Our immune system is much bigger and more complicated than the average person believes. In fact, it is not entirely understood. What I have learned through the years is that our immune system needs more than vitamin C and rest to keep our bodies healthy.
Did you know that the health of your immune system is based on the health of your digestive tract? That environment is created and influenced by what you eat, how you act, the energy around you, and how you handle stress. All of those factors are really just snippets of what fuels and supports digestive tract and therefore the immune system.
True health begins with the understanding of prevention and instead of reaction at the time of need.
When we understand that our health depends on what we do daily to support and to serve our body verses reacting to problems like sickness, we gain an opportunity for longevity and a chance to become more intuitive to our needs and what works for our individual body.
With that in mind, I’d like to introduce you to a natural, ancient way to support our immune systems: Essential Oils (EO’s).
Specifically, I will be referencing Young Living’s essential oils and my experiences with the purity of the company along with using the essential oils on myself, my family and my dog. The knowledge I have gained is supported by my experience in my holistic practice, as well as my years of education on healing naturally and understanding the human body.
Please remember, that my experiences are based on Young Living oils exclusively. Other brands do not match their purity. Do your research concerning additives and chemicals when considering alternative brands.
Before we dive in to Essential Oils, here are some points to consider:
The health of our gut is a direct reflection of our immune system.
Stress does affect our immune system as well as the function of all our body’s cells. Having an outlet for releasing stress and finding ways to minimize it is important. Some ways I work to reduce stress is through exercise, breathing exercises, yoga, and essential oils.
Our lungs and colon are on the same nerve, which means their functioning mirrors each other. If one is healthy, the other will be healthy and vice versa.
The more you listen to and answer your body’s needs, the more it will tell you about what it wants.
Eat properly as a way to improve your immune system. Fuel your body with vegetables, fruits, meats, and whole grains. Watch out for additives, preservatives, chemicals, dyes, and added sugar, like white sugar and high fructose corn syrup. These extras are very hard on our bodies. They slow down our digestion and line our organs with residue. In addition, they can go into your bloodstream and be filtered around your body to different systems.
Hydrate with pure water. When you drink anything that has added goodies in it, like flavouring, your body does not process it as water, but as glucose. This slows down the movement of your blood cells and adds sugar levels to your body that it has to work to break down to regain a healthy sugar level.
You need to drink at least 40 ounces of good ole’ water consistently every day. If you get more, even better, but make sure you at least hit the 40 ounces. This allows your body to send the water deep into your body and renew what needs to be renewed. If you are not drinking enough water daily, your body will use the water to flush and detox whatever is easiest because it does not know how much water it will get. We need to ensure that we are fuelling our body to the core.
Try to have alkaline and acidic foods with each meal. The two types of foods balance each other out. Being too acidic makes your body a breeding ground for pathogens and will slow down your immune system. It is good practice to also to eat your vegetables first in a meal to support your natural digestive enzymes.
Try to eat one food rich in vitamins A, B, C and D daily to naturally boost your immune system. Supplements are wonderful, but not as easy to digest and use as food, especially because there are good and bad products.
Let’s Dig Into Essential Oils!
Many people are familiar with herbs and plants and the reasons they help our body, especially our healing abilities. Essential oils do the same, just in a stronger way because they are the “essence” of the plant, and can be used in variety of ways: topically, diffused, and ingested. (Please note that several Young Living essential oils are FDA-approved for ingestion. Be cautious when considering ingestion with other brands).
Human cells and plant cells have a very similar structure to them so our bodies assimilate essential oils into our cellular structure. Therefore, the oils support our bodies because our bodies understand them.
An essential oil is the metabolism of a plant. The oil performs many functions for the plant such as protecting, repelling, cleansing, and also sending nutrients to where they need to go to. These all stimulate and encourage the natural processes that promote growth. The ‘essential oil’ is a high potency of the plant that it comes from.
Our bodies process essential oils using the senses. For example, when we smell an essential oil, it takes 22 seconds for the scent to go up our nostrils and reach our olfactory gland. Here it is processed and sent to our limbic gland then our brain applies those molecules to active memory and recall, which causes the molecules to journey to where they are needed.
