Is Ginger Essential Oil Good For You?
The Ayurvedic tradition, stemming from Ancient India, focuses particularly on ginger and its benefits for the mind, body, and soul. In fact, most Indian recipes, even today, focus on using ginger as a key ingredient.
Ginger essential oil is an oil that is extracted from the ginger plant. Similar to the plant itself, the oil that is extracted from the plant can provide users with a number of benefits.
Here are 10 reasons why ginger essential oil is good for you.
1. Helps with Respiratory Problems
According to extensive research, ginger essential oil can help with all sorts of respiratory problems. In fact, if you are someone who has difficulty breathing at times or face shortness of breath, you may just want to consider inhaling ginger essential oil.
Inhaling ginger oil can even help clear up mucus inside your throat and lungs. As a result, it can be very effective when you’re suffering from a cold or flu, or even for more serious conditions such as bronchitis or asthma.
Asthma is a respiratory disease that can induce lung swelling, excessive production of mucus, and muscle spasms. As a result of these symptoms, someone with asthma is unable to breathe properly. Asthma has many different causes. It can, for example, be caused by a hormonal imbalance, pollution, stress, allergies, and infections.
Ginger oil’s anti- anti-inflammatory characteristics reduce the swelling in the lungs and open up the air passageways. This is proved by one study that states that ginger oil can help clear any inflammation, irritation, or infection in human air ducts. For this reason, anyone who has a breathing problem is likely to benefit from the use of this oil.
Promotes Better Liver Functioning
Ginger essential oil has a rich concentration of antioxidants. As a result, ginger oil can be helpful when it comes to treating liver cancer as well as relieving the symptoms of it.
According to one study on mice with liver disease, orally consuming ginger oil for a period of four weeks significantly improved the symptoms of liver disease.
3. Helps with Digestive and Stomach Problems
Digestive problems such as an upset stomach, indigestion, and stomach aches are pretty common things that many people suffer from on a daily basis. However, you shouldn’t take these aches and pains lying down. The next time your stomach doesn’t agree with you, you should get a hold of some ginger essential oil.
According to one publication, ethanol was used to induce the formation of gastric ulcers in rats, and the effects of ginger oil were tested on removing the ulcer symptoms. It was found that after consuming ginger oil, the symptoms of gastric ulcers, such as bleeding of the stomach walls, was inhibited significantly.
Another study on humans found that ginger oil can reduce pain and discomfort in the stomach felt by patients post-surgery.
4. Relieves Symptoms of Food Poisoning and Other Infections
Sometimes, bacteria in the stomach can cause food poisoning and other similar conditions. Ginger essential oil can effectively relieve any such symptoms because of its anti-fungal properties.
The anti-fungal properties of the ginger root, found in its oil, can significantly reduce the potency of any bacteria that may be causing you stomach problems or other infections in the body.
One study, for example, found that ginger oil’s antioxidant and anti-fungal effects can reduce the impact of bacteria such as E Coli.
5. Reduces Inflammation
Inflammation in your body is a normal response to pain and leads to quicker healing. Sometimes, though, your immune system might overreact and begin to attack even your healthy tissues, causing an unhealthy amount of inflammation.
Excessive or abnormal inflammation in your body can cause pain, bloating, swelling, and all other sorts of discomfort. This is because inflammation implies that your immune system is incapable of protecting your precious body tissues any longer.
As a result of abnormal inflammation, you may end up with serious conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, arthritis, a leaky gut, etc.
During this time, you should consume as many anti-inflammatory foods as you possibly can to prevent your immune system from going into overdrive. And guess what? Ginger is one of the most anti-inflammatory plants that you can consume.
Research has found that zingibain is the anti-inflammatory component of ginger oil that is mainly responsible for reducing the amount of inflammation that one has to deal with. Research also found that ginger oil can reduce the quantity of prostaglandins in the body. This is a substance that is responsible for the pain that you experience in your body.
As such, ginger oil consumption can reduce the symptoms of migraines, headaches, muscle spasms, and even arthritis.
One publication found that mice who were treated with ginger essential oil for a period of one month displayed a massive reduction in symptoms of inflammation.
6. Improves Heart Health and Lower Cholesterol Levels
If you are someone who suffers from high cholesterol levels, you may want to consider regularly consuming ginger essential oil. According to a 2016 study, consuming ginger essential oil massively reduced cholesterol levels in dialysis patients. The study was meant to test the effect of the oil on the lipoproteins and serum lipids of the patients.
Not only is ginger essential oil helpful in ridding the body of ‘bad cholesterol,’ it can even improve overall heart health. In fact, research at the University of Maryland found that ginger oil can prevent the blood from clotting. Clogged blood vessels are the number one cause of a stroke or heart attack. Since ginger oil opens up clogged blood vessels, it can improve your cardiovascular health entirely.
