Best Essential Oils for Meditation: The Ultimate Guide

Since we ave hectic, fast-paced, and very modern lives, meditation is more important than it every was. It helps refocus your energy, calm your mind, and promote positive and healthy self-reflection. However, all of the stress can make it hard to get into a meditative routine. Essential oils can help narrow your focus. You can use them to get peace of mind and clarity, and we could all use these things.

How to Use Essential Oils During Meditation

It’s relatively easy to use essential oils two ways during meditation. The first is by using an essential oil diffuser and diffusing the oils into the air around you. Inhaling the essential oils during your meditation session can create an ambient space to focus, clear your mind, and promote relaxation.

The second way to use essential oil is by diluting them and applying them topically to your skin. You can apply your essential oils to any sore spots you may have to distract your mind, to your pulse points to reach targeted areas quickly, or to your palms for self-directed inhalation. They all work well, but which essential oils do you use?

The 12 Best Single Essential Oils for Meditation

With the dozens of pure essential oils and essential oil blends available, how do you know which is best to use? Some essential oils do work better than others, and it’s important that you get the most out of each session. We’ve been there, and we’ve done the work for you. Read on to see our roundup.

Clary Sage

For thousands of years, clary sage has had an important role of helping to remove negative energies from spaces in different cultures. Using clary sage before and during your meditation session can remove any negative energies. In turn, your distraction level drop and you can focus. Additionally, clary sage acts as a powerful antidepressant and stress reliever that can improve your mood. This helps to ensure that you have a positive experience when you meditate. (1)(2)

Sandalwood

Hailed as one of the best essential oils for meditation, sandalwood is very cleansing. It can help reduce your stress and break up negative thoughts that can cloud your mind and make meditation difficult. If you have a lot of inner noise or a mind that is going a million miles an hour, sandalwood can help you relax, focus, and calm down. Additionally, this essential oil has hypotensive effects. This means it can help lower your blood pressure and physically relax. (3)

Frankincense

Frankincense has a very earthy scent that is good for your spirit. Inhaling this essential oil promotes openness, balance, and it can ground you during your meditation session. It can help to form a connection with your spiritual side. Additionally, its helpful for stabilizing your chakras and promoting energy flow from one to the other. For holistic use, frankincense can relieve stress, reduce pain, lower inflammation, and help your sinuses. Since all of these things distract you, you can incorporate them to get a better meditation session. (4)(5)

Neroli

Neroli claims the title as one of the biggest supporters of spiritual transformation. When you use it during your meditation session, it can promote fear reduction, acceptance and self-love, and creativity. When it gets into your system, this essential oil can lower your cortisol levels and blood pressure, reduce inflammation and pain, and it’s an anticonvlsant. This means that this oil can help you achieve clarity, mindfulness, and inner peace each time you use it to meditate. (6)(7)

Lavender

Arguably one of the most popular essential oils available, lavender has a light and flowery scent. It also comes with antidepressant, anti-anxiety, and relaxant properties that make it perfect for meditation. These calming properties help you reach enlightenment and clarity. Additionally, it’ll stabilize you if you start to have a restless session, and it allows you to balance yourself and focus all of your energy on your meditation. (8)(9)

Patchouli

Patchouli was immensely popular in the 1960s and 1970s, but it is an acquired taste. It has a very distinct scent that is earthy and woody with a hint of fruit. For meditation, patchouli oil grounds and calms you. It helps to calm and focus your mind as you sit for a session. Additionally, the oil’s scent gets better as you let it age. It clears any mental fog you may have or pain and inflammation, and this allows you to get the most out of your meditation session. (10)(11)

Roman Chamomile

Roman Chamomile has a very strong and sweet scent, and chamomile is a wildly popular choice for herbal teas due to powerful relaxation properties. It promotes relaxation and sleep, and this is fantastic when you have a busy mind that won’t switch off for your meditation session. It’s also great for anxiety, stress, and depression, and the scent lingers and brings a calming effect to your meditative space. You don’t want use this oil during pregnancy though because it has links to miscarriages. (12)(13)

Myrrh

Myrrh has a history that dates back thousands of years for meditative and spiritual properties in both Egypt and Jerusalem. It has a very powerful woody scent associated with it that can easily fill a space. Myrrh is extremely grounding, and this can help you slip into the mindset you need to focus and meditate. It’s also very good at mellowing out strong emotions like anger or sadness. Additionally, it also blends wonderfully with frankincense. (14)(15)

Ylang Ylang

Very popular around Asia, Ylang Ylang comes with a very floral and sweet scent associated with it. It’s excellent for meditation because it can help to fight depression and relieve your stress levels. Additionally, it works to increase your happiness levels and cure frustration or sadness. It can also help to lower your blood pressure level and help with oily skin. It does have a stronger scent that you may have to dilute. (16)(17)

Jasmine

A very exotic floral scent, jasmine can be overwhelming if you don’t dilute it. This essential oil comes back by centuries of use all over the world in medicinal applications. You get a very uplifting and cheerful scent that can help combat depression and anxiety. It also works very well to remove the feeling of exhaustion, and this makes it a good choice when you want to release any tension or you feel overworked. (18)(19)

Peppermint

This may be a surprising addition to the list due to peppermint’s sharp and lingering scent. However, peppermint works extremely way to open up your respiratory tract and reduce inflammation, and this can help you breathe through your meditation session. It can help after a yoga session by helping restore your muscles and reducing any aches or pains you may have. You only need a small amount since peppermint is a stronger essential oil. (20)(21)

Orange or Citrus

Citrus or orange essential oils have a very cheerful and uplifting scent. One of the biggest reasons people use orange or citrus essential oils in meditation is to help boost concentration levels and focus. Additionally, these oils also reduce how severely your body responds to stress. (22)

The Eight Best Essential Oil Blends for Meditation

Now that we’ve gone over several single essential oils for meditation, we’ll go over a few essential oil blends that can be very helpful. They include:

Blend One

• Lavender – Three Drops
• Neroli – Three Drops
• Ylang Ylang – Two Drops

Blend Two

• Lavender – Three Drops
• Roman Chamomile – Two Drops

Blend Three

• Frankincense – Four Drops
• Neroli – Three Drops
• Sandalwood – Two Drops

Blend Four

• Clary Sage – Three Drops
• Sandalwood – Two Drops
• Jasmine – One Drop

Blend Five

• Frankincense – Three Drops
• Myrrh – Two Drops
• Roman Chamomile – One Drop

Blend Six

• Clary Sage – Two Drops
• Myrrh – Two Drops
• Patchouli – One Drop

Blend Seven

• Lavender – One Drop
• Orange – Three Drops
• Peppermint – Two Drops

Blend Eight

• Frankincense – Two Drops
• Orange – One Drop

Bottom Line

No matter if you plan to use a single essential oil or a blend of essential oils for your meditation session, you’ll reap the benefits. They allow you to concentrate and sit through your meditation session with a renewed clarity and focus. You can try one or try and blend and see which ones work best for your needs.