Use Lavender Essential Oil to Treat Headaches

The herb lavender is a soothing, aromatic plant that has been used in cosmetics, perfumes, culinary dishes, and for medicinal purposes for centuries. Holistic healers have used lavender alone, or combined with other herbs to help treat rashes, acne, burns, psoriasis, vaginitis, insomnia, anxiety, depression, headaches and much more. I suggested it to my husband to help with his insomnia, and it provided him with a relaxing night's sleep. I have often used it to help me relax and to relieve headaches.

How Lavender Essential Oil is Made and its Uses

Lavender essential oil is derived from the lavender flower usually through the process of steam distillation. Other ways the oil of lavender may be extracted are enfleurage (a prolonged process using vegetable or animal fat, flower petals, and alcohol), solvent (produces high yields at a cheaper cost), or hydrodiffusion (another form of steam distillation), just to name a few. Lavender essential oil can be applied directly to the skin without causing burning or damage, making it an excellent oil to be used for massages. The active ingredients of linolol, esters, ketones, and aldehydes found throughout the lavender plant are what constitutes its healing properties. It is the active ingredients esters and ketones that help to ease the pain of headaches, as esters is known to relieve tension, soreness, muscle spasms, and depression, while ketones helps with pain reduction.

No Side Effects

Compared to synthetic or over-the-counter remedies, lavender essential oil provides a natural way of alleviating pain associated with headaches, with no side effects. However, some people with highly sensitive skin who have used lavender essential oil have developed an allergic skin reaction when using it externally, but cases are very rare.

How to Use Lavender Essential Oil to Treat Headaches

There are many ways to use lavender when it comes to treating a headache. Some ways I have used this healing herb is as an infusion of its dried flowers and leaves in the form of a delightful tea, and also used lavender candles made from the essential oil for aromatherapy. In addition, I have used the essential oil in soothing baths, and massaged it into my temples. A little lavender essential oil placed on a wet, cool cloth, which I place on my forehead is another way to help alleviate headache pain.

Grow Your Own Lavender

The Lavender plant is a perennial that is easy to grow, as it prefers full to partial shade and well-drained soil. It is hardy from zones five to 10 and are native to the Mediterranean area. I have grown lavender for years and although I do not extract my own essential oil, I do use the flowers and leaves in tea.

Source: deancoleman.com