Natural Body Guru

Have you ever had to dig your way out of your driveway so you could go to work? The weather had cleared but there were snowdrifts in our yard that were 12 to 16 inches high. We had to keep going back into the house to warm up because the temperature was 3 degrees but the windchill factor made it feel like negative 15 degrees. I had to keep wiping my face because the wind caused tears and the tears felt like they were freezing on my face.

During the winter months, choose face cream and makeup that works hard to protect your skin from blustery breezes.  Choose products that might be heavier than your regular brand, but not so heavy that they clog your pores. Look for solutions that are particularly effective on your T-zone, as this area is most prone to dryness.

Cooler temperatures always make effective skincare more difficult so make the switch to winter skincare products early. Use your winter-ready products daily to help fight the effects of winter weather and keep your skin healthy.

The sense of smell is one of the quickest ways to reach the brain and affect the mood of your friends and family. The holidays can be one of the most stressful times of the year but you can ease the stress by using aromatherapy essential oils. Essential oils will make your house smell wonderful and the scented atmosphere will brighten the mood of all those invited into your home. Choose seasonal essential oils to heighten the holiday spirit. Some of the most popular scents to use at this time of the year are frankincense, myrrh, pine, cinnamon, orange and sandalwood.

• Frankincense and myrrh are popular holiday scents because they were brought by the three wise men to honor the birth of Jesus. Both of these scents are also used for their medicinal properties. Frankincense is often used in meditation because of its ability to calm, relax, and slow down breathing.
• Pine often brings up memories of Christmas trees but it is also an essential oil that has many healing properties. It is often used to relieve sinuses, asthma, fatigue, allergies, and inflammation.
• Cinnamon essential oil is a warm and spicy scent that is often associated with Christmas probably because of the Christmas cookies left for Santa. Cinnamon has the healing properties of antiseptic, anti-infectious, and anti-bacterial.
• Orange essential oil is associated with Christmas because of the Christmas tradition of giving children an orange in their Christmas stocking. Orange essential oil relieves stress, anxiety, depression and insomnia. It is a light and uplifting scent, as are most of the citrus essential oils.
• Sandalwood is mentioned in the Christian Bible and was used by the Egyptians to embalm bodies. This essential oil has sedative, anti-depressant, decongestant, antiseptic, anti-infectious and aphrodisiac properties.

Aromatherapy can be used in several ways during the holidays. Give gifts of aromatherapy essential oils, aromatherapy baskets, and aromatherapy diffusers. You can also give the gift of “well-being” when you scent your home with these delicious fragrances.

Well, Thanksgiving is over and the mad dash to Christmas is here. Did you go shopping on Black Friday? I didn’t go this year. Last year’s Black Friday shopping cured me of the wish to get those deals! I didn’t even do any cyber shopping today. All that shopping is a little too stressful for me. Essential oils can calm me down and help me to remember days long past when I was little and so excited the Christmas was coming.

When family and friends get together during the holidays, using certain essential oils and blends in your home can bring back fond memories of past holidays for everyone. The essential oils to use are frankincense, peppermint, cinnamon bark, cedar wood, clove bud, sweet orange and lavender.

Before your guests arrive, use a blend of 4 drops of lavender essential oil and 4 drops of frankincense in a diffuser and have it going upon their arrival. You can use more or fewer drops of either essential oil depending on your preference.

As the evening goes on and it gets closer to bedtime, switch to ceder wood essential oil in the diffuser. It has a warm, woody scent that is both grounding and calming and will promote a wonderful night’s sleep. I have diffused lavender and cedar wood together in equal parts and I find it helpful and lovely for relaxation.

Here are several other ways to add essential oils to your Christmas holiday celebrations:

• Make Christmas logs for the fireplace by adding 1 drop of either sandalwood, frankincense, cypress, cedarwood, or myrhh essential oil. Be sure to let the oil soak in the log for at least an hour. Essential oils are flammable so don’t use them before that hour is up. That will be simple if you treat more than one log at a time but only use one essential oil treated log per fire.
• Treat candles with essential oils by lighting the candle and letting the wax begin to melt then add 1 drop of either bay, pine, geranium, cinnamon, mandarin, orange or peppermint essential oil directly to the liquid wax. Remember, the oils are flammable so be careful not to get the oil on the flame. If you don’t have a steady hand, blow the candle out to add the oil and relight it right away. A good blend for candles is 4 drops of mandarin, 1 drop of geranium, and 1 drop of cinnamon. Make the blend and then use one drop on each candle.
• Place pine cones in a plastic bag with a cotton ball soaked with 2 drops of  pine essential oil to keep them smelling fresh when you use them as decorations. Seal the bag and leave it overnight so that the next morning the cones will have a gentle outdoorsy smell.
• Decorate your pine cones or candles with ribbons that you have infused with a seasonal essential oil or essential oil blend. Add 6 drops of your choice of oils to 1 cup of water and swish the ribbons in the mixture then let them dry.
• Tie holly and ivy with ribbons suffused with a citrus essential oil but you might want to use a romantic essential oil such as ylang ylang to tie your mistletoe and complete your Christmas aroma background.

