Orange Essential Oil
22 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in Essential Oils Tags: anti-depressant, anti-inflammatory, detoxification, health, improve digestion, juice fast, Michelle Berry Shaffer, orange essential oil, skin treatment, sublime living essentials, vegan
Therapeutic Orange Essential Oil
100% pure and quality assured byGC/MS Laboratory Analysis
A favorite oil used in Aromatherapy is Orange essential oil. It has a fresh, sweet, citrus smell and is a valuable treatment oil for many ailments. The oil is extracted from the fruit of the Orange plant (Citrus sinensis) by cold-press method and it is best to only use organic, cold-pressed oils to avoid chemical toxicity.
Sweet and Bitter Orange essential oils offer a magnitude of health benefits and therapeutic properties. Some of these include:
- Anti-depressant
Well-known for its uplifting properties, orange essential oil is soothing to the mind and helps to relieve stress. It is refreshing and relaxing and commonly used for the treatment of anxiety. - Anti-inflammatory
It provides relief from both internal and external inflammation caused by infections. It is helpful in treating swollen tissue by stimulating blood circulation. - Anti-septic
It inhibits microbial growth and can help ease a sore throat if used in a gargle. It also helps to heal mouth ulcers when used in a mouth wash. - Improves Digestion
It is known to promote digestion, ease constipation and increase the absorption of vitamin C. Use as a massage oil in the abdominal area. - Anti-Cancer
D-limonene is a super-nutrient that occurs in Orange Essential Oil. It has been studied extensively for its ability to prevent cellular mutations and combat cancer tumor growth. - Encourages Detoxification
Sweet Orange essential oil encourages detoxification by acting as a diuretic. It also stimulates the lymphatic system, the bladder and kidneys. Increased urination assists in the elimination of toxins like uric acid, bile and excess salts and helps relieve fluid retention. Detox and cleansing properties help breakdown and eliminate cellulite. - Skin Treatment
Orange essential oil is shown to promote the production of collagen as well as increase the blood flow to the skin. It is helpful at soothing dry, irritated skin as well as acne-prone skin. It is excellent for rubbing on calluses on the feet.
How To Use Orange Essential Oil
Essential oils are absorbed into the body via the nose and the pores of skin and hair follicles. From there they enter the bloodstream and circulate throughout the body. The beauty of aromatherapy is that you benefit from the inhalation and topical application of the essential oils.
- Use as a massage oil on affected areas of the body.
- Add a few drops of essential oil to a warm bath.
- Add a few drops of essential oil to a body wash.
- Use as a room freshener: put a few drops of oil with water in a spritz bottle.
- To relive a sore throat: Add a drop of bitter orange essential oil to warm salt water and gargle.
Other Orange Essential Oil Uses
Orange Essential Oil also has a number of industrial and household uses.
It is used to add orange flavor to various food products such as beverages, desserts, biscuits, chocolates, sweets and bakery items. Industrially, it is used in soaps, body lotions, face creams, room sprays/air fresheners and deodorants.
The D-limonene in Sweet Orange essential oil is an extremely effective insect repellent. Wipe or spray it wherever pests come into your house: cracks, around windows and doors. It can also be safely used in your pantry to repel moths, worms and ants instead of using poisonous substances.
Warnings and Precautions :
Orange Essential Oil shows photo-toxicity, do not apply before going out in the sun.
If ingested in excess quantity, it can result in vomiting and nausea. If you are pregnant, epileptic, have liver damage, have cancer, or have any other medical problem, use essential oils only under the guidance of a qualified aromatherapy practitioner.
DHEA linked to Youthful Resilience & Rejuvenation
20 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in Supplements Tags: DHEA, hormones, Michelle Berry Shaffer, sublime living essentials, supplements
DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) is one of the body’s hormones which helps to inter-coordinate the complex endocrine system. It is produced by the body’s adrenal glands, located just above the kidneys. Although more than 150 hormones are made by the adrenal glands, the most abundant is DHEA. After DHEA is made by the adrenals, it goes into the blood stream, and from then on it travels all over the body and goes into our cells where it is converted to androgens, testosterone the male sex hormone and estrogen the female sex hormone. DHEA production peaks in the mid-20′s and in most people, gradually declines with age and by age 40, DHEA levels are half of what they were in a persons 20′s. DHEA appears to be linked to the healthful resilience of youth, as extremely low levels are commonly seen in people who have chronic disease and illness regardless of age.
