Episode 118: Supporting Clear Breathing Featuring Aryn Nolan

doTERRA: Feelings of clear and easy breathing can make such a big difference in your day-to-day life, and that's what we're going to talk about today: how you can naturally support feelings of clear and easy breathing every day.

Welcome back to Essential Oil Solutions with doTERRA, the podcast where you'll hear exciting, useful, and simple everyday uses for essential oils from experts in the field. If you like what you hear today, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen. We always appreciate hearing from you.

Today we're excited to talk to Aryn Nolan about how she uses essential oils to support feelings of clear breathing. Aryn, thank you so much for joining us today.

Aryn Nolan: Thank you for having me.

doTERRA: So this is a topic that I think is on everyone's mind as we're headed into the fall and winter. Can you tell us about what the respiratory system consists of?

Aryn: Well, it's important to remember that our respiratory system is a system that's equally as important as our heart is. It is vital to our survival and vital to our health. And to understand the respiratory system and why the health of our respiratory system is so important, we need to understand all the anatomy and the parts that go into that.

So it's important to remember that the nose is part of it, the mouth, the throat, the voice box, the windpipe, which is your trachea. You have multiple little airways that go down into your lungs called the bronchi that go from big to smaller, all the way down into little microscopic alveoli. And that makes up our lungs. And our lungs have lobes, and they're very complex. But in the same sense, our lungs—the tissue is, very delicate. And the whole purpose is to bring oxygen into our body and to exhale carbon dioxide.

doTERRA: Now, why are feelings of clear and open airways so important?

Aryn: So with proper oxygenation, it is easier for our body to stay healthy and to stay well. And if that gets out of whack at all, we start to see that affecting different systems in our body. We can see it affecting our emotional health, our physical health and systems in our body that are connected to our respiratory system.
 

doTERRA: Well, that definitely gives me a little bit more to think about every time I take a breath. It's a much more complicated system than I know I think about on a daily basis. What are some reasons that I may be needing a little bit of support?

Aryn: Reasons we would be needing some additional support can be anywhere from additional support, but also athletes opening airways for athletes to make sure that they're functioning optimally and also to support our airways and supporting our airways any time we look at supporting through environmental threats and ways to help our immune system function optimally.

doTERRA: So with all of this, you know, like you said, there's a lot of different moving pieces. How can I use essential oils? What essential oils can I use to offer the best support for my body?

Diffusing

Aryn: The thing I love most about using essential oils for the system is to remember how versatile and how many different ways we can use essential oils to support our body and to support how we breathe. The best way that we can use them when we're using essential oils for our system is aromatically, or breathing them in. And I love to do that most effectively through diffusing them. And I like to remind people that if you don't have a diffuser, that's okay. You can put essential oils in your hands, rub them together, cup it over your nose, breathe it in that way, put a couple of drops on a scarf, or even just rub it, dilute a little bit and rub it on your chest throughout the day. There's so many different ways we can use essential oils through the diffusing process if we don't have a diffuser with us.

Essential Oil Recommendations for Adults

But there's several oils that are my favorite to use to help support, and they vary a little bit for adults and for children and babies based off of my favorite ones. My favorite ones as an adult is doTERRA Breathe®. Breathe is a blend that doTERRA provides. And what I love about is blends is it takes the guesswork out of it for me. There's so many different oils we could choose. But I know—if you're anything like me—it's which oils are better and how much of which oil should I be using. And Breathe is the perfect blend for all things. So any time I'm in doubt as to which oils to use, I just grab my Breathe, and it makes it so simple and so easy to use that oil, specifically.

Some single oils that I love using are Peppermint, Eucalyptus, and Cardamom. I would say those are my top three favorite single oils to use for any type of support.

Essential Oil Recommendations for the Family

When I'm using them on my children and my babies, I look at a little bit different essential oils to help support. My number one favorite for babies and kids is Rosemary. I love Rosemary for opening the airway and help keeping it open. And Lemon is another really great one. And Tea Tree is another really great one for babies and small kids.

Fir Oils

And I love fir oils. Fir oils are another really great oil family that you can use. I think there's no coincidence that we think of fir oils and we think of the cooler months too, like the Douglas Fir and the Siberian Fir and even Balance. I think that there's definitely a reason behind why we associate those smells with the cooler months and the Christmas time.

Frankincense and Copaiba

But two others that I can't go without mentioning is I add Frankincense and Copaiba to absolutely everything. So if anyone ever asks me, “Hey, what oil should I use for this?” I always tell them, “And if you have any Frankincense or Copaiba on hand, please add some of that to it, too,” because I just love how that augments all the different oils out there.

doTERRA: And I think those are so many great recommendations. And that is, like you said, so versatile. And it's what fits for you and your family and what you find that you like. And I think that's one of the most amazing things about essential oils.

