Basil essential oil has a number of potential benefits. If you don’t already own it, you may want to think about basil oil to your collection.
This aromatic blends well with certain oils you might already have on hand. It also adds variety to your natural medicine cabinet.
Rotating Essential Oils
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It’s good practice to rotate your oils, so you don’t have to use the same aromatic too many days in a row. Mixing them up and switching them around seems to help them work better, or at least from my experience. That’s why it makes sense to occasionally use something more unusual, such as basil essential oil.
Also, rotating can possibly reduce the likelihood of becoming sensitized to any particular oil. This means you’d probably never be able to use this oil again. Even though this seems to be a fairly rare occurrence, better safe than sorry. If you’re like me, you use your oils everyday. The thought of having to stay away from them is pretty horrifying.
So I try to make it a practice to not use the same oil more than four or five days in a row, and certainly not any longer than two weeks.
Please understand I’m not a professional aromatherapist. I’m a health writer who uses essential oils day in and day out, and I’m only sharing my personal experience.
Sweet Basil Essential Oil Benefits
Sweet basil can be used much some of the more popular oils. It can be diluted and massaged into your skin. It’s said to be a good skin toner. Similar to other aromatics, such as lavender essential oil, it can also be mixed with a carrier oil and applied to closed wounds to help prevent infection.
This aromatic oil is believed to be good for digestion. Much like peppermint oil, it can be massaged into the abdomen if you happen to suffer from minor stomach upsets or nausea.
Sweet basil oil is also believed to contain natural analgesic compounds. I suffer from a potentially painful nerve disease, which I keep well controlled with diet and other natural remedies. However, I still occasionally have a bad day. When this happens, I use essential oils instead of OTC pain relievers. For me, these natural plant extracts work much better than drugs. Also, I don’t have to worry about the side effects.
Basil Oil for Sleep
I’m passionate about telling my readers about the safe solutions, and essential oils are at the top of my list. They have helped me so much. One of the main reasons I use them is to help me sleep. Basil essential oil is often recommended if you’re looking for a soothing, calming scent, or natural stress relief. It could be used to help you unwind before sleep, according to Plant Therapy, one of my favorite sources for information on all things related to essential oils.
Sweet basil oil is often found in various relaxation blends. Nearly every large essential oil company now sells sleep and tranquility formulas. As someone who once suffered from chronic and severe insomnia, I’ve found great relief with natural sleep remedies.
Benefits of Sweet Basil Essential Oil
There’s not a lot of effort devoted to researching aromatic oils. Essential oils are natural substances. So they can’t be patented and made into drugs. That means there’s less financial incentive to study them. A lot of what we know about these oils comes from their historical use.
But one paper published in the Ancient Science of Life journal found that basil oil contains compounds that appear to have natural antibacterial properties. The authors also noted this oil is traditionally used for treating headaches, worms, warts, digestion complaints and kidney problems.
If you’d like to try basil essential oil, here is the brand I most often recommend on this site. The quality is excellent. It is not sold by multilevel marketing distributors.
Plant Therapy Basil Essential Oil
Basil Essential Oil Recipe
I often use my essential oils in recipes. That’s because it’s widely believed that mixing certain aromatics together creates a synergy. Sweet basil oil will blend well with a number of other oils, such as lavender and eucalyptus. These oils can all be used to help fight pain.
Here is a relief recipe using sweet basil oil, along with some of the more popular oils used for inflammation and muscle aches.
4 teaspoons of olive oil. You can also use another carrier oil, such as grapeseed or pure jojoba oil.
1 drop of sweet basil essential oil (it’s available here)
2 drops of eucalyptus essential oil (it’s available here)
1 drop of peppermint essential oil (it’s available here)
2 drops of lavender essential oil (it’s available here)
Mix these ingredients together and store the remainder in a tightly covered glass jar. Keep it away from heat and sunlight. This same recipe can also be used on closed wounds, to help prevent infection.
Basil Essential Oil Sleep Recipe
You can mix basil with lavender essential oil for a bedtime massage oil. If you use it on a wide area of your body, make sure to use a 1 percent dilution. This is the equivalent of 3 drops of aromatic oil to two teaspoons of carrier oil.
One of the best-known aromatics for sleep is lavender. It has helped me greatly. But I do need to rotate it, or mix it with other oils for best results.
Disclaimer
These statements have not been approved by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Women who are pregnant or nursing should not use essential oils unless directed to do so by a healthcare professional.
