Freshen the Air and Tame Your mental chatter

What is Mental Chatter?

Mental chatter is different for everyone. It is thoughts, voices, and noise from our subconscious mind. Mental chatter can come for feelings of stress, sadness, worry, fear or anxiousness. It can come fun us over thinking a task or problem. Our mental chatter comes from our brain which is made up in several parts. The pieces that give us the chatter and feedback from our senses in our Nervous system and our Limbic system.

Our Nervous system includes our brain, spinal cord, nerves, and sensory organs which are the eyes, ears, tongue, nose, and even our skin.

Our Limbic is a small part of the brain but has some the most basic, life-sustaining and meaningful roles of all brain structure. The word limbic comes from the latin word limbus, meaning “border”. That’s because the limbic system forms a curved border around subcortical part of the brain called the cerebral cortex and the diencephalon. The Limbic system sits atop the brain stem which is the back of the head where the head and neck meet.

The nervous and limbic systems are directly connect to your senses, heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, memory, stress levels, hormone balance, and more. While the entire central nervous system helps control the emotions, activities in limbic system and a autonomic nervous system are especially influential over emotional health. In 1998 Higley & Higley stated, “This relationship helps explain why smells often trigger emotions. Knowing this, we can hypothesize how inhalation of essential oils can have some very profound physiological and psychological effects!”

What do Essential Oils have to do with mental chatter?

Essential oils help the body function normally and contributes to general

wellbeing through Aromatic, Topical, and Internal use. It is important to understand to proper use of each oil as well as the quality of the oils you are using. Not all oils are created equally. As a certified Essential Oil Coach, I choose to only use doTerra Essential Oils and products.

To paraphrase a 2012 study conducted at Toho University in Japan evaluated the stress-induced changes in laboratory animals brains and the efficacy of inhaled lavender essential oils., “As a result of lavender oil treatment, there was a significant reduction of anxious behavior similar to those seen after administration of medications used to treat the behaviors”

The role of the dorsal and ventral hippocampus in olfactory working memory by Kesner, RP, Hunsaker, MR, Ziegler, W from 2011 states, “The hippocampus is involved in the olfaction (smelling) Aromatic molecules contained within essential oils interact with sensors in your nasal cavity, lungs, pores and more. Research shows that the olfactory bulb projects information into the ventral part of the hippocampus and the hippocampus send axons to the main olfactory bulb. This is how memories and smells become tied together.

Once engaged, sensors emit strong emotional signals base on smells starting from the limbic system and spreading throughout the rest of the body.

How do we use essential oils?

Aromatically: Is inhalation of the essential oil. This can be done by simple opening a bottle and smelling it, through defusing, in a room spray, or by placing a drop on your hand and cuping it over your mouth and nose.

During inhalation order molecules travel through the nose and affet the various receptor sites in that are part of your nervous and limbic systems.

Topically: Applied directly to the skin. Our skin is somewhat permeable allowing the molecules in essential oils to absorbed. While some oils are safe to apply NEAT meaning straight out for the bottle. Using a carrier oils is recommended for several reasons reasons one being that it allows for more even distribution of the essential oil onto the skin, helps distract from any possible irritation or reaction, and it also slows down the evaporate off of your skin so you get the full benefit from them. Remember, essential oils are “volatile organic compounds,” meaning they are easily emitted as gas when they are exposed to the air. This is why you can smell them immediately after opening the bottle.

Internally - Many essential oils are safe for internal use but a little bit goes a long way. Usually 1–3 drops is plenty mixed with water or in a veggie cap. Again Not all oils are created equally. doTerra clearly labels their oils. If it doesn’t not have nutrition supplement fact listed on the bottle DO NOT USE Internally. doTerra bottles will be clearly labeled. Safety is important and each oil different. Oils like peppermint, lemon and frankincense have great internal benefits and can be taken with water. Other essential oils like clove and oregano need to be diluted and shouldn’t be taken internally for more than 1 week.

When It comes to mental chatter the aromatic use give us the most benefits. There are several premade blends that can support the nervous and limbic systems that may be triggering our mental chatter.

InTune

Citrus Bliss

Elevate

Cheer

Motivate

Thinker

Calmer

Fo overall support of the nervous and limbic system use Frankincense

Cedarwood is the oil of wisdom and supports or nervous system and may improve our ability to focus. I may dispel feeling of fear and support feeling of courage.

All citrus oils contain D-Limonene which uplifts the mood.

For feelings of sadness

Lemon

Bergamot

Lime

Wild Orange

For feelings of worry

Rose

Jasmine

Lime

Lemon

For feelings of stress

Lavender

Bergamot

Roman Chamomile

Wild Orange

Here are a just a few of the diffuser blends that you may like: