Do you live with anxiety and want to learn more about some of the best essential oils for anxiety to help with calming? I find them incredibly helpful with my own chronic illness journey and find they work for me and my body. Essential oils used safely can be so powerful to help with naturally helping you reduce anxiety levels. Essential oils do require research before use to ensure you’re aware of the proper safety information surrounding how to use them safely. I also encourage you to speak with a healthcare professional as well if you have questions about how they could interact with your body and medications.
Anxiety can be all-consuming, it can take control and hold on tight. However, there are other times anxiety can be quite mild and short-lived. Anxiety is unique to each individual, I’ve never met two people who have exactly the same experience.
I have many loved ones in my life who live with anxiety and stress. The essential oils for anxiety that are listed below and all calming oils I’ve recommended and used in my own home for loved ones. These essential oils can also be used for relaxation, reducing stress, and feeling calm. Keep ready to learn more about essential oils to help with anxiety.
I use Revive Essential Oils for all my oils as I trust their brand and the science behind their oils. If you’re interested in Revive essential oils click here!
Wanting to learn about recommended essential oils accessory items – check out my guide here!
Lavender
Lavender is a wonderful scent, it’s a must-have in our house. It has many benefits, but some that stand out with regard to anxiety are: promoting a sense of calm, easing the feeling of anxiety, promoting a serene state of mind, promoting restful sleep, and reducing blood pressure.
Lavender oil can be used topically or aromatically to help relieve anxiety, but it can not be used internally. Topically, you can dilute lavender with a carrier oil (such as coconut oil) and massage it into your body. You can also put this into a rollerball and roll it over tense areas on the body as needed throughout the day. Lavender can also be used in a bath in combination with Epsom salts. You can read all about bath benefits here!
Lavender can also be diffused. For myself, I like to put 4-5 drops into my diffuser and just let it run throughout the day. It helps on days when we’re really busy as it’s just naturally around the house and we interact with smelling it often. I’ve also found that I like diffusing a drop or two on my essential oils bracelet. This travels with me throughout the day and I can inhale from it as needed.
Lavender is powerful for aromatherapy. Have you ever used lavender for helping you calm down by using it as an oil for relaxation? Bonus: you can also use lavender essential oil for cleaning – read about it here!
Clary Sage
Clary Sage is one I use daily, it helps me balance my hormones. This essential oil is wonderful for helping to relax and soothe emotions and the mind, it promotes relaxation within the body and helps to balance the body and mind, and it helps ease nervous tension and anxiety disorders.
It can be used topically or aromatically for anxiety symptoms, it cannot be used internally. Topically it can be used to help with anxiety by being diluted with a carrier oil and massaged in. I suggest putting clary sage on your abdomen or wrist.
This is one of the best essential oils for stress in my opinion and has a very calming scent. It can also be used aromatically and can be put into your diffuser, typically 2-3 drops. If I’m diffusing it during the day I blend it with lime or lemon to help brighten the notes up. For the evening I diffuse it alone or with lavender/ylang-ylang as an additional essential oil for anxiety. Bonus: Clary Sage can be used to help with promoting sleep!
Basil
Basil is a fantastic oil that I’ve used for helped reduce anxiety naturally. It helps to reduce stress, alleviate tension and anxiety, promotes relaxation, helps with mental focus, and can reduce muscle tension. Basil is one a favourite for a lot of people that they use through inhaling essential oils to help with calming and overall lower blood pressure.
With basil, you can use this internally, topically, and aromatically. Basil can be used internally (research essential oil safety first) within a veggie capsule or diluted in a beverage using honey as an emulsifier. Our favourite way of using basil is to diffuse it. I typically diffuse with Vanilla or Bergamot, you can also use Lavender and Lemon to blend as well when diffusing for mental health.
For using sweet basil topically, you can dilute the essential oil with a carrier oil and massage it onto areas of the body experiencing stress, such as temples or wrists. Basil can be diluted and rubbed onto any sore muscles or any area with tension.
Geranium
Germanium is a personal favorite of mine and one of my favourite recommend essential oils to help with essential oils for calming! Geranium is the perfect essential oil for stress and anxiety as it helps to calm nerves as well as relax the mind. It helps to reduce stress and helps with grounding emotions and stress. Geranium has an uplifting scent that helps calm anxious thoughts, overall very relaxing oil.
With geranium, you can use it internally, topically, and aromatically. Similar to basil, if taking this internally ensure to do your research first and use an emulsifier or veggie capsule. I love to have germanium on my essential oils bracelet and take a deep breath when I’m needing to feel grounded. You can also diffuse it in a diffuser (3-4 drops) and it will help promote a sense of relaxation and grounding throughout the space.
