Essential Oils
The 7 Best Essential Oils for Immunity
Nov
The immune system is the body's first line of defense against bacteria, viruses, parasites, and even cancer. A strong immune system is vital to a long, healthy life, but many of us don't have a strong immune system. There are lots of factors which contribute to this, and simply taking vitamin C supplements is unlikely to be enough.
Your immune system relies heavily on your diet; if you don't supply your body with the right raw materials it can't maintain a strong immune system. Even if your diet is perfect, however, there are other factors at play. Lack of vitamin D weakens the immune system, and almost everyone is deficient in vitamin D.
Various toxins and chemicals that we're all exposed to on a daily basis can weaken it, as well. Finally, thanks to the depletion of nutrients in the soil, the food we eat simply isn't as nutritious as it once was, so even eating healthy foods won't supply all the necessary vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants your body needs for a strong immune system.
This is where essential oils can become extremely useful. There is strong evidence to suggest that some essential oils can give your immune system a boost. Using these oils on a regular basis can make a huge difference in your health, both in the immediate and long-term future.
How Essential Oils Can Help
Normally, when we talk about essential oils and the immune system, we're talking about the ability of essential oils to limit the immune response, specifically in terms of inflammation, which is one of the primary immune responses. Because of that, it might be a bit odd to think of essential oils enhancing the immune system.
Reducing inflammation doesn't appear to compromise the immune system, however. And, crucially, many essential oils have powerful antimicrobial properties that aid your immune system by reducing the number of bacteria or viruses that it has to fight off.
Some essential oils are antibacterial, others are antiviral, others, antifungal, and still others can control all three. Essential oils help your immune system by killing off bacteria, viruses, and fungi and making the immune system's job easier.
As we enter into cold and flu season, many of us start thinking about what we can do to boost our immune system and minimize our chances of getting sick. There are lots of different ways to do this, ranging from vitamin C supplements to medications and changes in diet. Some of these are effective, some aren't, and for some we just don't know.
The advantage of essential oils is that we know how effective they are, and there are no risks to using them. Essential oils are remarkably safe, potent, and one of the best ways you can boost your immune system and protect yourself against viruses and bacteria.
Best Essential Oils for Immunity
To properly boost your immunity, you need to choose the right essential oils for the job. If it's flu season, you'll want something with antiviral properties, for instance. If you're interested in a more generalized immunity boost, you'll probably want a blend of several oils.
Blending the oils together maximizes the benefit, since some oils will offer benefits that other oils don't. Using just one oil will likely leave you vulnerable. For this reason, we're listing several different oils and recommending that you choose at least two of them. These are the best oils for immunity:
Lavender
No surprise here, lavender tops the list. Lavender is one of the most popular and widely-studied essential oils in the world, and many of its reported benefits have been repeatedly confirmed in research studies. It's probably most popular for its anxiety-reducing and stress-relief abilities, but it can prove useful in almost any situation.
Lavender is a powerful, natural pain reliever that's even been used to ease labor pains by mothers giving birth. It's a natural bug repellent, an anti-inflammatory, and much more.
For immunity, lavender is an effective antibacterial agent. It's been used to clean wounds and prevent infection, and when used in aromatherapy it can purify the air of airborne bacteria.
Lavender flowers are delicate things, and you should only purchase essential oil from producers who know how to handle the flowers in such a way as to preserve all of their fragile aromatic compounds. That means using the best harvesting practices, and steam-distillation to extract the oil.
This lavender oil is steam distilled from the best Bulgarian lavender flowers, yielding a pure and potent oil that smells exactly like fresh lavender flowers. It's much gentler and purer than typical lavender oil.
Lemon
In the days of sailing ships, lemons were prized for their ability to ward off scurvy, a disease brought on by severe vitamin C deficiency. Now that we understand the role of vitamin C in our immune systems, lemons are even more valuable as a source of it.
Lemons are much more than just vitamin C delivery vehicles, of course. Lemon oil is widely used in household cleaners, especially the all-natural ones because in addition to smelling fresh it can help cut through grime and disinfect.
It's also a very energizing oil, loaded with antioxidants. Multiple studies have confirmed that lemon oil is beneficial to the liver, and since the liver is crucial to the immune system, lemon oil provides an indirect immune boost in this way.