Breathing in an essential oils’ scent is an extremely quick way to cause our brain to connect to our body’s needs and apply the oil’s molecules accordingly.
Young Living carries a wide selection of oils that can benefit your body physically, mentally, and emotionally. Here are my must-haves for immune support:
Frankincense helps to clean the free radicals (man-made toxins) off the cells in your body. We cannot use free radicals as nutrients, so they just move around our body and negatively affect it by clogging the receptor sites of our cells. When this happens, our cells may not receive clear information or proper nutrition. This leads to cells that are unhealthy and can lead to cells mutating.
- Put a drop under your tongue in the AM.
- Put a drop into your Ningixa Red (Young Living’s supplement drink) in the AM.
- Apply over your liver daily.
- Apply to temples and down the neck and shoulders.
- Diffuse anytime.
Digize is a blend of tarragon, ginger, peppermint, juniper, lemongrass, anise, patchouli, and fennel essential oils. It helps your digestive tract work properly. It gets the digestive enzymes moving, helps cleanse and scrub built-up residue from the inner linings of your organs, and stimulates movement in the digestive tract by encouraging pathogens and toxins to move through it.
- Apply to stomach AM and PM for routine digestive support.
- Apply to stomach when your digestive system is out of balance.
- Apply before large or heavy meals.
- Ingest a vegetable capsule daily (combine a couple drops of Digize and a couple drops of Extra Virgin Olive Oil).
- Diffuse when multiple people have upset stomachs.
Lemon is made from the rind of the fruit, which means it is alkaline versus the juice from the lemon, which is acidic. Therefore, you can ingest or apply it to bring down acid levels. When our body is too acidic, it is more likely to keep pathogens and toxins. Lemon also cleanses our lymphatic system. The cleaner this system is, the more it can do for our immune system. In addition, lemon helps break down and loosen mucus cells and clusters.
- Put a drop in a cup of warm water in the AM to wake up your digestive and lymphatic systems.
- Put over the liver or lymph nodes that need support.
- Ingest or apply when you feel too acidic.
- Apply to your chest when going to bed during allergy season to help move mucus.
Stress Away is made up of lime, vanilla extract, copaiba, lavender, and cedarwood essential oils. This blend is important for our immune system because stress exhausts our bodies. If you have a release and an outlet for your stress, your body’s energy can focus on its natural processes instead of moving and storing stress.
- Start your day by applying this oil.
- Keep it with you, so you can apply when you need it during the day.
- Diffuse to help balance the energy in your environment.
Valor supports courage, confidence, and emotional balance. The more pity and blues you create when you are sick, the harder it is for your body to bring you out of that weakened state. Applying Valor can help counter the feelings that contribute to you not feeling well. The more positive you can be, the better you will feel.
- Apply to the temples or heart as needed.
- Diffuse to help encourage confidence and emotional balance.
RC is a powerful blend of spruce, cypress, and three types of eucalyptus oils (eucalyptus globulus, eucalyptus radiata, and eucalyptus citriodora). This oil is most known for its ability to support the respiratory system. Its combination naturally stimulates movement in the respiratory system, so it effectively opens our airways. RC also supports calming and meditation.
- Apply to the chest and or the back of the neck for sinus and respiratory support.
- Put a drop in your hand, cup over the nose, and breathe in to help move clogs in the nasal passage.
- Diffuse when respiratory system is run down.
- Put on the bottom of the feet AM and PM to promote respiratory health.
- Fill a bowl with 2 cups of boiling water, add 2 drops of RC, put a towel over your head, and breathe in the aroma to help with breathing and nasal passages.
- Apply to neck to help with sinus tension.
Raven is made up of ravintsara, eucalyptus radiata, peppermint, wintergreen and lemon. Like RC, this blend supports the respiratory system and can be used the same way. More specifically, this oil is best used when applied to the chest to support the esophagus and lungs. In addition, it helps release tension in the throat and chest area.
- When your throat is dry and sore, apply as often as needed.
