There is something that my job in social media and my yoga practice have in common — they have both made me more conscious of what I put in my body.

One of the brands I work for is called Healthy Food Now, a website based on nutrition and making healthy eating easier. Although I wasn’t new to nutrition studies before working with HFN, I have learned a ton since coming onboard. Slowly I am trying to shift my diet to be more plant-based, and while I don’t eat super healthy all the time, I definitely am more aware of my food choices than I was in the past.

My yoga practice has had a similar affect. Practicing yoga forces you to slow your life down for an hour or so. The emphasis placed on breath and focusing on the present has made me more mindful in general, but specifically around what I put into my body. I don’t just see my yoga practice as a workout (although it definitely does that!). It’s caring for my body — and why would I want to fill it with crap after that? Or beforehand even?

So when one of the teachers at the yoga studio I attend started sharing with me about essential oils, I decided to give them a try as a natural way to supplement my health.

What are essential oils?

Essential oils are made from compounds found in nature, in things like “seeds, bark, stems, roots, followers, and other parts of plants.” These oils smell wonderful, and can also have many healing properties. You can use essential oils for medicinal purposes, beauty treatments, and even in cooking.

The more I learn about oils, the more I wonder why I hadn’t known about them sooner.

5 Reasons I decided to try essential oils:

I’m interested in finding more natural, healthier solutions to common, everyday issues. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not trying to knock Western medicine. I think it is important and has it’s place. But I do think we are too quick to take a pill for everything (myself included), which often just treats the symptoms instead of the root of the issue. We need to look at the body as a whole when treating illnesses instead of compartmentalizing.

God has given us so many gifts right in nature — why not we explore them? Medicinal plants have been used for thousands of years by people all over the world. Essential oils are one way to use plants as medicine.

Essential oils smell great. Okay, maybe this is just personal preference, but I love the smell of lavender, peppermint, or different citrus oils. There are many types of essential oils out there, so I may find some exceptions to this (I haven’t smelled them all, so I can’t be 100% sure). But that’s why I plan on exploring!

I love when my yoga teacher uses oils in her class. One of my first experiences with essential oils was probably in a yoga class, before I really knew what they were. All I knew is that they smelled good, felt amazing, and helped me relax. I definitely get a little extra excited when my teacher breaks out the oils in a class.

There is an oil for everything — and I’ve heard too many success stories to ignore. Although I was a little skeptical at first of using essential oils as a form of healthcare, waaay too many people rave about oils for me to write them off. As I start dabbling in the world of essential oils, I’m curious to see what works for me and what doesn’t.

I plan on blogging about my experiments with essential oils so stay tuned 🙂