I promised to continue our discussion about using essential oils to celebrate yearly events so let’s continue with more on the Christmas celebrations. When you are expecting guests for a holiday soiree, make a Christmas house spray by diluting 4 drops of pine, 2 drops of mandarin and 1 drop of cinnamon essential oils into a plant-spray bottle containing 1 1/2 cups of water. If you like, you can add 1 drop of frankincense or 1 drop of a mixture of frankincense and myrhh. Too much frankincense and myrhh will make your home  smell like a church (unless that is what you want,) so it is best to blend a tiny bit of those scents in with your Christmas house spray if you like.

There are other essential oils that you can use in your Christmas house spray so play around with them and experiment. Other essential oil choices are the fresh scents of mandarin, tangerine, and orange. Use them when visitors are coming for a Christmas party. Holiday cakes and cookies always make a house smell warm and inviting so add the spicy essential oil scents of cinnamon, clove or bay to your house spray, fire logs or candles and you will add a warm note to your essential oil blends.

Certain scents are associated with the different events we celebrate throughout the year. For me, the scents of orange, peppermint and pine are associated with Christmas. We eventually started using artificial trees because they are more convenient but that pine smell still reminds me of my younger days. The smell of turkey roasting always brings back memories of family gatherings at Thanksgiving because my mom always cooked the turkey early in the morning and we woke up smelling that delicious mouth watering scent. With the fast paced lives we live today, we may not have the traditional scent of a live tree at Christmas and we may not cook our own turkey; but with the convenience of essential oils we can re-create some of the aromas of yesterday that bring back those fond memories.

Since most of us have wonderful memories of Christmas, I’m going to begin with that celebration. Even if you do bring home a real Christmas tree instead of a silver one, real trees are now coated with preservatives to keep the needles from falling all over the place because of our centrally heated homes. With essential oils, we can re-create the memorable Christmas aroma. Mix 6-12 drops of pine essential oil into 1 cup of water and spray your tree or you can put several drops of pine oil on cotton balls and place them inconspicuously around the tree. I’ll continue with more on celebrating with essential oils in my next blog.

Warts are small round tumors of the skin caused by a virus. They look like little lumps and can grow anywhere on the body but usually are found on the fingers. Warts that form on the soles of the foot are called verrucas. When my youngest daughter was in elementary school she developed warts on her fingers. She was very embarrassed and she hid her hands as much as possible because kids that age can be very mean.

Warts will go away on their own in time but who wants to wait that long? Your body will develop immunity to the virus eventually but you can chase those warts away naturally with a simple but effective treatment. Simply apply a single drop of tea tree essential oil directly onto the wart with a toothpick or an orange stick. Cover the wart with a band-aid and keep it covered.

Repeat this treatment daily until the wart shrivels and drops off. It can take anywhere from a few days to a month for that to happen. Once it does fall off, massage the area with shea butter, which is rich in vitamin E, to lessen the scarring and soreness. Adding a drop of lavender to the shea butter will speed the healing too.

We have a favorite buffet that we go to only occasionally because every time we go we eat too much. There are just so many foods to choose from that we try to taste everything that looks good. We also have a big salad with lots of delicious toppings and then top dinner off with several tastes of different deserts. No matter how much we promise ourselves we will not eat too much this time, we always end up overeating and feeling pretty miserable by the time we get home.

Well, the first thing to do when you overeat is to get some exercise. We always go for a brisk 3 mile walk for about 30 to 45 minutes after overindulging in food. Take a short break after eating or your stomach will be tied up in knots instead of feeling better. These are several essential oils that will ease your stomach after overeating: lemon, ginger, cumin, coriander, peppermint, spearmint, cardamom, dill, caraway and mandarin. My favorite is peppermint but you can make a synergistic blend to have on hand whenever you overeat. Besides pigging out at an “all you can eat” buffet, think about Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner.

Overeating Formula

• 10 drops mandarin
• 2 drops peppermint
• 2 drops ginger
• 5 drops lemon
• 3 drops coriander

Blend the essential oils together and store in an amber colored dropper bottle. When the formula is needed, use 1-2 drops in a cup of honey tea (hot water with a teaspoon of honey.) Sip the tea slowly and by the end of the cup, you should be feeling better. If not, it won’t hurt to wait about 30 minutes before drinking another cup.

We at Natural Body Guru wish you and your family a wonderful and

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Tomorrow, we will be traveling to visit relatives for the Thanksgiving holiday and I know lots of readers will be doing the same thing. Every time I travel, I carry my essential oil travel first aid kit with us for those emergencies that always seem to occur. Whether you travel by plane, train, bus, or car, it won’t cost you very much to assemble an essential oil travel kit; but it can save you a lot of problems and anxiety on the road. It is usually not a problem to carry essential oils on an airplane as long as the quantities you take are less than an ounce each. You can take everything you need for the most common ailments that may plague you or your family members while you are away. I usually carry my lavender, peppermint and eucalyptus on every trip.