When you think of lavender, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Most rightfully so, you could be like so many others who associate lavender with peace, calmness, a more relaxed state, and a night of better sleep. With all the potential health benefits lavender is associated with, it’s not surprising that many businesses within the health and wellness industries have come up with products utilizing lavender as the main material.
From essential oils to scented candles, bath soaps, beauty products, massage oils, and linen sprays, the bedding sector has also started to hold lavender products. The focus here is on lavender pillows.
As the name implies, a lavender pillow refers to bedroom pillows infused with lavender. Many people believe that having lavender on a pillow can have significant impacts on one’s sleep quality. Does this claim hold water and is worth the buy? Or is it merely a placebo effect? This article discusses the potential of a lavender pillow in helping address your sleep troubles along with other pertinent facts surrounding your sleep.
How Lavender Pillow Can Help You Sleep Better
The power of a lavender pillow to help you sleep better can often be traced from all the other effects it comes with. The reason for this is simple. When your body is able to relax and stay calm, it’s easier for you to fall asleep.
The following are the effects of a lavender pillow that’s related to sleep:
1. It May Help You Deal With Mental Health Conditions
Using a lavender pillow to help you deal with depression and anxiety makes you calm your senses. The rationale for this is simple. When you go through depression, your senses or your nerves are never calm. It’s like something is keeping you nervous and anxious, and you’re finding it hard to relax.
Like a domino effect, when you aren’t able to relax, especially during bedtime, you may not be able to fall asleep right away. Your mind continues to stay active, thinking of everything that may be keeping you anxious.
This is where your lavender pillow’s power comes in. Smelling the scent of lavender when you sleep may affect your limbic system. This is the system in the body responsible for helping individuals deal with their emotions. Going even more specific, the limbic system holds the hypothalamus, which is where anxiety signals are sent, and the hippocampus, which is responsible for regulating anxiety.
Through lavender’s interaction with the human body, you can enjoy several benefits relating to how anxiety is eased, including:
- Mood improvement;
- Regulated breathing;
- Lower heart rate.
2. It May Address Skin Irritations
Good skin condition has a direct effect on your sleep quality for many reasons. First, depending on your skin condition, you may experience discomfort at night that can hamper your sleep quality. For instance, you may be scratching a lot when you have rashes and acne. In its bad state, some skin irritations may also be painful.
Second, there’s no denying that one’s skin condition can affect confidence and self-esteem. Especially for those who suffer from chronic skin conditions or skin asthma, acne, and other rash-like problems, once it gets worse, your self-esteem problems may even lead to depression and anxiety, now going back to the cycle of how mental health problems can affect one’s ability to sleep better at night. The problems that you think about when your self-esteem is suffering may haunt you at night, hampering your ability to sleep.
So, it’s easy to see now that skin irritations aren’t just a vanity thing. It’s a problem that needs to be taken seriously, especially once the individual starts to notice that their mental health is suffering.
As minute as it seems, a lavender pillow does have its positive effects in addressing skin irritations. Have you considered whether your pillow is clean enough to save your skin from potential skin allergies? Or, does your pillow unknowingly contribute to your skin condition?
Not known to many, your pillow can be one of the dirtiest things in your bedroom. And when you rest your face or your skin on it the entire night, the dust mites, molds, and other allergens that may have accumulated on your pillow can affect your skin, hence the need for a lavender pillow.
Lavender is known for its potential in improving skin conditions. It’s hypoallergenic, making it a better pillow choice especially for those who suffer from skin sensitivities and allergies. Lavender pillows can benefit the skin in numerous ways such as the following:
- It may prevent and heal acne breakouts through the antibacterial properties of lavender;
- It may soothe dry skin and eczema;
- It may aid in skin lightening because of lavender’s potential benefit to reduce inflammation;
- It may have anti-aging properties, fighting off the onset of wrinkles.
3. It May Help You Cope With Insomnia
Insomnia is a sleep condition suffered by many people globally. In the past, those who experience sleep difficulty may only be able to address their condition through using chemical or synthetic sleeping pills. Today, the demand for more natural alternatives is increasing, and that brought about the coming in of lavender products to help individuals suffering from insomnia.
Lavender’s potential stems from it being a popular aromatherapy choice. By now, you know that lavender is consistently favored and used by those who suffer from sleep difficulties. Along with the interactions of lavender’s compounds on the brain, it may also increase the time spent in slow-wave, deep sleep.
Along with using a lavender pillow, there are other proven ways by which you can sleep better at night. These are also worth discussing:
- Don’t drink coffee late in the afternoon. As much as possible, you want to limit your caffeine intake and not go beyond two in the afternoon. Caffeine can keep your energy levels up, thereby affecting your ability to fall asleep at night. If you feel the need to have coffee late in the day, at least choose a decaffeinated option.
