How Essential Oils Work To Regulate The Nervous System When Stressed

Burnout specialist and traditional Chinese medicine practitioner Cait Donovan explains how essential oils help the body manage anxiety caused by a constant state of flux.

Her master’s degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine enables Cait to combine Eastern wisdom with her natural practicality.

By Cait Donovan, leading burnout specialist and acupuncturist

Burnout. Mindfulness. Agility. Resilience. Hustle. Overwhelm. Authenticity — buzzwords that aren’t going away anytime soon. Buzzwords that caught our attention because of resonance. Buzzwords that are here to stay because of experience… and science. As someone who started a path to medical school and ended up studying Chinese medicine instead, I’ve always straddled the energy and the science, the magic and the research, the old and tried and the new and innovative.

It is my favorite thing when current science arrives at the same conclusion as medicine and practices that are 1000’s of years old. Here’s what we know right now: Mindfulness matters. The Miracle of Mindfulness, a book by Thich Nhat Hahn released in 1996 remains on Amazon best-seller lists 25 years later not by mistake. In it, he shares Buddhist practices for everyday life, describes the simple act of mindfulness and allows it to shift perspectives and change lives.

There is no ‘science’ in it, but there is plenty of science that backs up mindfulness.

“It’s my favorite thing when current science arrives at the same conclusion as 1000’s year-old medicine and practices. Here’s what we know now: Mindfulness matters. .”

And yet, so many of us are distracted. We sit at our computers and start an email, then we hear the buzz of a text coming through our phones and the swoosh of another email landing in our inbox. Mindfulness is hindered by distraction and modern life is a distraction city! This is why MINDALT’s method of creating mindful moments is so powerful. The act of #smellswipesmile is just what you need to settle yourself in a moment.

In addition to settling yourself in the moment, the act of #smellswipesmile with your MINDALT deodorant goes a few levels deeper — working with the breath, the brain and the body. Neuroscience tells us the combination of the essential oils and the moment of mindfulness activate the cranial nerves in the brainstem that are responsible for proper social interaction, communication, and the ability to self-care when the need arises.

The cranial nerves are basically responsible for moving us through the spectrum of sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic (rest and digest / freeze) states. The most prominent of these is the vagus nerve (CN X) which wanders throughout the whole body and interprets our overall level of safety. Because all the cranial nerves interact with one another, when we engage the olfactory nerve (CN I) by using essential oils, it tells the vagus nerve to bring us to, or keep us in a rest and digest state.

Taking this mindful moment in the morning actually enhances your body’s ability to heal during the day. Our bodies are constantly in a state of flux, moving through stressors and rebalancing, being pressed and pushing back, constantly moving away from and back toward the healthiest state.

Our jobs are to increase the number of healthy mindful moments that we have throughout the day in order to make this flux easier, to lower the amplitude of the wave, to stay flexible, agile, and ready to heal. There are so many people who are already burnt out, in a state that is stuck on the highest point of the wave, unable to come back through the center. Their nervous systems are on high alert, stuck in a hypervigilant mode that has become their norm.

Mindfulness through engaging the senses is one of the easiest and fastest ways to recalibrate the nervous system and MINDALT makes it easy to make this a regular part of your morning routine, a normal part of your day. I personally love both the MINDFUL and FOCUS essential oil blends and I leave them both on my bathroom counter. Taking the time to really inhale and making deodorant a mindful part of my day helps me to start off on the right foot, in a healing mode, and with pride that I’m doing what it takes to keep myself happy and healthy.

About Cate

Cait Donovan is one of New York City’s leading burnout experts and acupuncturists, host of “Fried — The Burnout Podcast,” and author of the book “The Bouncebackability Factor: End Burnout, Gain Resilience, and Change the World”. Her master’s degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine enables Cait to combine Eastern wisdom with her natural practicality. After performing more than 25,000 acupuncture treatments, Cait added 1:1 coaching, corporate workshops, and keynotes for companies such as PTC, Lululemon, Vedder Price, Marsh and Mclennan, and Workplaceless — all with a focus on ending burnout culture.

She has been featured on podcasts and online magazines such as “Forbes”, “Elephant Journal,” “Thrive Global,” “Addicted 2 Success”, as well as quoted in Oprah Magazine.

The Lark is where Mindalt, The mood enhancing deodorant. shares mood news and inspiration for making days and mornings matter.