Additionally, ginger oil can improve levels of lipid metabolism in the body, reducing the risk of diabetes, and improving heart health.
Rich in Antioxidants
As ginger essential oil has a rich concentration of antioxidants, it can inhibit oxidation in the body that is caused by harmful free radicals. An antioxidant is any substance that can prevent different sorts of damage to the cells, especially damage brought about by oxidation. Oxidation is the number one cause of dementia, heart disease, and even cancer
By inhibiting oxidative processes in the body, ginger oil can help improve your wellbeing on the whole. One study found that ginger oil can reduce oxidative processes brought about by aging by limiting the damage caused to body cells by the free radicals.
Other research has discovered that ginger oil’s anti-cancer properties can be attributed to the presence of two components – gingerol and zerumbone.
8. Improves Sex Drive
A number of people across the world suffer from a low sex drive or an inability to perform well during sex due to a lack of libido (sexual energy). Another common sexual problem men all over the world suffer from is impotence (erectile dysfunction), caused by insufficient libido.
Erectile dysfunction refers to the inability of a man to maintain an erection for a prolonged period, as a result, not having satisfying intercourse. Erectile dysfunction can be attributed to either psychological or physical problems.
Whatever the cause, impotence is problematic for people everywhere. Sometimes, people resort to medications and chemical substances in an attempt to boost libido levels or to cure impotence in the body.
Ginger essential oil is a much safer, all-natural alternative to these medicines because it functions as a natural aphrodisiac (a substance that boosts libido).
Ginger oil can even rid the mind of feelings, such as a lack of self-esteem and low confidence. So, the more confident you feel, the more likely it is for you to enjoy any sexual experience.
So if you want to have fun, healthy intercourse, you may want to consider using ginger essential oil to enhance your overall experience.
9. Helps with Anxiety and Depression
Ginger essential oil is often used in aromatherapy to improve a person’s mood and reduce the symptoms of fatigue. It can also help with more serious mental health conditions, such as depression or anxiety.
Ginger oil can provide feelings of comfort and help you feel less sad or depressed. It can also help you feel more relaxed, which is why it can be very effective for those who suffer from anxiety. Even just inhaling a few drops of ginger oil each night before sleeping can significantly improve your quality of sleep.
According to research based in Switzerland, ginger oil can significantly boost serotonin levels in the body. Serotonin is the ‘feel-good’ hormone that can make you happy and reduce feelings of depression and anxiety.
In fact, the effectiveness of ginger oil for anxiety can be traced all the way back to Ayurvedic times. Ancient Ayurvedic tradition believed that the ginger root and its oil can improve emotional wellbeing, ridding the mind of all sorts of negativity and feelings of abandonment, disillusionment with life, lack of motivation, etc.
One study on menstruating women found that consuming ginger capsules during their period could also relieve pre-menstrual Syndrome (PMS) symptoms that include mood swings, fatigue, and sadness.
10. Reduced Menstrual Cramps and Joint Pain
Regularly using ginger essential oil can help you get relief from backaches, menstrual cramps, joint pain and stiffness, soreness in the body, and headaches.
Ginger oil can even improve your blood circulation, speeding up the rate that the blood travels through your body. It can also reduce inflammation and is an antioxidant.
As such, if you suffer from excessive cramps during your period, or if you have regular aches and pains that you cannot seem to get rid of, you may want to consider the regular use of ginger oil.
According to one study at the University of Georgia, it was discovered that ginger oil can significantly reduce muscle pain caused by exercise.
If you are a regular at the gym or a fitness freak, you should apply ginger oil before and after each workout session if you want to relieve yourself of the muscular pain that you experience as a result of an excessive workout.
How to Use Ginger Essential Oil?
There are many different ways through which ginger essential oil can be used. The method of using it really depends on the purpose for which it is being used.
Inhaling ginger oil once or twice a day, or putting a few drops of the oil onto a diffuser and then inhaling the scent can work wonders for improving your mood, calming you down, and relieving symptoms of depression and anxiety.
If you’re using the oil to improve your cardiovascular health or to increase your blood circulation rate, all you have to do, is to rub some oil on your chest area. This will help improve your blood circulation and improve overall heart health.
If you are using ginger essential oil to relieve muscular pain, rub the oil on the parts of your body that are in pain at least twice every day until you find relief. If nausea is your problem, then rubbing the oil over your stomach is the solution.
Finally, if you suffer from a low sex drive, you need to rub some drops of the oil onto your feet or lower abdomen and massage well.
These were 10 reasons why ginger essential oil is good for you. Ginger essential oil can thus be used to treat all sorts of ailments – physical, mental, and emotional. In fact, no matter the problem, ginger oil seems to have a solution for everything!
So stop waiting and grab your bottle of ginger essential oil today!