The Ultimate Guide to Lavender Essential Oil Benefits

Lavender essential oil benefits are some of the safest and most versatile natural remedies on the planet. While the millennia have used lavender based on tradition and ancient wisdom, modern science is only just now discovering the mechanisms of lavender’s benefits and the many ways it can help us today.

5 Lavender Essential Oil Benefits

Since antiquity, the precious lavender plant has been documented for its medicinal properties and religious uses. We see it mentioned in ancient texts, through modern medical care studies. Beginning with Egyptian mummification, it moved to Roman bathhouses for the floral aroma and cooking. In modern times, lavender essential oil has been credited as the healing solution that Gattefosse instinctively covered his burned arm with, igniting a renewed interest in essential oils and inspiring the term aromatherapy.

The scent of lavender means it is grown in aroma gardens and herbs gardens as an ornamental plant. But once you learn the benefits of the oil, you’ll move beyond just the delightful fragrance of lavender and add it to your medicine cabinet. There are a couple of lavender species you’re likely to find as essential oils but Lavandula angustifolia (also formerly called L. officinalis or L. vera)

That lavender has stood the test of time, inspiring interest in its medicinal properties through many eras, cultures, and generations – a testament to the varied and effective properties of lavender. To scratch the surface of its capabilities, let’s look at the top 5 effects of lavender oil it brings to the table – a table riddled with health concerns.

1. Potent Antioxidant

A recurring theme in any natural health discussion, antioxidants are, in effect, the super healers that our culture needs. The free radicals created by toxins, pollutants, chemicals, and even stress are the culprits for a cascade of cellular damage, immune inhibition, and limitless health risks – including chronic illness and cancer.

If free radicals are the villains, antioxidants are the heroes. And many essential oils have antioxidant properties we can use to aid our body’s stress responses.

The body itself creates antioxidants in the form of the enzymes glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and catalase (CAT), among others. But we expose our bodies to an onslaught of free radicals and drain our bodies in sedentary lifestyles, so our natural production is not always sufficient.

We’ve already seen some super antioxidants, like clove essential oil, and lavender joins the ranks as a powerful natural antioxidant support. Not long ago, Chinese researchers observed that the antioxidant properties of lavender essential oil would attenuate all three major antioxidant enzyme levels in mice within the first day of treatment. (1)

In Romania, researchers noted similar activity using inhaled lavender for an hour each day and, according to the study, “Taken together, our results suggest that antioxidant properties and antiapoptotic activities of the lavender essential oils are the major mechanisms for their potent neuroprotective effects against scopolamine-induced oxidative stress in the rat brain.” (2)

Application: Tap into this power by including a couple of drops of lavender oil in your diffuser blends on a regular basis. Lavender capsules with 1-2 drops diluted in an edible carrier oil such as olive oil and taken internally may be helpful as well.

2. Help Manage Diabetes

Tunisian traditional medicine utilizes lavender, grown in their region, as a remedy and health support. In 2014, local scientists released the results of a study they had conducted to determine how this traditional remedy works. Their findings were fascinating.

The researchers established a 15-day study of diabetic rats, during which lavender essential oil was used as a treatment. The lavender treatment protected against all of the following, each one a hallmark of the diabetic illness:

• Blood glucose increases
• Metabolic illness
• Weight gain
• Depletion of antioxidants
• Liver and kidney dysfunction and lipoperoxidation

The presence of unmitigated free radicals, the depletion of antioxidants and liver and kidney function, the descent into metabolic illness, and weight gain – all are components of diabetes as an illness. Potent antioxidants like lavender essential oil are allies in the pursuit of long-term health, and this study underscored its abilities. (3)

There are other essential oils for diabetes if you are struggling with this in your life. With more research and concrete answers, perhaps one day lavender essential oil and other natural treatments will be the standard for diabetic prevention and relief!

3. Protect the Brain

While Tunisian researchers were analyzing metabolic health, lavender was taking center stage in published neurological research, and for similar reasons – to confirm longstanding traditional use. Lavender essential oil has long been used for stress, headaches, depression, and anxiety, which all fall under the umbrella of neurological conditions.

Just as confirmation of diabetic and metabolic support was uncovered in 2014, lavender’s neuroprotective abilities and anxiolytic properties were confirmed time and again in 2012 – the year of the lavender! In other words, science and history are slowly but surely meeting on common ground.

A full literature review made its way to the International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice in 2010, confirming lavender oil’s efficacy over the breadth of seven separate trials. A lavender essential oil capsule under the name Silexan was shown to consistently relieve symptoms such as sleep disturbance and anxiety to improve the quality of life of those with these conditions.

What’s more, no one reported adverse effects, negative interactions, or withdrawal symptoms. If you’ve ever encountered pharmaceutical use for these conditions, you know how incredible it is to avoid additional side effects!

Lavender’s neuro-heroics don’t stop with improving sleep quality alone. Research confirms time and again its incredible properties.

