Ginger is a warming and comforting spice, giving ease to aches and pains and drying out respiratory catarrh. It speeds metabolism, helping sluggish digestion and softening stools. VINEVIDA offers two different ginger oils - fresh and dried - so today, we ask what is ginger essential oil good for?
What’s the Difference Between Fresh and Dried Ginger Essential Oils?
As I understand, there are just over twice the number of oxygenated compounds in the essential oil distilled from fresh ginger to dried ginger, making fresh ginger the most potent of the two. (Sasidharan, 2010)
However, suppose you close your eyes and envisage the difference in fragrance between the holiday cookies' fragrance of the dried ginger to the zesty, fresh ginger used as an Asian cooking ingredient. In that case, you can imagine that they would also have different feels in blends.
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What is Ginger Essential Oil Good for Physically?
Digestive System
Anyone who has suffered from morning sickness will know how soothing ginger essential oil is for nausea.
It’s not suggested to use it topically during the first 16 weeks of pregnancy; however, inhaling it can be extremely helpful. That said, so can a digestive biscuit.
The essential oil is indicated for gastritis, indigestion, flatulence, and excess gas. According to Kurt Schnaubely, ginger essential oils stimulates the liver, encouraging it to make more bile. That in itself will help your digestion.
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Laxative
Self-explanatory, I think.
Antiviral
I love how ginger essential oil works as an immunostimulant. Clearly, this is part of traditional medicine in that ginger wine, lemon, and ginger, have been used as tonics against the onset of cold and flu for many generations.
In Aromatica: A Clinical Guide To Essential Oil Therapeutics Volume 1, Peter Holmes reports ginger essential oil has been demonstrated to stimulate T lymphocytes and cell-mediated immunity. He feels ginger essential oil would be less useful for colds once the infection has taken hold. I agree. I’d swap over to ravensara.
Kurt Schnaubelt enjoys using ginger essential oil for its expectorant action in the lungs. He describes how useful it is for chesty coughs.
I find it helpful for sore throats, coughs, flu, or especially chills.
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Pain
While the essential ginger oil is wonderful for rheumatic pain, the CO2 made from ginger will be more effective. Not all constituents pass through distillation, and in this case, a component called shogaols. Shogaols are extremely helpful for pain.
That said. Ginger essential oil is warming and has a strong analgesic action. It can be very helpful for rheumatic and arthritic pain. I also like to use it for cold hands and feet since ginger essential oil stimulates circulation. This is a great help for people who have Raynard’s disease.
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What is Ginger Essential Oil Good for Emotionally?
Emotional aspects of ginger are best understood through Traditional Chinese Medicine and how its actions are yang.
Yang oils have a masculine feel to them. They are warming and active. They are motivating and create drive in the personality.
More importantly, is this a warming element too? These are useful essential oils for people who have become emotionally cold or sexually frigid.
This emotional warming action makes these essential oils helpful for people who have become detached or shut down after trauma or heartache.
I like to use ginger essential oils when I have an attack of the don’t-want-to’s.
Between you and I, I have this more often than anyone should.
Not quite procrastination, it’s when we have made great exciting plans to do things, but we don’t quite summon the motivation to get off our backsides and do them.
As you can imagine, this is great for people who suffer from weight problems, for getting them to do exercise. Still, ginger has an overall tonic effect on the metabolic and muscular systems.
It helps protect against aches and pains. Post-exercise helps us feel more attached to our physical body and thus more invested in what happens to it.
Perhaps combine the ginger essential oil with black pepper for a tremendous sports muscle rub.
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What is Ginger Essential Oil Good for Mentally?
Ginger essential oil is very goal oriented.
That might relate to the idea of getting out of bed to run 5 miles a day (Although I don’t think anything would be strong enough to do that to me!) or to make you sit and file your tax return.
Its warmth makes you feel motivated and excited about what you’re doing.
I will warn, however, that if you use too much ginger, you will feel extremely hot. By that, I mean physically hot. So if you are going to use it for instilling motivation, it might be best used as an inhalation, especially during the summertime.
That said, I adore using small amounts of ginger essential oil in the bath in the evening,
especially in winter, when my joints feel cold and achy, or I can feel a sniffle coming on. A bath made from a drop of ginger essential oil in a dash of milk and a teaspoon of honey is a luxury created for a queen!
Ginger essential oil is reassuring, comforting, and cosseting.
Something about it that helps show clear direction. Mental clarity, courage to pursue the ideas we have, and an end to the lethargy that is stopping us from embodying our dreams.
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What is Ginger Essential Oil Good for Spiritually?
I guess the answer is that it probably bestows us with the courage to pursue our ambitions when we have been able to visualize exactly what we want to do, to be able to embody that and bring them to fruition.
If we consider how it is seen in Ayurvedic Medicine, ginger is seen as the fuel of Agni. Agni is the metabolic fire, referring to digestion and heat within the body and spirit's drive. We see this as motivation, enthusiasm, and moving forward in life.
The Eastern chakra system sees it embodying the energy of the solar plexus chakra.
You might think about how metabolism exists in this area and how it turns the energy there, fueling the internal fire and speeding digestion (think about how that might give you diarrhea if you use too much of it, though) but also willpower, and more importantly than that, identity and self-esteem.
If someone has a weak sense of identity or a weak sense of self-esteem, we can see how that would exhibit as not being motivated to sit to follow one's dreams. All of these would be great ways to use ginger essential oil.
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Maximum Dilation of Ginger Essential Oil
3%
It is a very strong essential oil, so I would not recommend using it on children unless you have an issue with chronic constipation. In those situations, children under to use only in the dilation of 0.25%.
Safety
No specific contraindications with drugs or conditions. Not suitable for use in the first 16 weeks of pregnancy.
Remember, with ginger, less is always more. You do not want to turn into the radiating fireball that I once did to myself!
Conclusion
I guess the answer to what is ginger essential oil good for is heating us up. It heats us emotionally; we can use it as an aphrodisiac and as a way to lose the cold shoulder and engender forgiveness. It brings warmth to the character but also to the joints. It dries out phlegmy coughs, colds, and chills and softens the dampness of rheumatism.