- Apply to help soothe irritations in the throat and chest.
- Diffuse to support the respiratory system and its functions.
- Fill a bowl with 2 cups of boiling water, add 2 drops of Raven, put a towel over your head, and breathe in the aroma to help with breathing and nasal passages.
Immupower is a blend of hyssop, mountain savory, cistus, camphor, frankincense, oregano, clove, cumin, and dorado azul. Although this blend was designed to support the immune system, it also supports our body as a whole. For instance, the oils within Immupower target the digestive tract, respiratory system and lymphatic system.
- Apply to the bottom of the feet AM and PM.
- Apply to the bottom of the feet as need when immune system is off.
- Diffuse to promote immune boosting.
Thieves is a combination of lemon, rosemary, eucalyptus radiata, clove, and cinnamon. This blend is well-known for being created during the Black Plague by robbers who needed protection against contracting the disease while they committed their crimes. When they were caught, people were amazed that they had never gotten sick, and they revealed Thieves’ oils combination as their secret. Like the robbers, you can use the Thieves blend combination to support your immune system and boost its disease-fighting abilities. Because Thieves is a “hot” oil, it should be combined with a carrier oil unless you are applying it to the bottom of your feet. I suggest at least 10 drops carrier oil (I use V6, which is Young Living’s carrier oil) to 1 drop of Thieves.
- Combine 1 drop each of Thieves, lemon, and peppermint along with a dash of honey in hot tea to boost your immune system.
- Put 2 drops in 2 ounces of water and gargle when your mouth and throat feel irritated.
- Diffuse when symptoms are showing or when you have been around people that were sick.
- Apply to the bottom of the feet AM and PM to boost your immune system (do more frequently when feeling ill).
Lavender is one of the most well-known oils. When you are ill, use this oil to help relax your body and calm areas that are inflamed. Sleep is essential to healing, and Lavender can be used to encourage peaceful sleep.
- Diffuse at nighttime to promote a restful night’s sleep.
- Apply to the edges of areas of the body that are irritated (never apply an oil directly to a red or open part of your body. When applied along the outside, the body naturally pulls the oil to where it needs to go).
- Apply to the bottom of the feet to promote relaxation and ease.
- Apply to the bottom of the feet when your body temperature is above average to help calm the nervous system.
Peppermint is naturally supportive to our digestive tract, respiratory system, and nervous system. In addition, sniffing peppermint can help support our sense of smell.
- Apply to the roof of your mouth daily to bring back the sense of taste or smell.
- Fill a bowl with 2 cups of boiling water, add 2 drops of Raven, put a towel over your head, and breathe in the aroma to help with breathing and nasal passages.
- Apply to the bottom of the feet when your temperature is high to help calm the nerves.
- Apply over chest or digestive tract to soothe.
One of the most fun parts of using Essential Oils is experimenting with DIY Recipes to support your body. Here are 3 of my favourite, easy ideas:
1. Chest Rub
- Fill a small jar with a lotion base that does not have fillers or fragrances (no smell).
- Add 1 to 2 drops each of RC, Raven, Lavender, Lemon and Peppermint.
- Mix with a spoon.
- Apply over your chest before bed.
Tip: Leave the area exposed, so you can smell the oils throughout the night.
2. Thieves Tea
- 1 drop of each Thieves, Lemon and Peppermint.
- 1 cup of tea (whatever you wish).
- Spoonful of honey to taste.
Mix and drink to boost your immune system.
3. Roller Blend for Immune Boosting
- Put 5 drops each of Lemon, Thieves, Oregano, Thyme, Frankincense and Immupower in a 10mL glass roller bottle.
- Fill the rest with a carrier oil (I suggest Young Living’s V6).
Roll on the bottom of the feet AM and PM daily. Use more frequently when your immune system is weakened.
Featured image by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.
Author:
Stephanie
Stephanie is an Essential Oil Educator, Applied Kinesiologist, Holistic Life Coach and Emotion Code Practitioner. To learn more or order from Young Living, please visit Stephanie’s website: www.myyl.com/bodysense or follow her on Instagram and Facebook.
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