Have you ever heard of the “stress hormone” known as cortisol? Well, like DHEA cortisol is also produced by the adrenals, as is adrenaline – two hormones that assist in the body’s “flight or flight” response to stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline to help prepare the body for stressful situations, chronic stress can cause the adrenal glands to work overtime, and while the adrenals are preoccupied, pumping our large adrenaline, they can’t produce enough DHEA.
Deficiency of DHEA can cause several problems. It will give you the symptoms like depression, low libido. Further women with low concentration of DHEA in their blood will have increased fatigue; increment in the weight while causing the aches in your joints. Therefore it is important to maintain an optimum level of DHEA to maintain a healthy life.
Further there are more positive ends of maintaining the optimum Dehyroepiandrosterone level in your body. Maintaining a good immunity is essential to stay away from most of the pathogen based diseases. DHEA boosts the immune system to maintain a healthy life. Further it supports women to maintain their muscle mass. With the action of DHEA you will be able to do your work energetically with the boosted energy. Further DHEA will support you to improve your memory.
DHEA is ideal for women who are in menopause. Menopause ceases the fertility of a woman by stopping the production of ova. Further menopause is associated with numerous hormonal changes within the body. DHEA is having excellent capability of controlling the symptoms associated with menopause and is known for being one of the best treatments with fewer side effects.
DHEA is not suitable for people with prostate cancer or prostate enlargement or for women who are pregnant or nursing.
DHEA supplements, made from plant chemicals, work by building up the adrenal gland and regulating the immune system. Taking this supplement can help combat autoimmune conditions such as arthritis and multiple sclerosis.
Premier Research Labs DHEA is a natural source USP-grade DHEA, derived from wild yam and solvent-free.
Supports the adrenals, reproductive glands, libido, sense of well being and healthy management of stress.
Immune system enhancement
Anti-diabetic action
Anti-cancer effects
Anti-atherosclerotic help
Anti-depression effects
Memory and thought enhancement
Extended life span
DHEA is used for slowing or reversing aging as well as slowing the process of Alzheimer’s disease.
DHEA is used by some men for erectile dysfunction, and by healthy women and women who have low levels of certain hormones to improve well-being and sexuality.
DHEA is used for weight loss and for decreasing symptoms of menopause.
Some people use DHEA to treat systemic lupus erythematosus, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, low levels of steroid hormones, depression, schizophrenia, chronic fatigue syndrome and even to slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease. It is also used for preventing heart disease, breast cancer, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.
Check out the Delicate Hormonal Web on Humanity Healing Network.
______________________________________
Premier Research Labs DHEA Contents/Ingredients: DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) 25mg
Other Ingredients: Stabilized rice bran, vegetable cellulose capsule.
Guaranteed free of: magnesium stearate (a toxic excipient), corn, soy, salt, sugar, wheat, yeast, artificial colors, flavors or preservatives.
Recommended Use:
For Women: (age 12 and up): Take 1 capsule, 2 times daily.
For Men: (age 12 and up): Take 1 capsule, 4 times daily.
Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.
~Pema Chodron
Take care,
May you be blessed with love and good health!
Michelle Berry-Shaffer
Announcing Sublime Living Essentials!
01 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: Michelle Berry, organic body products, sublime living essentials, Superfoods, supplements
Dear Friends and Family,
Better than Organic Essential Oils
25 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in Essential Oils Tags: aromatherapy, elizabeth van buren, essential oil, organic
Beyond Organic
Essential Oil Analysis – The Reality Check
The following article is by
Larry Jones, Chemist
Essential oil purity and quality is vital to essential oil therapy and should be the highest priority in using essential oils in treatment. Adulterated and low quality essential oils are an ever-increasing problem as demand outpaces supply. Using bad oils on a client, at best, results in a lower than expected curative effect, but worse, they may actually have a negative or toxic reaction in both the practitioner and client. Using pure and high quality oils are good for your client, business, and reduces your exposure to liability.
Currently organic essential oils are perceived as the answer to these purity and quality problems, but choosing an “organic” essential oil does not mean it is pure or even good quality. Organic herbs and food is an ideal that is worth striving for and it positively impacts our health. Unfortunately, regulating and verifying the organic status of essential oils is not so clear because there are no developed guidelines and routine analytical procedures.