Topically, you can dilute geranium (1-2 drops of essential oils with a tablespoon or more carrier oil) and massage it into your body. It will help the scent stay on you and you can breathe it in throughout the day. Check out geranium for essential oils for anxiety and stress. Bonus: Geranium is a great essential oil for period pain!
Frankincense
Frankincense is one of the most versatile oils, it helps your health in so many ways! It’s tough to even know where to start! With anxiety, frankincense helps with promoting feelings of peace and wellness, it helps to promote overall relaxation and grounding to balance emotions and the mind. Additionally, it helps with reducing negative emotions and reducing stress help in the body. Frankincense has a very relaxing scent that helps promote soothing feelings.
Frankincense can be taken internally, topically, and aromatically. If taking it internally, ensure to do your research first and use an emulsifier or veggie capsule. For myself and my partner, I prefer to diffuse frankincense. We diffuse a couple of drops (3-4) with lavender for relaxation and another blend with grapefruit for an uplifting scent. You can also just simply take the lid off the bottle and inhale.
For topical use with Frankincense, this can be diluted in a rollerball, or with a carrier oil massaged into your tense areas of the body. For myself, I love to roll frankincense over the bottoms of my feet in bed. My partner rolls it over his wrists as needed.
Best essential oils for anxiety
This list is definitely not every essential oil that can help with anxiety. This list is the 5 we’ve found over the years to be the best essential oils for anxiety and be the most versatile. It’s important when using essential oils to read and understand oil safety and how to use them best. If you’re looking for a place to start, I recommend Dr. Mariza Snyder’s Essential Oils Book.
What oils work best for you?
Want to read more about how to deal with anxiety specifically related to the workplace? Della loves Nutella is a wonderful blog that covers this topic wonderfully, with LOTS of great tangible suggestions on helping support anxiety. I encourage you to check her blog post out click here: How to Deal with Anxiety in the Workplace.
Talk soon!
This is amazing! I love essential oils, but don’t know nearly enough about them. It’s great to know which ones are helpful with anxiety and even better, I already have most of them. Thank you for sharing! 😊
Wonderful to hear! Essential Oils are fantastic, and learning about them is so exciting! I really recommend the book at the end of my post as it helped me a lot when I was first learning 🙂 I’m glad to hear you already have them all and I hope they do help in the upcoming days! Take care.
Great post! I love using lavender to help me sleep, but I will admit I kinda dislike the scent. On the lookout for another oil to use in the meantime. I wish sweeter scents were more relaxing!
Love essential oils but only geranium at this list I’ve been using..
I’ll have to try Frankincense! I have it, I’m just so used to lavender that I never reach for it. I’ll have to try it.
I’m definitely putting some of these on my shopping list, some I’ve not heard of such as geranium. It’s brilliant to know what oils are best for which ailment and you can mix and match as needed.
I love using Lavender oil so much. I haven’t tried the others though yet so I need to try those out as well. Thanks so much for sharing!
I totally need to purchase this. I get bad anxiety at night and first thing in the morning. I love the idea of oils that help with anxiety.
As someone with anxiety, I have always wanted to try essential oils. I have always been afraid to try them because I have a cat and have heard about some dangerous interactions for them. I need to research more about that so I can start trying the safe ones. Thank you for sharing! 🙂
I love oils but don’t use them nowhere near as much as I want to! I love using lavender in the bath, it’s sooo relaxing!
I loved this! I have been interested in essential oils but never looked much into them, so this is just the right post to start! I use a lavender spray to help with insomnia and it works wonders. Really want to give it a try to clary sage too to relax x
A wonderful list of oils and all of their benefits! I love lavender especially xx
Lovely post, essential oils are great. Thanks for sharing, I will look some of them.
https://uncuaderno4cero.wordpress.com
Wonderful to hear – thanks. Lavender is a wonderful scent to help promote a restful sleep, sorry to hear it doesn’t provide you the best scent experience. I would also look at Clary Sage, Chamomile, and Bergamot as well as good oils that help promote sleep and you might enjoy their scents more! Thanks for reading and commenting 🙂
Thanks for reading – geranium is a wonderful scent. If you love essential oils I’d encourage looking into the book linked in my post as it gives a great deal of information for the best oils for you! 🙂
Frank is the best oil, it’s incredibly versatile! Thanks for reading and best of luck with exploring other scents and oils! 🙂
Amazing to hear this post helped provide some additional information – there are SO many oils out there! Hope you enjoy the new oils that are on your shopping list and hope they help you with your health 🙂
Lavender is so heavenly, I have an large bottle of it! I’m glad to hear this post gave a couple ideas of some new scents for you to try – thanks for reading!
Thanks for reading – it’s great to hear this helped give some information about oils and best of luck with giving them a try to help with relieving anxiety in the evening.
