Cape Chamomile For Stress Relief

Stress is awful.  It can age you, affect your health, your heart, your well-being in general and stress can do so many more creepy things to you.  

So why are we all running around clenching our teeth and periodically reaching up to make sure that our head is not about to fly off into outer space?   We over-commit ourselves.  We over-commit with our children, with work, with school, with ourselves and with our lives in general.   One just isn't doing enough unless one is running around town from this activity to the next. Or perhaps you have a monster of a boss (or you are the monster boss) and then you have to get home and run your children (or yourself) from point A to point B to point Z then back to point A but hey, don't forget to stop at point J before you head back to point B!  

Why do we do this?  Because gosh-darnit! We're going to stand out, be the head mucky-muck Stepford Wife/Husband Pod, amaze family, friends and those PTA members at the number of feats we can accomplish in one day running on a giant cup of Starbucks coffee and half a bite of whatever was grab-able on the kitchen counter on the race to the car to start our day of insanity!!

Sound familiar?

Or how about this:  Your husband works and lives in CA right now and you are home. Alone.  In another state, 2,000 miles away. With three children 10 and under whose mission it is (you swear!) is to push you into the mouth of madness on a daily basis OR force you to run screeching into the night like a banshee on crack as you pull at your clothes and rip your hair out piece by piece........

But I digress!

I often find it funny that I am an aromatherapist and can whip up the most fab stress-relief blends for other people but when it comes to myself - ho hum.  I'll get to it tomorrow.  Tomorrow.  Tomorrow.  Uh-huh.   I've decided to quit waiting until tomorrow and do something about it TODAY.

In conversation I mentioned to Marge Clark of Nature's Gift how stressed out I was and that I thought it was starting to affect my health.  She recommended trying out 'Cape Chamomile' (Eriocephalus punctulatus) for stress-relief so I did.  Skeptical of it, but I thought hey! I may as well or just keep on clenching those jaws of mine until my teeth crack!

Wow.  I was pleasantly surprised at how I could feel the stress just slipping down my neck, over my shoulders, and just sliding off of my back.  Inhaling Cape Chamomile works best for me, but I can see making a balm out of it as well or mixing some up in dead sea salts and taking a long bath in it.  In fact - right now it is sitting next to me just open and it's absolutely wonderful.  It is also worth having to help calm your mind right before bedtime, something I have a huge problem with between the kids, what's going on the next day, work, art and did I remember to let the dogs back in the house, whose class was I reading to the next day??  My personal opinion is that a bath right before bed with Cape Chamomile will do wonders for anyone! 

Take 3-5 drops of Cape Chamomile oil and mix it in with 2 cups of Epsom salts, add to running bath water, step in and relax!  How easy is that?

Cape Chamomile is similar to Blue Tansy in scent, but it's not quite the same and if you know the two oils you can detect the difference.  *Cape Chamomile is extraordinarily high in esters, over 50%, which account for its sweet fruity aroma.  Many of the esters seem to be unique to this delightful oil and it is also high in Linalyl Acetate.

*Read more: http://www.naturesgift.com/essential/Cape-Chamomile.htm#ixzz0zQsb10qR