This paper asserts that analysis of essential oils, ideally by GC-MS (Gas Chromatograph/Mass Spectrometry), if done properly, can reveal their purity and quality and hence the value, safety and effectiveness. This transcends any organic claim. Otherwise, you are on your own with a label that says pure and a nose that is not sure.
Initially and up to this day, the necessity of testing is that most worldwide production of essential oils is for flavor and fragrance materials. The essential oil/fragrance industry has a long tradition of altering essential oils in the form of “standardization” and/or “extending” them. Purity is a problem with many big producers and distributors. Even the smaller essential oil producers and distributors are found to have quality problems too. Very few aromatherapy companies know what is in their oils because no one in the supply chain is analyzing their oils or in some cases outright doctoring their results. There are practical considerations; analysis is expensive, complex and takes years of experience.
There are no Aromatherapy/Essential Oil Therapy standards for essential oils to be used as therapeutic agents. There are standards for essential oils like FCC and ISO, but they are a double-edged sword. These standards do represent, in most cases, reasonable profiles of purity but the other edge is, they can be used by the essential oil industry to “standardize” oils. An essential oil therapy standard may be different and may reflect an overall balance of constituents including those occurring in small amounts. Whereas, standards published by ISO set the percentages of the main constituents only. This leaves the door wide open for concocted oils.
Many essential oil producers and supplier now circumvent this checkered history of quality issues, wrong chemotypes and even adulteration by obtaining “organic certification”. This certification process runs up the cost of essential oils and as a result of the popular hype about the term “organic”, you are now paying 2-4 times over the price of conventionally produced oils.
The current and most deceptive problems are with “organic” oils. Aside from organic certification not regulating quality and not preventing adulteration, is that “organic” clouds the issue of essential oil safety. The naturally occurring toxic constituents of an essential oil are the same in “organic” oils as non-organic oils. Knowledge of what is in the oil is more important for the safe use of essential oils.
Developing essential oil standards for essential oil therapy/aromatherapy has been discussed in several circles over the years, but because of cost of administration, setting up labs, certifying them and the analysis cost all by itself, it has turned out to be an overwhelming task and cost that only a well-organized and well funded organization could handle. But, an organizational attempt to deal with the analytical and administrative challenge for self-regulation would be desirable before essential oil therapy/aromatherapy looses its “therapy” from an overdose of bad oils.
The Value…
The value of essential oil analysis is far reaching in that it impacts three factors of concern to producers, suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, and users, i.e., practitioners.
1. Safety (Purity and chemotype)
2. Effectiveness (Purity and quality)
3. Economics (knowing what is in the oil you are selling or buying)
GC-MS analysis elucidates all three by chemotype verification, quality determination and purity evaluation. Analysis, preferably by GC-MS, of the finished product that is used in therapy is the way to insure the integrity of the oil purchased.
As essential oil therapy is complex in its healing effects and is much more than smell, it takes much more than a nose to tell if an essential oil is pure. The only way to really substantiate the purity is to analyze the oil. This process has two phases: purity and quality.
Analysis for Purity:
Fillers or artificial substances may be added such as:
1. Non fragrant solvents like estrogen mimicking phthalates, fixed oils, and other diluents
2. Fractions of, or other essential oils
3. Synthetic ‘nature identical’ essential oil components
4. Synthetic fragrance materials and their isomers which are mostly allergenic, sensitizing, endocrine disrupting and some carcinogenic.
Among these, other undesirables found in trace amounts are preservatives, dissolved plastic and oxidation products. Purity is also affected by post distillation processing like fractional distillation and other chemical treatment.
Analysis for Quality:
An essential oil does not have to be adulterated to be inferior. Plant quality, climate, location, growing conditions, harvest, and production technique have a lot to do with quality. Of course, environmental conditions directly affect the percentages of each component of the essential oil. Botanical variety and Chemotype identification also play a part in quality determination. Like organic, ‘wild crafted’ is another overused term. Many imported essential oils come from non-plantation sources.
