The best essential oils for headache relief

Lately I have been getting a lot of headaches. It started about three months ago. A couple of times a week I would wake up with a headache behind my eyes. It was a dull pain that made it hard to think straight at times. Sometimes the pain was actually in my eyes, other times it felt like sinus pressure, but it was always in the same general area.

Sometimes these headaches would last a couple hours. Other times they would last all the way till bedtime. I was having a hard time stopping them and I couldn't even figure out where they came from.

I tried all the usual things for headaches: aspirin, Tylenol, ibuprofen, heat, cold, sleep, caffeine, even allergy medicines and nothing worked. I slept well & I don't have allergies so there was basically no reason why I would wake up with these headaches. Especially since it never happened before! (yes, I did see a Dr. and she couldn't find a medical reason why I started getting headaches)

I eventually turned to essential oils out of desperation. I was literally grasping at straws. I was just praying something would work because it's really hard to go through your entire day with your whole head full of squeezing pressure. 

I have essential oils on hand, I use them in my salve recipes and diffuser all the time. So luckily I had about 20 to choose from and carrier oils to go with them.

Essential oils for headache relief

I did a lot of research and I found that these are the essential oils most often used for headaches:

• Peppermint
• Lavender
• Rosemary
• Eucalyptus
• Chamomile
• Frankincense 

I also found that these are the essential oils are used for sinus problems and allergies:

• Lemon
• Lavender
• Peppermint 
• Eucalyptus

Lastly I found that these are some of the oils used for stress:

• Lavender 
• Frankincense
• Chamomile 
• Ylang Ylang

As you can see there's a good deal of overlap in these categories. This was helpful as I wasn't really sure what was causing my headaches. One by one I tried the different oils in my diffuser. Anything that seemed to help got put in one pile and anything that didn't seem to help was put away.

Essential oils headache blend

Now I had a good idea of where to go with this and had my selection of what worked. I started to make my own blends. This one ended up being my favorite:

• Peppermint  10 drops
• Lavender  6 drops
• Rosemary  6 drops
• Eucalyptus  6 drops

I usually mix this together in a small bottle then add a few drops to my diffuser when I need it. If I take this blend and dilute it with a carrier oil, I can put it in one of these roller ball bottles and I roll it on the bottoms of my feet and then massage it in. I use 1/3 of the EO blend and 2/3 of the carrier oil. That seems to help my headache a lot. 

I'm not sure if it's the massage, the essential oils or the relaxing feeling of a foot rub. I don't know & I actually don't care as long as my headaches go away. Yes, it gets that bad!

The great thing is there's so much Essential Oil information out there right now that you can literally find an oil for almost anything, and they're very easy to experiment with in a cool mist diffuser to see if they help you or not.

Now I'm sure you're curious why I didn't try essential oils right away. After all I like to do everything natural and I've mentioned many times in the past how I use essential oils, so clearly I'm comfortable with them. 

Well the answer is, I used them wrong once and it did not turn out well! This is one of the reasons why I always say 'do not believe everything you read on the internet'. Even when I tell you things, I would hope people would research and not just take my word or anybody's word for it. 

Always dilute your oils!

When I first got essential oils I only had 3. I started using them and I used them for everything, of course. I was the "there's an oil for that!" lady for sure! This lasted about 3 weeks before I read that you could use peppermint oil for sinus pressure. The instructions were to rub the peppermint oil on your temples and under your nose. 

Do you know how much it burns if you rub straight peppermint oil on your face? It's the weirdest cold burn you've ever felt! Not good at all.

After getting it all washed off, I went back and looked up the instructions and it said to apply directly from the bottle. There was no talk of dilution, there was no talk of anything but putting the oil directly from the bottle onto your face. Trust me, that is not something you want to do! 

I decided to start looking for more sources and finally (this is many years back when there wasn't as much information on essential oils available) I found a few other sources. Every single one of these other sites said to dilute the oil. 

So there's my lesson learned and there is why I'm often hesitant to put oils on myself directly.

Ok, I'm out of here. I've got to go figure out a new fence in the garden because there's a deer that wants to eat my Valerian and if she does I won't have any of those pretty white flowers. Have a great day!

Related reading: Essential oils that can help reduce stress.

~L 

Though I never figured out what caused these headaches, I do get sinus headaches occasionally also. I make These Easy Sew Lavender Headache Pillows to help with those!

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I am not a doctor or other health care professional nor do I claim to be. I am simply passing on information that has worked for me. This information is not medical advice and is for entertainment purposes only. Please see a Dr if you are ill. Click for my full disclosure. 

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