We’ll do sweet basil this month because it fits so well with our article about essential oils for empowering women. If you want an example of how powerful sweet basil is, try buying the plant from the supermarket and putting it into the trunk of your car with your weekly shopping. You won’t be able to smell the tomatoes, the coffee or even the beautiful fresh baked bread, sweet basil will monopolize. Today we ask what is sweet basil essential oil good for?
What Is Sweet Basil Essential Oil Good For In The Physical Body
According to The Complete Guide To Aromatherapy (Third Edition; Volume 1-Foundations And Material Medica Salvatori Battaglia lists Sweet Basil’s actions as:
Antidepressant, antiseptic, antispasmodic, cognitive, cephalic, digestive, emmenagogue, expectorant, Febrifuge, nervine, restorative, stomachic, sudorific.
Pain
This essential oil is high in a constituent called linalool which is both anti-inflammatory and antidepressant. Linalool is a wonderful painkilling constituent.
I like to use it for rheumatism in blends with lavender and juniper.
Digestion
As with most of the culinary herbs, basil is a wonderful digestive help. It’s particularly helpful for dyspepsia, indigestion and heartburn.
Menstruation
Traditionally, sweet basil has been used in traditional medicine for many many years to help regulate the menstrual cycle, and in the law has analgesic properties.
Respiratory
Sweet basil’s fragrance is penetrating, so it is great for stuffy noses and is a tremendous oil to use to do smell training if someone loses their sense of smell.
Battaglia does not list its antitussive action, but I think it is one of the best oils to use if you have a perpetually spluttery cough. (Completely unrelated, I always drink warm apple juice with it too. I find it helps a lot).
What is Sweet Basil Essential Oil Good For Mentally
In The Blossoming Heart, Robbie Zech talks about how Basil is very good at overcoming the balance between being insecure and being expressive. She says:
“The sharp spicy fragrance of Basil brings balance and clarity to the inner emotions as the need to control falls away. Let your heart speak. Take a risk and express yourself.”
It is a feminine oil with an innately masculine energy. I always describe it like a Sergeant Major in Afghanistan. She is training the men how to use their guns, rolling about in the dust and at night, she dances on the tables with her bottle of beer in the air. Sweet basil is fearless, bold and courageous. She has excellent judgment.
Professionally, she is a safe pair of hands whom you would trust to have your back. She is as intuitive as any woman however hers is honed to the dark spaces of checking behind the doors before she raises her weapon, being able to read the minds of serial killers and being able to negotiate a hostage situation and win.
Sweet Basil asks you to stop overthinking things, and as she does so, she is so refreshing.
The essential oil is most commonly used as a nerve tonic. It is a natural tranquilizer, however rather than making you feel calm, it makes you feel empowered and steady.
Wonderful for helping to fight fatigue, it focuses the mind.
The great oil to choose if you’re struggling to concentrate because worries are distracting you.
It is the very best choice, in my opinion, for when you are paralyzed by nerves. If a situation has you stuck like a rabbit in the headlights then sweet basil would be the very best essential oil to use.
What is Sweet Basil Essential Oil Good For Emotionally?
The high levels of linalool give it an antidepressant nature. I like how the 16th century herbalist John Gerard describes it best. He says
“ The smell of basil taketh away sorrowfulness and maketh a man merry and glad.”
I dunno about you, but I tend to think we could all do with a bit more merriment in our lives!
What is Sweet Basil Essential Oil Good For Spiritually?
If you read some of the stuff Carl Jung wrote about the archetypes, he described the warrior component as an emanation of the Divine Masculine. However, Jungian psychiatrist, Jean Shinoda Bolen expresses things in a slightly different way and I really enjoy this.
She describes how the archetypes of the Grecian goddesses show up in our psyches. Demeter as the loving mother but prone to depression when her daughter was stolen from her. Aphrodite manifests as the lover, the temptress and the beauty.
But Artemis is a huntress, a solitary goddess, not defined by her relationships with men, and the same can be seen as Athena.
Basil seems to embody the Athena archetype to me. The ancient Greek priestess of Athena Polias was the highest in the land. Guardian of the city state of Athens, she had money, beauty and political sway. Interestingly, even though Athena was a virginal goddess, we know that her priestess could be married, have children and even grandchildren. This is attested to by a statue that remains of Lysimache, a woman whose family tells how she held the post for no less than 60 years.
Athena was a war goddess, but she is learning, wisdom and strategic thinking. Attributed with having created weaving, she is a crafter, someone who knows how to make things manifest.
In other words, this need to fight is nothing to do with the divine masculine in the psyche. The ancient Greeks perceived it as simply a different part of the woman, and as such, it is one that we can call on as part of our natural make up.
Sweet basil brings the poise of being at the top and knowing that nothing can move you. It helps you turn up every day ready to do the job not because you are too afraid or stressed to do anything else, but because you know it is what you were born to do.
Basileus has two meanings - or the basilisk (a serpent or dragon) and “King”
Sweet basil helps you feel as if you are capable of ruling and to own your place in life, regardless of what else might come to pass.
Blending Sweet Basil Essential Oil
Cough Massage Oil
- 1 tsp Grapeseed Carrier Oil (Vitis vinifera)
- 1 drop Sweet Basil Essential Oil (Ocimum basilicum)
- 1 drop Eucalyptus Essential Oil (Eucalyptus globulus)
- 1 drop Hyssop Essential Oil (Hyssopus officinalis)
Method of Use: Rub onto the outside of the throat, the upper part of the chest and back. Try to do it five times throughout the day
Safety: Not suitable for use during the first 16 weeks of pregnancy. Hyssop may not be great for someone who has epilepsy or any kind of psychotic or delusory condition.
Headache Massage Oil
- 1 tsp Grapeseed Carrier Oil (Vitis vinifera)
- 1 drop Sweet Basil Essential Oil (Ocimum basilicum)
- 1 drop Rosemary Essential Oil (Salvia rosmarius)
- 1 drop Lavender Essential Oil (Lavandula angustifolia)
Method of Use: Rub across the forehead and temples and on the back of the neck during an attack.
Safety: Not suitable for use during the first 16 weeks of pregnancy. Rosemary may not be great for someone who has epilepsy or any kind of psychotic or delusory condition.
Regulate Menstrual Cycle
- 1 tsp Grapeseed Carrier Oil (Vitis vinifera)
- 1 drop Sweet Basil Essential Oil (Ocimum basilicum)
- 1 drop Geranium Essential Oil (Pelargonium asperum var roseum)
- 1 drop Clary Sage Essential Oil (Salvia sclarea)
Method of Use: Rub across the abdomen and the lower back three times a day.
Safety: No considerations.
Conclusion
So the answer to what is sweet basil essential oil good for is to help you live in an aggressive world, to hold your own and to speak your truth. Great for headaches and uplifting your mood. Why don’t you give it a try. If you would like to investigate Sweet basil on a much deeper level, why not have a look at my book Sweet Basil: The Essential Oil of Empowerment.