Lemon oil is also one of the best natural antibiotics there is, which is why it's such a good choice for household cleaners. Using lemon oil can help clear out an infection or prevent one since it can kill bacteria with ease. It can also relieve inflammation and the smell alone can be very soothing.
Lemon oil doesn't have to be distilled or extracted with a solvent. Lemon peels are naturally rich with the oil, and it can be easily extracted by using a press to squeeze it out of the peels. You should never buy lemon oil that's been extracted using a solvent.
This lemon oil is cold-pressed from the peels of high-quality grown in Italy, where they've been growing some of the world's best lemons for centuries now. It's bottled with no added ingredients, so it's pure and strong.
Lemon Essential Oil
Lemon essential oil has several health benefits including: supporting the immune system, alleviating stress and reducing insomnia.
Vivorific’s peppermint essential oil 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.
Peppermint
As it turns out, that mentholated rub your parents put on your chest when you were sick as a kid may have been doing more than just clearing up your congestion. Like most essential oils peppermint is loaded with all kinds of health benefits, and its ability to clear out your sinuses is just one of them.
The smell is invigorating and energizing, and it can help relieve headaches and digestive issues. Peppermint is a very strong antibacterial and antifungal agent, and its apparent ability to help stave off colds and the flu suggests it has some antiviral properties as well.
It's quite likely that the chest rubs sold in drug stores help to cure the infection, because the menthol they contain is one of the active ingredients in peppermint oil, so they probably have their own antiviral properties.
In other words, they weren't just soothing your congestion- they were probably helping you to fight off the cold or flu by killing the virus.
For best results, we recommend buying this steam-distilled peppermint oil, which is made in the US under strict quality control standards.
Peppermint Essential Oil
Peppermint essential oil has several health benefits including: alleviating headaches and energizing the body.
Vivorific’s peppermint essential oil 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.
Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus has an invigorating, soothing, fresh scent. It's great to have around if only to lift your spirits when you need a quick boost, but it has a long list of benefits, too. It's a natural muscle relaxer and it improves circulation while reducing inflammation.
Like peppermint, it's an excellent choice for relieving nasal congestion and treating flu and cold symptoms. Also like peppermint, it's a powerful antibacterial and antiviral agent that can do a lot to make your immune system's job easier.
This oil is steam distilled from choice eucalyptus trees grown in Australia. It's bottled without any added ingredients, so what you're getting is 100% pure eucalyptus oil.
Tea Tree Oil
This is one of the most therapeutic oils you can buy, and you really owe it to yourself to always have some on hand. It has a number of unique benefits, including the ability to help reduce hormone production which can help with many different health conditions.
Tea tree oil is an effective insecticide and all-natural deodorant, so it can be a very utilitarian oil. It's also useful as a mouthwash and even as an all-purpose cleaner. It has anti inflammatory properties that seem to be especially effective on the skin, so it's commonly used to treat rashes and skin disorders.
Tea tree oil is a very effective antifungal, and this makes it an excellent choice for treating dandruff and athletes' foot, which are both common fungal infections. In addition, tea tree oil is a strong antiviral, which means it can provide a good boost to your immunity.
This tea tree oil is sourced in China, where it's steam distilled from the finest tea leaves.
Palmarosa
This is a relatively little-known oil that has a surprising number of uses. It's good for stress and anxiety relief, reducing fever, improving digestion, reducing fatigue, and more. For such a beneficial essential oil, it's surprising that it's not much more common.
Palmarosa is a species of grass, sometimes called Indian geranium, that's native to India and parts of southeast Asia. The smell is sweet and floral, and it's cultivated extensively for it's oil. The oil is often used in cosmetics and perfumes, although awareness of its medicinal benefits is growing.
Palmarosa is a strong antibacterial and antiviral oil, and it can both prevent and treat viral or bacterial infections while helping to reduce inflammation, and thereby reducing the severity of the symptoms you experience.
It's also a strong natural insect repellent and can be used as a natural pesticide in gardens or as a body spray to keep mosquitos off.
Choose a palmarosa oil like this one, which is steam distilled from palmarosa plants grown in India and bottled with no added ingredients.