• A 2012 study conducted in Germany demonstrated the restorative benefits of inhaled lavender essential oil vapor. With 60 minutes a day inhaled by patients with dementia, lavender was shown to prevent scopolamine-induced oxidative stress. (4)
• The same study took Post Traumatic Stress Disorder into consideration, as well as finding significantly improved sleep, moods, and health, and a reduction of depression in individuals who were plagued with PTSD. The sedative effects of lavender on anxiety highlighted the potential benefits.
• In the same year, Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practices published a control study that highlighted the benefits of lavender for postpartum women. Twenty-eight women at high risk for postpartum depression found lessened anxiety and depression symptoms under a four-week lavender aromatherapy treatment plan. (5)
• Finally, in 2012, Molecules took a different neurological route when they published the theory that lavender may be a treatment worth considering for stroke. Yes, you read that right! According to the murine study, “In comparison with the model group, treatment with lavender oil significantly decreased neurological deficit scores, infarct size, the levels of [free radical], and attenuated neuronal damage [and antioxidants].” (6)

4. Antimicrobial Action

As much as lavender has been inhaled for neurological health, it has been utilized for its antimicrobial activity against infections and disorders. Nearly one hundred studies have been conducted and published on this topic, confirming repeatedly what history has known to be true.

Generational wisdom has rarely used oils singly when treating infectious illnesses. The combination of oils creates a synergistic reaction, maximizing each oil’s potential and antimicrobial activity. This has been validated with science.

Scientists from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa found that 75.6% of the forty-five blends they attempted produced favorable results. Of the blends used for this in vitro trial, the combination of lavender and cinnamon, or lavender and orange blends was the most powerful. Candida albicans and Staph aureus were susceptible to a 1:1 ratio of these oils, both frequent causes of topical and respiratory illness. (7)

5. Soothe & Heal Skin

Those antimicrobial and antioxidant components come full circle in this last – and certainly not least – major benefit of lavender essential oil.

Particularly when mixed with a soothing carrier oil like aloe or coconut – 10 drops per 1 ounce – massage with lavender oil is highly effective against sunburns, dry skin, minor scrapes and cuts, and canker sores. Even some immediate-type allergic reactions may be mitigated with lavender according to this rat study!

As part of a calming, soothing skin salve for daily use relieving skin conditions. For sensitive skin lavender blends well with sandalwood essential oil. Try incorporating drops of lavender oil into relaxing bath bombs you make yourself! Mix up a massage oil and bask in the deliciousness of the lavender scent.

Lavender & Working Memory

As we’ve already seen, lavender essential oil can possibly help protect people with dementia from oxidative stress. However, we need to remember that lavender is so calming, that it can affect “working memory.” This doesn’t mean that lavender will make people stupid, it’s just that you don’t want to be diffusing lavender while taking an important test or doing work at the office when you need to focus; especially if you have dementia or Alzheimer’s disease!

Over 140 participants were gathered for the study conducted by the University of Northumbria, Newcastle. Aromatherapy including rosemary and lavender, as well as a control group were utilized to affect cognitive performance and psychological effects.

• Regarding lavender and its calming abilities, “lavender produced a significant decrement in performance of working memory, and impaired reaction times for both memory and attention based tasks.”
• On the other hand, as a memory stimulant, “rosemary produced a significant enhancement of performance for overall quality of memory and secondary memory factors.”

In other words, lavender made participants feel relaxed and complacent, while rosemary essential oil increased alertness and provoked memory retention. (8)

A Note About Estrogen & Lavender

The only reason why we’re even having this discussion is because of a poorly researched 2007 New England Journal of Medicine article titled, “Prepubertal Gynecomastia Linked to Lavender and Tea Tree Oils.” The long and the short of it is that three boys obscurely developed idiopathic cases of prepubertal gynecomastia (when boys experience enlarged, tender breast buds) for a short period of time (1 – 5 months).

It was determined that all three patients were using either a shampoo, lotion, soap, or balm that included lavender oil and (tea tree) oil as ingredients. The researchers extrapolated that these essential oils were “estrogenic” based on a preliminary in vitro evaluation. In their words, “On the basis of the three case reports and the in vitro studies, we suspect that repeated topical application of over-the-counter products containing lavender oil or tea tree oil was the cause of gynecomastia in the three patients.” It is likely that the plastic used with the essential oils leeched estrogenic materials, making the results of this study flawed.  See more about how we evaluate studies about essential oils. (9)

There are several epidemiological reasons why this conclusion is false and it is out of the scope of this article to cover each one, but I’ll leave you with this thought: just because lavender and tea tree oils were two common ingredients in the products that these three boys were using, it does not prove that they were the cause. This is a classic statistics blunder that many make. “Correlation does not imply causation,” because there are countless other variables that not being considered (diet, environmental triggers, medicines, and etc.).

Suffice it to say that essential oils safety expert Robert Tisserand emphatically states that, “Lavender oil does not mimic estrogen nor does it enhance the body’s own estrogens. It is therefore not a ‘hormone disruptor’, cannot cause breast growth in young boys (or girls of any age), and is safe to use by anyone at risk for estrogen-dependent cancer.” (10) And Tisserand’s conclusion has been supported by more recent research.

In 2013, for instance, the International Journal of Toxicology published a study confirming that lavender is not estrogenic, at least in female rats. Whether it is for humans remains to be seen, but there is literally no research to prove otherwise. (11)

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