In choosing essential oils the priorities are:
1. The essential oil is high quality due to growing and distilling conditions.
2. Unadulterated.
3. Correct chemotype
4. GC-MS reports to back-up 1,2, and 3
5. Lastly, labeled natural, pure, tested, organic, wild crafted, etc. with the lot number or batch number that is traceable back to the GC-MS report
There is a big difference between “Certified Organic” and “organic”. To be certified there are regulations, inspections, GMP, ISO 9000 and more. Once the seal is broken on a drum by anyone not certified in the chain of custody, the oil then becomes “organic” and no longer can the term “certified” be used. In another words, if the grower releases the material as “Certified Organic” the distiller, the bottler, the manufacturer, etc who takes possession of the material after that all must be “certified” as well or the chain of custody is broken. Most essential oil companies at this time are not certified by the USDA and therefore are falsely claiming they are selling “Certified Organic” materials when in fact they are breaking the chain of custody requirements.
Therapists are now paying a premium for organic oils with the implied assurance the oil they are buying is pure and high quality. Without analytical data to back up the “pure” claim on the label, “organic” may become trivialized like “natural” has become.
Conclusion:
In my opinion, a greater scientific chemical understanding of essential oils is gained through the exploration of purity and quality. GC-MS analysis is vital for that.
For the last 15-20 years, essential oil therapy’s demand for clean, high quality oils has been stimulated by scientific analysis and research. The community has made some impact on the production and distribution practices of the worldwide essential oil industry. Everyone using essential oils in therapies as integrative medicine are creating a niche market for a new generation of essential oils. Analysis by and for therapists will continue to have positive influence on essential oil purity, quality, discovery and treatment.
Once again, this article was written by Larry Jones, a chemist with Spectrix labs.
Stock up on Elizabeth Van Buren Essential Oils for the holidays at Sublime Living Essentials! They make great gifts!
In love and light,
Michelle Berry-Shaffer
Sublime Living Essentials
Yoga of Regeneration, Sacred Song and Touch Immersion!
23 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
in Events Tags: Arlisa Houston, Berry Bliss, Daphne, Haymoon Resort, Heart of Yoga, Kelly Ordway, Mark Whitman, Michelle Berry, Michelle Berry Shaffer, Montana, rejuvenate, restorative touch, sacred song, spirit, Tse, vegan, We Me Collective, Whitefish, Yoga
The ancient wisdom of yoga teaches that Life is already given to you, you are completely loved, you are here now. It teaches that we are not separate, cannot be separate from nature, which sustains us in a vast interdependence with everything. The universe comes perfectly, and is awesome in its integration and infinite existence. This union is our natural state, this union is Yoga.
All of us at Heart of Yoga are committed to broadening this message: You are fully loved, you are fully able, you are perfectly capable the way you are. We strive to teach the healing power of intimate connection, in the traditions of 10,000 years, recaptured for our era. We hope to transform individual awareness of this interconnection, and thus human consciousness and the societies we have created.
This website is our virtual home, we will offer you things we believe can help you do your yoga. It is not a one way dialogue though, so please join our community, join the conversation, contribute and help out with local events. The Heart of Yoga is in all of us.
Om Shanti
Mark Whitwell
Founder, Heart of Yoga
• Advanced Yoga for every One: “If you can breathe, You can doYoga.”
Act through love and harmony Everything is God. The trees, the light of the sun, the animals, the buildings, the roads. We are all that. ~Sri Mahayogi
I hope that you may be able to be a part of the weekend as well! We are so blessed to be a part of a wonderful community.
Love & Bliss,
Michelle
Ah Ha!
30 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in Thoughts and Musings Tags: Berry Bliss, Michelle Berry, Michelle Berry Shaffer, Satori
What is Satori? Satori roughly translates into individual Enlightenment, or a flash of sudden awareness, the first step towards Nirvana! As I become more aware, it’s been hard to let go of who I used to be to become who I really am.
Why is it so hard? Mainly because there is resistance that keeps us stuck in past patterns and chains us who who we think we are or were or who or what others think of us as well. Through exploration of the mind and the unknown there comes an insight as we experience the sense of joy that comes from learning. Satori Bliss, comes from a deeper spiritual experience and its important for us to let go of who we think we are to be who we really are. Who are we? An expression of the Divine!
13th century Chinese Zen master Wumen, wrote a poem about enlightenment:
A thunderclap under the clear blue sky
All beings on earth open their eyes;
Everything under heaven bows together;
Mount Sumeru leaps up and dances.
Simply beautiful. Love. Joy. Peace. Compassion. Knowledge. I pray that we can all be Truth and follow the universal laws of spirituality as a flow of consciousness and the empirical realities of the laws of nature.
Do you have a satori experience?
