WHAT ARE ESSENTIAL OILS? Interview with Dr. David Stewart

Cut through the marketing jargon and hype about essential oils with science-based, practical answers from Dr David Stewart, a doctor of natural medicine.

Interview by Patricea Chow

WHAT ARE ESSENTIAL OILS? How to tell if they are pure or of good quality? How do they support wellness?

These are questions that new users of essential oils have. As there are many different answers from various sources to these same questions, it is difficult to know which is the safest option for our family and ourselves.

Thankfully, Dr. David Stewart has the answers. A Doctor of Natural Medicine, Dr Stewart has been recognized and awarded by the World Organization of Natural Medicine Practitioners, and is also a registered aromatherapist with the Aromatherapy Registration Council. He has also authored and co-authored over 200 published works, and is a lecturer who has spoken throughout the USA, Canada, and many international countries.

What are essential oils and how do they work?

Essential oils are fluids that circulate through plants, from roots, to stems, to leaves, and flowers. They carry out the necessary functions for a plant to live, just as our blood circulates through our bodies so that we can live. That is why they are called ‘essential’.

How do essential oils help the body?

Essential oils fit the cellular receptors of our bodily cells so perfectly, it is as if they were made for human beings, and perhaps they were, where plants are simply the agents to bring them to us. The messages and information they carry to human cells assist in virtually every normal human function. Essential oils have something called ‘homeostatic intelligence’, that knows what your body needs and acts in a direction to fulfill that need. ‘Homeostasis‘ is a state of body and mind where the body is working in perfect harmony with no sickness or malfunction.

How do I know the essential oils I am using are of good quality?

No one has the capability of inspecting the farming, harvesting, distilling, packaging, and all of the processes that take place from a seed in the ground to an oil in a bottle. All you can do is find a company with its own farms, laboratories, and distilleries, learn all you can about them and get to know the owners and the people in the company. From then on it is just a matter of trust.

I have been with Young Living for 16 years, have visited several of its farms, distilleries, and laboratories. I have gotten to know the owner and several of the corporate executives over the years. All of my contacts and encounters with the company in their offices, farms, and packaging facilities has generated a great deal of trust. Besides, after using Young Living oils for 16 years and having experienced many positive outcomes and witnessed outright miracles in others with these oils, I have built a great trust. That is how I know I am using essential oils of good quality.

How can I tell if an essential oil is pure?

First of all, you need to check out as many aspects of a company as you can, like described in the last question. Sometimes you can smell if an oil has been denatured or adulterated. But if you are getting consistently good results, personally, over an extended period of time, then you can trust that the oils you are using are pure.

Of course, if you want to go to the expense of paying for a detailed laboratory analysis, you can find out that way, too. But unless you have a lab who knows how to analyse for the right things with the right equipment, you may not find out if an oil is pure or not. Some less authentic companies can formulate an adulterated oil in a way that can fool even the best of laboratories and chemists.

 Essential oil molecules are small enough to travel at cellular levels to every place in your body…

Why is it important to select pure, authentic essential oils?

Only genuine, pure, therapeutic grade essential oils have the wellness maintaining qualities we seek. Once an oil has had some compounds removed or added, the oil’s properties have been damaged, reduced, or disabled completely.

Other than aromatic uses, how can essential oils be used to support overall health?

Essential oil molecules are small enough to travel at cellular levels to every place in your body—muscles, organs, nerves, circulatory system—and can pass through the blood brain barrier. By diffusing them and breathing them in, they protect you from harmful bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Inhaling them can bring you relaxation and peace, can increase your concentration and attention span, and can facilitate spiritual energy to assist in your prayers and meditation. They can assist with respiration, cardiac activity, digestion, and both physical and mental activity.

How do essential oils support emotional health?

When inhaled, essential oils go straight to the back of the nose where it connects with the brain that is beneath your cerebral hemispheres and above the roof of your mouth. This is your limbic brain, or emotional brain.

Essential oils affect your emotions before it touches your rational faculties. They can be used to access long lost memories of distant traumas, that may have happened to you years ago, that you may have forgotten. By resurrecting such traumatic memories, one can resolve them and heal any physical maladies that are the result of these repressed memories.

Daily exposure to essential oils can not only help dig into the past and resolve old issues, they can also prevent you from accumulating any new issues in the present.

Inhaling-essential-oil-from-bottle: “Inhaling (essential oils) can bring you relaxation and peace, can increase your concentration and attention span.”

When do you need to dilute essential oils and what do you dilute essential oils with?

Essential oils are most often used undiluted, neat on the skin, and inhaled. When diluted, this must be done with a vegetable oil which has larger, less volatile molecules which will slow down the evaporation or absorption of the essential oil.

There are some situations where you want the essential oil to work more slowly, or to lower its frequency to resonate with the body’s larger, heavier parts (like the bones and joints). Essential oils that are very strong, and can irritate the skin or other membranes in the body, sometimes need to be diluted to soften their effects. Oregano essential oil is one such oil that often needs to be diluted.


What is your favorite essential oil, how do you use it, and what do you use it for?

IN STOCK - CLICK HERE TO ORDER

My favorite is Endoflex blend. Its purpose is to balance your body’s endocrine system so that your body is functioning in a balanced, homeostatic manner. Its dominant fragrance is from the Spearmint essential oil in the formulation. I apply it almost every day, starting across my abdomen, then from the navel up the sternum, to my thyroid in the neck, and then around my neck to the back of my skull. It makes me feel good and I feel I am starting off the day just right. Besides, I love the fragrance.

Based on your experience, what would you recommend to someone who is seeking to achieve overall wellness?

Eat right, drink right, exercise sensibly on a daily basis, read spiritually uplifting books, associate with positive, loving and kind people, keep essential oils in your daily environment, have a regular prayer life, be kind and thoughtful, send your love to everyone you meet, see, hear about, or think about, and seek to know, at all times, that God is always near, and loves you dearly. ~ Dave Stewart



SOURCE http://www.wellnessway-mag.com/wellbeing-fitness/ask-the-doctor-essential-oils-101-dr-david-stewart/