Essentially balanced

These essential oils can help you soothe stress, balance your hormones and feel like your best self again

- Marcelle Pick

Have you ever noticed the impact a scent can have on your mood? I’ve experienced this so often— when I take a deep breath of ocean air or the earthy smell of a forest when I’m hiking, I can feel my body calming and my mood lifting.

The power of scent is just one of the ways that essential oils can have a positive impact on your health. Essential oils can help with restoring hormonal balance, which is vital to all aspects of health.

Many women come to see me about difficult symptoms related to hormonal imbalance. I’m not just talking about PMS or menopausal symptoms, either.

The constant stress of daily life brings women into my office who are overloaded with cortisol, the stress hormone, or have been battling stress so long that their thyroid and adrenal glands aren’t functioning as they should.

As part of a healthy lifestyle that includes stress reduction techniques, good quality sleep and a nutritious diet, essential oils can really make a difference.

What are essential oils?

Essential oils are all-natural oils made up of a complex mixture of natural chemicals extracted from certain parts of plants—leaves, barks, rinds and roots.

A few different methods can be used to extract and concentrate these oils. Examples are distillation with water and/or steam, mechanical processing known as expression (unique to citrus peel oils) and a process called maceration, or soaking the plant in oil, that is used on only a very limited number of plants.

After distillation, the oil is separated from the water so it’s truly pure oil. That makes these oils extremely concentrated—and very powerful. A little goes a long way, and very few essential oils should be used in their fully concentrated form.