- Establish a bedtime routine. It usually takes at least 21 days of consistent practice for something to become a habit, and it’s also worth establishing a bedtime routine. This is one fail-proof way for you to set your body’s natural circadian rhythm in order so that at the end of the day, it’s easier and effortless for your body to fall asleep.
- Eat earlier in the evening. Preferably, eat at least two to three hours before bedtime. Even if you may be eating healthily, you could be having some meals for dinner which may unknowingly keep you up.
4. It May Reduce Pain
Lavender can be a natural pain reliever. This is a welcome breakthrough for those who may have had difficulty sleeping because of the pain they experience. For many, one of the main ways to treat and manage the onset of pain is through taking a synthetic pain reliever. Today, this is no longer the case as there are other gentler and more natural ways to deal with your condition. When this is achieved, sleep quality improves as well since you’re no longer bothered by the pain you’re going through.
Lavender pillows may help you sleep better when you experience pain brought about by the following circumstances:
- Healing from wounds. Especially when your wound is still in its early stages, lavender may help promote its healing. This allows you to sleep restfully when you’re not feeling the pain and discomfort brought about by your wounds.
- Pain after surgery. The aromatherapy benefits of lavender may also bring an analgesic effect post-surgery.
- Pain from stress headaches. Stress has many effects, including headaches. In its severe case, a migraine can occur. This makes lavender a safe and natural alternative to the usual over-the-counter painkillers you may take.
5. It May Work As A Natural Insect Repellant
This fifth benefit of lavender pillows applies to those of you who live in places where mosquitoes are abundant. Or, perhaps you’re off to a camping trip and you know that you’re sleeping in an outdoor area, which can make for easy access to mosquitoes.
With a lavender pillow, you get to enjoy the advantages of having a natural insect and mosquito repellant. Among all the other benefits lavender may have, it’s known also for its ability to ward off mosquitoes, as citronella oils do. This is the reason why you’ll find a lot of citronella products that may be scented with lavender.
Surely, you can’t sleep comfortably and confidently at night when you have worries about mosquitoes biting you and your family. A lavender pillow can help you rest, and you’d be assured that you have a window of protection against those unwanted insects.
Given the serious illnesses that some mosquito bites might bring, it’s understandable why you should have that urge to protect your home for a good night’s sleep. Along with using your lavender pillow, there are other ways for you to drive away mosquitoes from your home like:
- Keep indoor mosquito repellant plants like marigolds, lemongrass, and citronella;
- Keep plates of lemon with garlic cloves squeezed all over your home;
- Use a garlic spray that’s made simply of garlic, water, and a few drops of lavender essential oil to mask the smell of garlic around your home.
Other Ways Of Using Lavender For Sleep
If using a lavender pillow isn’t enough for you, it’s also worth discussing the many other ways you can use lavender for improving your sleep. You can either do these together with using your pillow or alternating one mode of using lavender to another. These other ways of using lavender include:
- Diffusing it;
- Spraying lavender oil on your linen and curtains;
- Taking a warm bath with lavender bath products;
- Massaging your body with lavender oil.
Whatever your chosen mode is, the whole point is to show you that lavender has promising potential in helping you sleep better. And you can turn your bedroom into your very own retreat where you can run home and relax after a long and stressful day. You won’t run out of ways to utilize lavender, so experiment and find what you think is the best for you.
Tips When Choosing A Lavender Pillow
To enjoy the promising benefits of a lavender pillow, it’s very important to learn how to sort through your options. Don’t settle for anything less than the best lavender pillow brands or suppliers. Otherwise, if you’re skimping on the quality, you may be paying so much more for what a particular lavender pillow can actually do for you.
Here’s a quick guide of the most important factors to consider when choosing a lavender pillow:
- Look for a quality brand. Whether you’re shopping online or in a physical store, you can’t go wrong with purchasing lavender pillows from named brands in the home and bedding industry that you can trust.
- Assess the price. You don’t have to spend a fortune to have a good quality lavender pillow. It’s up to you to weigh the price with the name brand, so you’re convinced that you aren’t just wasting your money on an expensive but poor-quality lavender pillow.
Conclusion
It’s no secret that many individuals in the past have practiced stuffing pillows with fresh and dried lavender. This practice brought to life the modern-day lavender pillows of today. As you can see, a lavender pillow isn’t merely a hype or a fad. With a good quality one, you can be like one of those many who’ve already started to enjoy the benefits of using a lavender pillow. The benefits relate to and also extend far beyond simply improving your sleep quality.
If you still need more convincing, the best thing for you to do is go ahead and shop for one. Then you can finally test and see for yourself what a lavender pillow can do for you. Consider the ideas mentioned here as you look for the best lavender pillow that’s suitable for you.
