I’ve been using Atlas Cedarwood essential oil in Gear Defender and other disinfectant blends for a few years. It’s warm, woody scent offers a wonderful grounding base note to those blends while enhancing the anti-microbial aspects of the other essential oils. I’ve thought of Atlas Cedarwood as a partner in those blends.
Atlas Cedarwood comes from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and Algeria. It’s steam distilled from the wood there, providing a high enough volume of essential oil per pound of wood to keep the retail prices for the finished essential oil fairly low. That’s in part why Atlas Cedarwood is one of my favorites.
Traditional Chinese Medicine and Atlas Cedarwood Essential Oil
From a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective, Atlas Cedarwood essential oil is generally stabilizing with a woody, sweet scent. It can help nourish Yin, resolve damp, and calm the Shen. For those of us who’ve spent more time looking at herbs and health from a science-based, Western perspective, that means it’ll help you feel more grounded and stable, can help relieve excess mucus conditions like coughs and runny nose, and can help your nervous system relax.
Atlas Cedarwood is a good choice for folks who feel overworked and exhausted, whose minds won’t quite calm down or who have insomnia that’s fueled by worry, overthinking, or anxiety. It’s also a good choice for getting through colds, flus, and other stuff that has rattled your respiratory or digestive systems. Atlas Cedarwood can help you deal with the aftermath of illness when you feel stressed after having taken off time to get through a cold or flu and can’t quite see the end of your make-up list of chores or tasks.
Atlas Cedarwood for Emotional Strength
On an emotional level, Atlas Cedarwood helps strengthen our will, making it easier to hold firm to our ethics or foundation in times of trouble. That reinforces the nervine and generally calming aspects of this essential oil. When you’re facing changes and challenges that have you up at night worrying, Atlas Cedarwood is a real friend. It can help you get centered enough to recognize what you really want or need from the situation and stick to the choices that will help you achieve it, even if that means the rest of the world seems to be shifting all around you.
Ayurveda and Atlas Cedarwood Essential Oil
From an Ayurvedic perspective, Atlas Cedarwood helps ground excess Vata energy. It offers an overall structure that allows the chakra system to flow in harmony with a focus on helping the Crown Chakra to regain a state of calm strength. For those of us facing transition, be it general life events like changing careers or jobs or moving to a new town or life cycle events like adolescence, menopause, or andropause, Atlas Cedarwood helps us to find the stillness, internal support, and energetic alignment we need to proceed with confidence and resolution.
Blending with Atlas Cedarwood Essential Oil
Beyond disinfectant blends, I’ve used Atlas Cedarwood essential oil in diffuser blends for general calming and grounding. It blends well with some of my favorite soothers, like Geranium and Lavender. For anxiety and exhaustion, Atlas Cedarwood blends well with other calming base notes like Patchouli or with middle notes like Clary Sage. I generally use two or three drops Atlas Cedarwood in a formula of 8-10 drops for my diffuser, so I might pair three drops of Lavender, two of Clary Sage, and three of Atlas Cedarwood with maybe 1 of Geranium.
Resources:
- Aromatica: A Clinical Guide to Essential Oil Therapeutics. Volume 1: Principles and Profiles by Peter Holmes
- Aromatherapy: A Complete Guide to the Healing Art by Kathi Keville and Mindy Green
- Aromatherapy for Healing the Spirit: Restoring Emotional and Mental Balance with Essential Oils by Gabriel Mojay
