot oil an excellent essential oil to use during meditation.
Additionally, inhaling bergamot has been shown to improve your mood, balance your emotions, and promote deep relaxation and confidence. Blend this oil with sandalwood, frankincense, lavender, or Palo Santo for a refreshing meditation aroma.
Eucalyptus Oil
The different techniques of meditation have one common focus, your breathing. As a result, if there are any obstructions to your breath, it may affect the progress of your meditation. Several essential oils may clear the air and provide an aromatic space for you to meditate but, eucalyptus oil actually helps to clear your airways.
Extracted from the sweet-scented leaves of the eucalyptus tree, this fragrance oil has a fresh, clear scent that releases any tightness in the chest. This way, it helps you to breathe better and focus on the meditation process so that you can achieve better results with a clear mind.
Jasmine Oil
Jasmine is known as the ‘King of Oils’ and that is simply obvious in its vast benefits. The jasmine flowers are a specie of delicate white or yellow flowers with a sweet fragrant and they can be found throughout the world.
The sweet and exotic aroma of the jasmine fragrance, combined with its antiseptic, antidepressant and antispasmodic components, have made it a popular scent in the health and beauty industries. Beyond that, it is highly beneficial for meditation.
Inhaling the jasmine essential oil scent can help to reduce congestion and improve your mood greatly. It also rekindles emotional warmth and has been known to serve as an aphrodisiac for some people seeking sensual connectivity.
Its sweet smelling aroma is one of the reasons why the Jasmine fragrance works great as an essential oil for meditation by giving you a natural mood boost, increased energy, better alertness and overall stress relief. It can be blended with lavender and frankincense for a relaxing mood boosting formula that will help with concentration.
Frankincense and Myrrh Essential Oil Combo
Frankincense and myrrh essential oils have several health benefits including: boosting immune system and relieving stress and anxiety.
Vivorific’s frankincense and myrrh essential oil combo is: 100% Pure and natural, free from fillers, additives and harmful chemicals, vegan and kosher certified and sealed with tamper evident closure and Euro style dropper cap.
Rosemary Oil
Rosemary is one of the oldest culinary herbs that has also been used as a fragrance. Despite being an anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, analgesic, and anti-neurodegenerative plant, it is also a great addition to your collection of essential oils for meditation.
The components of the rosemary oil have been studied and proven to have several benefits including stimulating the circulatory system and increasing immune function. In meditation, the rosemary oil can be used to promote clarity of mind and thus, improve memory. It also helps to relieve pain and sores, making it the best oil to use for a prolonged meditation session that may leave you with aches.
Palo Santo Oil
Palo Santo is a tree that has been likened in spiritual quality to the Frankincense. It is called ‘holy wood’ and has a highly fragrant aroma. The tree is native to South America and has been used over several centuries as a traditional medicinal and therapeutic ingredient.
An extract from the burnt or processed wood is used to form the essential oil which is used for energy cleansing purposes in meditation. Palo Santo is highly recommended for attracting positive energy and good fortune as a purifying scent.
In addition to its cleansing benefits, palo santo is also very effective in creating a mental space that allows you to be grounded and access your mind. It helps to deepen your feeling of internal and external connectivity.
Using palo santo essential oil for meditation gives you an incredibly relaxing and calming experience that is great for unwinding. It blends excellently with other oils like frankincense, sandalwood, myrrh, bergamot, and lavender.
Sandalwood Oil
Beyond the calming and relaxation, meditation also focuses on growth and healing. The best oil to achieve this is the sandalwood essential oil. Derived from a fragrant tree which is primarily harvested in India, the sandalwood oil has been used in the creation of perfumes, and as an addition to incense over several centuries.
As an essential oil, sandalwood is incredibly helpful in healing emotional and spiritual wounds that run deep, especially as a part of your meditation. It creates the space for calmness that progresses into spiritual grounding to open your heart and allow you trust yourself.
The earthy, warm fragrance of sandalwood cleanses the air, allowing you to breathe freely and explore your mind without physical distractions. It improves your feelings of overall well being and improves your level of mental clarity by bringing you to a tranquil space. It is very pleasant on its own and blends well with frankincense, bergamot, lavender, vanilla, patchouli, and rose.
Neroli Oil
Neroli is another extremely spiritual essential oil. It is known to be quite powerful in meditation driven towards promoting self-love and acceptance. The floral aroma of this fragrant oil puts your mind at ease and centers you to mindfulness. This, in turn, helps to increase clarity and peace during the meditation practice.
Neroli oil is also used as an essential oil for meditation to reduce fears, inspire creativity, and promote acceptance and self-love.
The way you choose to use essential oils while meditating is entirely up to you, but the most effective methods for the best results are to use a diffuser, vaporizer or make a room spray using a blend of essential oils.
An essential oil diffuser is a portable device that breaks down fragrant oils and disperses them as breathable particles throughout your space. They help with the easy inhalation of these essential oils for maximum benefits.
There are several essential oil blends that can be diffuser-based for meditation. These blends are made up of the combination of any different essential oil, in varying quantities, and added to your diffuser to deliver a unique scent. While most people like to explore and mix different oils, it is important to use the best blends for personal energy and meditation.
If you are just starting out exploring the blend of essential oils for meditation, it may be helpful to use tested and trusted blends. Here are five diffuser-based essential oil blends for meditation that will give you the best form of calm, relaxation and concentration, among other benefits.
Essential Oil Blends To Use During Meditation
Calming Blend
This blend allows you to maintain a calm, serene mind while meditating.
- 3 drops of Sandalwood essential oil
- 3 drops of Palo Santo essential oil
- 2 drops of Cedarwood essential oil
Grounding Blend
This blend helps with spiritual grounding and connectivity.
- 2 drops of Frankincense essential oil
- 2 drops of Sage essential oil
- 2 drops of Vetiver essential oil
Concentration Blend
This blend helps to improve memory and concentration.
- 1 tablespoon of melted Coconut essential oil
- 2 drops of Sandalwood essential oil
- 2 drops of Patchouli essential oil
- 2 drops of Orange essential oil
Relaxing Blend
This blend is for complete relaxation.
- 3 drops of Lavender essential oil
- 3 drops of Neroli essential oil
- 2 drops of Ylang Ylang essential oil
Cleansing Blend
This blend can be used to clear out negative energy.
- 4 drops of Frankincense essential oil
- 4 drops of Helichrysum essential oil
- 2 drops of Sweet Orange essential oil
Conclusion
Meditation is supposed to help you achieve a higher sense of mental awareness and clarity but the overhaul of noise and distractions from the everyday world can be a huge obstruction.
Keying into your natural sense of smell with the help of these aromatic essential oils for meditation goes a long way in helping you to dull the outside world and focus solely on your meditation process. Using a diffuser with any of these blends of the best essential oils for your session will create the serenity you need to get the best result from meditation.
Remember to do some mental exercises while meditating so that you can truly remain grounded while enjoying the calmness, healing and sensational experience of meditation. Breathing is important to the process of meditation but, with the right blends of essential oils, it can also be the pathway to unlocking greater exploits within you. It also helps to create sincere awareness of yourself and others in your immediate environment.
Let your mind be free of constrictions and increase your mental awareness but, above all, enjoy the experience with the best fragrance oils.
Are there any of the 10 best essential oils for meditation mentioned in the blog post that your really love? Share them in the comments below.