Help Your Ballet Students with Essential Oils

Can you really help your ballet students with essential oils?

Absolutely, you can.  And if you’re already a seasoned ballet dancer, the same applies for you. I’m about to show you how.

This guide gives you the basics.  Once you’ve got a handle on how to use oils safely and how they can help, go ahead and start experimenting.  None of this is set in stone.  Adapt it, mix it up, personalise it to suit your particular style and methods.

Let’s get started.

Diffusing to Set the Mood

When we arrive at classes and practice sessions – in any performing arts or sports, for that matter – there’s a whole bunch of stuff going on inside our heads that drags our attention from where it should be.  It costs us dearly when we need to be fully focused in this precious productive time.

Behold the genius of essential oils. These gifts of nature are well known for steadying thoughts and feelings. With no effort on our part, they put us into a more receptive place.  They give our monkey minds a satisfying banana that takes a while to consume. They ground us in the present moment.

Needless to say, this is a tremendous tool while educating and learning.

Diffusing essential oils is the perfect way to allow a group of people to enjoy their beautiful scents and benefits simultaneously.

Our sense of smell is the only sense with a direct path to the limbic lobe, the ground control for our emotions. Inhalation carries essential oils via the quickest route to influence how we’re feeling.

The process of diffusing oils also releases natural ozone, produces negative ions and increases oxygen availability.  All good things to have around!

Diffusing is a far cry from burning oils.  Essential oils are composed of delicate molecules and exposing them to heat in an oil burner or warmer can damage those molecules, rendering the oil less effective as it loses precious constituents that go towards making it do what it’s meant to do.  Burning oils is like taking a CD of Mozart being played by the Berlin Philharmonic and tap dancing on it.  With boots on.  It might still play but it won’t be music to your ears.  Even worse if it was a vinyl LP.

Diffusers, however, protect the oil molecules while distributing them, giving you a beautiful performance that hits all the right notes.  Diffusing oils also releases natural ozone, produces negative ions and increases oxygen availability.

There are several types of diffusers available from Young Living and out in the general marketplace, the best ones being:

• air diffusers that operate by pumping air through oil to create a microfine mist that hangs in the air for some time
• ultrasonic diffusers that work by using ultrasonic frequency to atomise water with essential oils added to it

Look for essential oil blends with names that suggest they are great for energising and keeping your mind on the job.  I’m listing Young Living ones because they’re the oils I choose without fail for their authenticity and effectiveness.  You can learn more about that in this short video.

Essential oils are potent, so as always, please follow directions on the bottle and the usual guidelines for safe use of authentic essential oils.

Here are a few of my favourites for this purpose:

• Young Living Gathering™ helps overcome the bombardment of chaotic energy that can scatter our focus (includes true lavender aka Lavandula angustifolia, geranium for opening the mind and sandalwood for grounding)
• Young Living Clarity™ boosts energy and alertness (includes fatigue-fighting basil and rosemary for remembrance)
• Young Living Present Time™ is for staying in the now, which in turn lets you progress and move forward (includes neroli for promoting awareness, spruce for grounding and ylang ylang for balancing male and female energies)

Direct Application and Massage for Warming Up and Winding Down Muscles and Feet

Essential oils are tremendous for easing out kinks and bringing comfort both before and after torturous and lengthy physical demands.

For all-rounder purposes, a massage oil blend that’s designed for sports recovery is ideal.  It will include a variety of oils that each target different specific needs and combine to cover all the bases.

As with all essential oils whether used neat or diluted, it’s vital to remember to never get them in your eyes or ears.  And be sure to wash your hands after use. This is mostly to avoid accidentally rubbing them into your eyes afterwards (argh!) or transferring them to non-recommended surfaces.

Young Living has a few ready-made massage products from which to choose and I love them all.  Cool Azul™ is a gel that’s super-easy and quick to apply and great for concentrated zones.  OrthoSport™ and OrthoEase™ are massage oils that are very popular for widespread coverage along with targeted areas.

Peppermint essential oil is awesome for both cooling and warming effects.  If you don’t understand what I mean, you will once you start using it.  Inhaling it is also fabulous for an instant Zing that will have your senses alive and alert: win-win.

This refreshing and versatile oil is generally comfortable for direct application to the skin.  But adding a few drops to a handful of good quality vegetable carrier oil like almond, olive, coconut or Young Living V-6 Enhanced Vegetable Complex will help a little peppermint oil go a long way when being smoothed into long muscles.

Encourage your budding ballet dancers to add a few drops to their recuperative foot baths. Finish off by massaging peppermint with a splash of carrier oil into tired tootsies after they’ve patted them dry.  They might not feel like they are brand new again but they’ll be a darned sight less tender than they were.

Targeting Performance Worries with Essential Oils

For anyone wanting to fortify their confidence when going into performances, the same oils suggested for diffusing are fabulous for direct inhalation or diffusing in the dressing room.

Scents create very powerful connections with memories. So as well as the benefits those essential oils normally carry, the scent memory connection with their use during training can be powerful for setting a great frame of mind going into the performance.

We’d love to hear your stories with incorporating essential oils into your dance practice.  And to get our help with accessing the products we’ve mentioned, please click here.

Enjoy the good oil daily.

The information on this site does not constitute advice. Please consult with your health practitioner. When using any of the products mentioned throughout this site, please be sure to read the labels and follow their suggestions for safe use. We make commissions from sales via many of the products we recommend but we only suggest products we genuinely enjoy and want you to benefit from.