Totally understandable, I have two cats at home and always research every oil I use! Lavender is okay to diffuse if you’re looking for a place to start. As long as your diffuser is away and your cats can’t get to it/ the spray can’t get directly on them it should be fine. I put mine on a high ledge in our kitchen which the cats can’t get to and diffuse oils without worry. It’s important to do your research, but there are ways to ensure your cat’s health is a priority and you can use oils, just takes a bit of time to figure out the best work arounds 🙂
Essential Oils are wonderful, I’ve probably got too many oils! I’ve got a couple more posts planned on oil use coming up so stay tuned for more info 🙂 Wonderful to hear lavender works well in the bath, I love that right before bed! Thanks for reading and commenting 🙂
Thanks Cristina! I’m glad to hear this post provided some great info as a place to start, I encourage the book linked in my post, as well as I’ve got more posts coming out in the future with more info! Lavender is a wonderful scent to help promote sleep and great to hear it works well for you with a spray. Clary sage is a wonderful oil – best of luck with giving it a try! Thanks for reading 🙂
Thanks Della! I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the post and Lavender is such a heavenly scent. 🙂
Wonderful – thank you for reading and commenting and I’m glad this provided some info for you!
Really lovely post 👍🏻
i need to use essential oils more often. i feel like it would def help me relax & feel less anxious at times. thanks for sharing!
I love oils but don’t use them as often as I should. Its great that you’ve found ones that work for you both.
Interesting post! I remember trying essential oils for anxiety a few years ago (can’t remember which now, think it was a mix) but they definitely helped x
Such a good post! I have some lavender oil that I use before bed, but other than the blend I use for migraines, I am not really adventurous when it comes to essential oils. Basil oil seems like something I would like- I love the smell of fresh basil. Roller balls are such a great way to use oils without risk of making a mess/getting it everywhere.
This is an amazing post. I have just started using essential oils. It is nice to learn what essential oils help with what issues. Thank you for sharing this information.
Essential oils are wonderful – I encourage using them if you’re safe to. They’re wonderful to help in moments of anxiety, just take a quick deep breath and it helps oh so much. Thanks for reading and commenting on my post 🙂
Thanks Kelly – it did take trial and error to find out tops ones. Wishing you well in exploring essential oils 🙂
Thanks Sophie! There are lots of blends out there to help with anxiety, wonderful to hear they helped. Thanks for reading and commenting 🙂
Thank you! Lavender is wonderful for relaxation and for migraines! I’m actually doing a post on migraines and essential oils next month so stay tuned! Basil is definitely a great oil, it’s an acquired smell I’ve learned but so great at promoting relaxation. Rollerballs saved us for sure, I’m okay with using oils from the bottle but my partner can’t stand it so he has several roller balls on his desk to use as needed and loves them. Definitely encourage giving them a try! Thanks for reading 🙂
Thank you – Essential oils are wonderful and there’s so much to learn! I’m glad to hear they’ve been helping you. Take care 🙂
A lovely post, these oils sound great for anxiety and I would love to try these! x
Lucy | http://www.lucymary.co.uk
Thank you – I hope they help if you do give them a try! 🙂
I love using essential oils, primarily in aromatherapy. Being a fellow Canadian I will check out Revive! Thanks for sharing!
I love using my essential oils and they definitely help with my anxiety. I haven’t yet used geranium or basil but they sound like I would really benefit from trying them out. Thanks for the tips!
Wonderful to hear – Revive is wonderful and being in Canada means free shipping! Best of luck with your oils – thanks for reading! 🙂
It’s great to hear they help with your anxiety. Fantastic to hear this post introduced you to some new oils, geranium is great and does wonders for your skin and hair too! Thanks for reading and commenting 🙂
Awesome post as always, Alex! Lavender and peppermint are my favs and pretty much the only ones I use. Peppermint keeps me focused and I’m not entirely sure if that’s the actual purpose but I love it! Lavender after 7 pm always! Thanks for sharing x
Lynn | https://www.lynnmumbingmejia.com
Thanks Lynn! Mine too – I always have lavender and peppermint wherever I am as they’re so important for my personal wellness. Peppermint is great for focus, energizing, pain management and soothing sore muscles. Lavender is definitely a must have for helping us wind down at the end of the day! Glad to hear you enjoyed the post 🙂
I didn’t even know oil could serve this purpose. Nice post. Thanks for sharing
Wonderful – great to hear this was helpful!
I’ve never really used essential oils (aside from the odd one with no real purpose in mind). It’s interesting to learn more about what does what and which ones to go for if you want to get some calm in your life to reduce anxiety. Fab post! 🙂
I’m so glad to hear this post gave you an idea of how to use them and how to help encourage some calm in your space 🙂 Thanks for reading!