Aryn: Absolutely. And I always remind people that everyone's body is different and what everyone experiences is going to be different. So the great thing about essential oils, it's not a one size fits all. There's experimentation that you can do yourself as well as just deciding what works best for your body and what works best for you and which aromas you like better to help support your body. It's completely in your control, and it gives you the ability to care for your body how you feel is best fit.

doTERRA: And I absolutely love that. Aryn, my final question is how do you go about taking those essential oils and incorporating them into your daily routine?

Showering and Essential Oils

Aryn: I think the best way for me to answer that is probably to go through how I live my life and kind of give you my daily routine. So when I wake up in the morning, something I love to do is when I take a shower, I just put a few drops of Eucalyptus oil in the corner of the shower. So as it continues to steam up and the steam rises, there's a little bit of that Eucalyptus opening my airways and helping me wake up in the morning time. So that's the first thing I do every morning.

Steam Mug

Something my family has become obsessed with, and it is something that we have made a ritual in our family, are steam mugs. So if we ever wake up and could use some support in opening our airways, I love steam mugs. And I love steam mugs for the fact that it's like immediate results and immediate gratification every time we do it. So what we do is we get a mug that we would like put coffee or tea in. We put water in there, and we steam it up or get it hot until we start seeing steam come from it. And then we put two drops of Oregano, two drops of Lemon, two drops of Peppermint, and then two drops of Tea Tree in the mug. And then it steams those oils up. We just lean our head over it, not too close. And we take several deep breaths through our nose. And it helps open our airways immediately. So if you ever wake up feeling like you need a little bit extra support, we do this even when we don't, and we love the way it wakes us up in the morning. My husband likes it extra strength, so he gets real close to it, sometimes even puts a towel over his head. Just remember to close your eyes any time you do this to protect your eye tissue, but take deep breaths through your nose, and it is just wonderful.

Diffusing Essential Oils

So we do that in the morning time, and then we just diffuse oils that support what we're needing. So we change the oils that we're diffusing in our kitchen or in our living spaces based off of the support that we're needing. So we do that throughout the day.

Exercise and Essential Oils

Something I do every single day is I use Peppermint to help augment my exercise. So I put one drop in my mouth, but I also put some in my hands, cup it over my nose, take a few deep breaths, even rub some on my chest to help open my airways. And it also works really great at helping me stay energized throughout my workout, throughout the day too. Then if I'm needing additional support throughout the day and I'm not next to my diffuser, I just rub a little bit on my chest so that I can continue, and I can smell that, and I can get it as I'm walking throughout the day.

Face Masks and Essential Oils

And in today’s time, a lot of us are wearing masks. So if this is something that you are wearing masks on a regular basis, one that I like to use inside my mask again is Peppermint. I know a lot of friends of mine like to use Breathe or Eucalyptus, but Peppermint is my go-to. I just rub my finger along the rim of the peppermint bottle, just a little bit on the tip of my finger, rub it on the inside of my mask, put my mask on. It helps keep my airways open and helps keep me feeling cooler throughout the day as I'm wearing my mask on my face.

Bedtime and Essential Oils

And then at bedtime, we use whatever oils we like to use during that time. So the ones that—I love fir oils in the afternoon because they're very calming and relaxing. So that's one I tend to gravitate more towards in the evening time and towards bedtime and as we're sleeping throughout the night. I love my fir oils. But of course, I always add my Frankincense and my Copaiba, always get added in there too. Cardamom is another one I like to use in the afternoon. And at nighttime, Rosemary and Frankincense are definitely the go-to for my children.

doTERRA: All of those sounds so incredible, and it's such easy little steps to incorporate them throughout your entire day as you live your life, and it's not any kind of imposition.

Aryn: It becomes part of your everyday routine, and then you start to realize, “How did I function without these essential oils in my life? What was I doing before?” Because you feel such a dramatic difference, and you feel the power that they have in your life that it just it's kind of mind boggling how I was able to support and really make it through the day without my essential oils.

doTERRA: I think that's absolutely true. Aryn, thank you so much for talking with us today and sharing these incredible tips on how to better support your respiratory system.

Aryn: It's been my pleasure. Thank you so much!

doTERRA: Thanks for joining us and congratulations on living a healthier lifestyle with essential oils. If you liked what you heard today, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen. Also, if you want to try any of the products you learned about, go to doterra.com or find a Wellness Advocate near you to place an order today.