Lavender: A Must-Have Addition to any Home
By: Emma Limor
@Emmalimor
Lavender, a resilient, fast-growing plant producing aromatic flowers and leaves, is more than just another plant in the garden. For just a small investment of time and money your lavender plant can help improve your health and wellness in a multitude of ways, improving sleep and digestion and helping reduce stress and anxiety.
Not only is gardening a great way to reconnect with the earth during a time where the only connection we seem to care about is our wifi, but the act of actually growing the plant supports mental and physical wellness.
The lavender plant is truly a gift that keeps giving! Here are 5 great ways this new addition to your home can be utilized to bring serenity into your life:
Kitchen:
The beautiful purples flowers of the French lavender can be picked fresh and boiled in water to produce a lovely tea containing zinc and magnesium which aids digestion and sleep. Lavender tea is naturally caffeine-free, and can be enjoyed at any time of day, hot or cold. Take the tea and substitute it for water when making lemonade or even baked goods.
Lavender is antioxidant rich and with naturally occurring polyphenols, it helps support digestive heath and clear the gut of harmful bacteria. This coupled with its anti-inflammatory properties makes lavender a great tool to reduce bloating and bowel irritations. Besides its health and wellness benefits, lavender is a delicious flavor that can enhance dishes sweet or savory.
Bath:
Sprinkle some fresh or dried lavender leaves or flowers in your bath for that same calming effect. After a long day of work, an all natural lavender bath might be just what you need! Add the dried leaves to a bath balm recipe for a similar effect.
The natural oils of lavender that are released in hot water are known to be anti-inflammatory and not only calm the mind but also the body. Muscle aches and pains along with tension can be relieved simply by adding a few leaves to your bath.
Sleep:
During covid, you have developed sleep issues due to a change in routine and daily activity. Even if you are getting good sleep, who doesn’t want better sleep! By simply placing a sachet of dried lavender leaves in your pillow case, you can help induce sleep and calm your mind and body without having to seek an over the counter or prescribed medicine.
Incorporating lavender into your daily routine whether in the bath, in the kitchen or in your pillow case, the plant can help you get the rest you need and deserve to be your best self when you wake up in the morning.
Garden:
As a hardy perennial herb, lavender is great for anyone who is just starting a garden or doesn’t want to tend to it on the daily. Once you plant it, as long as it's in a pot with good drainage, it tends to take, and can do well in a variety of climates. The lavender plant is great at attracting pollinators to your garden, so placing it next to your veg or moving its pot next to some plants that need TLC is a great garden hack that can help it thrive.
Since lavender is so hardy, it's essentially a fool-proof plant, so it's a great way to introduce children to responsibilities via gardening without the risk of their work not coming to fruition. With a splash of blue and purple color, the lavender plant can brighten up your outside space as well!
Skincare:
The anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial calming oil from lavender leaves has been used for centuries as a skin remedy. In fact, the ancient Greeks utilized lavender oil in medicine, due to its antiseptic properties. The oil which can be extracted through a simple steeping process has been proven to help reduce redness caused by irritations, sunburns, bug bites and can even help reduce acne and other blemishes.
Nowadays, we are constantly using hand sanitizers with alcohol that dries out skin, but we shouldn’t have to sacrifice the health of our skin for the health of our body. Mixing lavender oil into your hand sanitizer or simply incorporating it into your skincare routine can help replenish that lost moisture while continuing to fight bacteria.
Additionally, the high concentration of antioxidants in lavender oil makes it a great tool to help fight the free-radicals harmful to skin and overall health. Skin damage caused by the sun and wrinkles can be mitigated and even reversed by the consistent application of antioxidant rich oils. Considering lavender oils other amazing attributes for skin health, it easily outshines the other, less practical and cost-effective, options.
Overall, lavender is a versatile plant that's easy to include in your garden and in your daily life. Its uses are essentially endless, and the plant’s hardiness makes it an investment sure to pay off. While buying lavender products can be expensive, buying the plant and home-growing it is a great way to save room in your budget. Providing year-round physical and mental benefits, this plant is sure to bring some calm into any quarantine home life.