Palmarosa Essential Oil
Palmarosa essential oil has several health benefits including: alleviating anxiety and depression, relieving fatigue and preventing bacterial infections.
Vivorific’s palmarosa essential oil 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.
Clove Bud
Like lavender and tea tree oil, clove bud oil is one you really should always have on hand because it's so powerful and beneficial. Cloves and clove oil have been used as medicine for centuries, if not millennia.
It's been especially popular as a painkiller and an oral health aid. It's been used to treat toothaches to great effect. In ancient times it was commonly applied directly to open wounds to promote healing and prevent infection. It can even be used to treat flea infestations, as clove oil kills fleas on contact.
Clove oil is one of the strongest natural antibacterial, antiseptic, and antiviral agents we know of. It's so effective that even using the clove buds themselves, without extracting and concentrating the oil, can stave off infection and provide pain relief.
If you're looking for an essential oil blend to promote immunity, clove oil as an essential component for you to have. This clove bud oil is steam distilled for purity, and it's one of the best essential oils for immunity.
How to Use Essential Oils for Immunity
There are two main ways you can use essential oils: topically and via aromatherapy.
Topical applications can be very effective in certain situations. For immunity, if you're trying to prevent a wound from being infected or trying to treat a skin rash, a topical application is the best choice.
This puts the oil in direct contact with the microbes you're trying to kill and it creates a layer of essential oils that functions like a lethal barrier preventing microbes from entering. This is an effective, time-honored, and proven technique for giving a localized and immediate boost to your immune system to prevent or eliminate an infection.
For a more generalized immunity boost, though, aromatherapy is a better choice. Remember that these essential oils tend to work by actually killing bacteria and viruses they come into contact with.
Aromatherapy works in two ways. First, by inhaling the vapor of the essential oil, the oil goes directly into your bloodstream through the lungs. You'll effectively be putting strong antibacterial and antiviral agents into your bloodstream and making your blood itself a strong antibiotic.
The second way that aromatherapy helps is by filling the air itself with the essential oil and killing any airborne bacteria or viruses which pose a threat. In this way, aromatherapy can actually purify the air by removing microbes and potentials diseases before they ever enter your body.
So, using immunity-boosting essential oils first eliminates most of the microbes in the air, and then enters directly into your bloodstream to make your blood a natural antibiotic. This, in turn, makes your immune system's job much easier, because there are far fewer bacteria and viruses for it to deal with.
To use an essential oil in a topical application, you need to dilute first. All essential oils are highly concentrated and will irritate the skin if applied directly.
To properly dilute your essential oil, you need a carrier oil like olive oil or MCT oil. add a few drops of your chosen essential oils to the carrier oil, and you now have an oil that can be safely applied directly to the skin.
For aromatherapy, you'll need a diffuser. These are affordable devices that use sound waves to generate water vapor, and this vapor will in turn carry the essential oil into the air.
You simply add a few drops of the oil to the water reservoir and turn it on, and the room will quickly be filled with the fragrance of the oils you used. There are other methods of using essential oils in aromatherapy, but for boosting your immunity a diffuser is by far the best option as it purifies the air more effectively than other methods.
Conclusion
If you're looking for a safe, all natural way to boost your immunity as we head into cold and flu season, essential oils are one of the best ways to do that. Any of the oils listed here would be an excellent choice, as all of them are proven to be antibacterial, antiviral, or both.
The best practice, though, is to buy more than one oil and make a blend. This way the various benefits of each oil will overlap and they'll function better.
For instance, while several oils may have both antibacterial and antiviral qualities, most them are better at one of these functions than the other, and by combining two or more oils together you maximize your protection.
This isn't just true for boosting immunity, but also for all the other health benefits of essential oils. Blending several oils together provides the maximum benefit, and so it's always a good idea to buy several different oils and use them at the same time.
Essential oils don't just boost your immunity, they also relieve stress, improve sleep, aid digestion, reduce inflammation, regulate hormones, and they simply smell great. Best of all, even the best essential oils are very affordable. There's no downside, so order your essential oils today.
Are there any essential oils you feel should be on the best essential oils for immunity list? Share them in the comments below.
You May Also Like
