The Ultimate Autumn Essential Oil Collection

As we settle into the cooler season, it's increasingly important to take care of ourselves, inside and out. We've shared plenty of tips here for updating your holistic spaces for the new season, and we've also spoken with many health experts on how to ease your body and mind into autumn. In addition to watching your diet and taking care to listen to your body, these essential oils can work wonders in making the switch from warm summer to cool fall. 

Eucalyptus - This essential oil is an amazing tool in treating a variety of respiratory symptoms, including coughs, runny noses, sore throats and more. It's also shown to be highly effective in reducing stress (holiday season, anyone?), and is a generally warming, calming scent.

Nutmeg - Speaking of pleasant smells, nutmeg essential oil is another option with great results in treating cold and cough symptoms. It can also help to alleviate some depression and act as a sleep aid, both helpful in the change to cooler weather! Maybe the best perk of this essential oil is the token autumn scent that acts as a mood setter as well!

Rosemary - This powerhouse essential oil has a wide range of uses for heading into the fall season, including helping to improve respiratory function, reduce stress, support a healthy immune system and prevent dry skin. Talk about a must-have!

Lavender - One of the most popular essential oils, lavender is excellent at healing skin irritations (think dry skin from all that wind and cool weather) and is also a wonderful way to reduce stress. Final perk? It helps boost your immune system! 

Frankincense - Another essential oil with many healing properties perfect for fall, frankincense is known to help tighten and tone skin in addition to fighting coughs and colds and soothing anxiety. 

Lemongrass - Lemongrass can help to give your skin that glow that cooler weather often steals from summer's bright days. It's great as a skin toner and can also help to fight depression that comes with colder months!

Sandalwood - Sandalwood is yet another all-around perfect essential oil for fall, as it helps heal dry skin and keep skin smooth, while also working to fight colds and coughs and boost the immune system. 

Rose - Rose oil is touted as one of the most effective for reducing depression, stress and anxiety, all of which can unfortunately accompany the change in weather. Not only can this oil uplift your mood, it's great for dry skin as well!

Vetiver - This is a grounding essential oil, perfect for the new fall season, when we look toward rooting ourselves to gear up for the cold, yin winter. 

Chamomile - Another essential oil worth having any time of year, chamomile offers a calming scent that helps us return to inner harmony, much needed as we head into the often stressful holiday season!

Of course, this list isn't all inclusive, but if you're looking for a great fall lineup, these oils fit the bill. You could also add fall-scented oils, like orange, cinnamon, clove and wood oils like pine, cedarwood and many more. Be sure to also try your hand at oil blends too! Check out this post from Fresh Mommy Blog for some great ideas for fall!

by Anjie Cho

How to Feng Shui Your Beauty Cabinet

featured this month on MindBodyGreen

In feng shui, areas and objects in your spaces represent something deeper. Think about your beauty cabinet where you keep skincare products, hair styling tools, makeup, and other toiletries in abundance. You're sitting on a goldmine, because you've already created a space that holds some keys to assist you in showing your radiance to the world — now you just need to maximize its potential.

Whether you have a beauty cabinet chock full of the latest products, or you just have a few precious bottles that you use daily, here are three tricks to give you and your beauty cabinet some radiant energy:

1. Toss the expired items.

I think it goes without saying, but just in case .. be sure to go through and toss any expired items. It may be hard to let go of some of your favorite or most expensive products, but it's important to know that using them past their expiration date can actually negate their effects. Using expired skincare products can essentially mean putting bacteria on your face which can lead to irritation, inflammation, redness, bumps, rashes and swelling.

...read full article

by Anjie Cho

How to Welcome the Autumnal Equinox, with Stiggly Holistics

After a long, hot summer, it's finally time to welcome a new season! It's always important to take care of ourselves, both inside and out, when changing from one season to another, and this year, our friend Sacha Jones, from Stiggly Holistics, has volunteered her insight! It's been a while since we spoke with Sacha, and we're happy to welcome her back to talk bringing in Autumn in a healthy, holistic way. 

AC: Tell us a little bit about Stiggly Holistics and what you're up to these days. 

SJ: Stiggly Holistics will be celebrating her 10th birthday soon, and we are looking to do some celebrating and relaunching between the fall and the spring. This will include introducing some new classes, starting some new women's groups, opening up my pottery studio and expanding that part of the business, and playing around with new packaging ideas for my product line... much good stuff on the horizon! I can't reveal it all now but just to say - between this coming October and the spring of '17, Stiggly Holistics will be seeing a little bit of a facelift, which feels really fun and exciting.

The heart, essence and roots will of course remain true to where we began - "nourish your body, nourish your soul" will always remain our motto. We believe in caring for the whole person - not just the food we put on our plates, but also the quality of our soul food, our home environment, how we care for the planet and so much more. It's all under the same holistic umbrella, and that's a very important part of the Stiggly mission. I'm hoping to have a little celebratory relaunch/anniversary party at some point, I will keep you posted.

Yes, please do! How does the autumnal equinox affect us, internally and externally?

I always love the autumnal and vernal equinox, because to me it's all about balance. Winter is extremely inward, summer very outward whereas spring and fall are a lovely mixture of the two. I love how the shadows change somewhere around the autumnal equinox, and with that there is an energy shift that is almost palpable. With the daylight and darkness being about the same, we tend towards a little more indoor time, perhaps getting to bed a little earlier, slowing down just a little bit, and we tend to get a little more grounded and centered.  

What are some steps we can take to ease into Autumn in a healthy way?

My first suggestion is to get yourself to your local farmer's market and see what's in season. Let that guide your meal planning. Eating seasonally is more than a trend; it's really good for our body and soul. Nature provides what we need, just at exactly the right time. You will start to see more root veggies, and energetically these foods help to ground us. In this same vein I also recommend exploring herbal infusions and decoctions - and nourishing your body with "teas" like elderberry, ginger, oatstra, and other favorite herbs. Have fun experimenting with flavors you like, get really into the ritual of it all and sip, smile, breathe.

Secondly, I suggest really considering the beginning of Autumn as an opportunity to take a deep breath, release your shoulders and honor the moment as a new beginning. Whether or not you have children in school, or are yourself in academia, or if all that is long ago in your memory, there is a "back to school" vibe that's ingrained within us. Let's use that to let go of some non-serving stuff and embrace some new ideas. How balanced is your life? Do you have enough boundaries? Are you always saying yes to others? How is the balance between your work and play time? See where you can cut back in your work obligations a little - and by so doing, increase your time, energy and motivation for play and true relaxation.

Also, in keeping with the theme of balance, I really recommend getting into a daily practice of balancing on one leg. Aim for at least 30 seconds per leg, at least once a day. You can do it while you wait for the kettle to boil, while you brush your teeth, while you wait for a subway, or really anytime...to make this harder, more fun and more beneficial, I also recommend you try and do this with your eyes closed. Time yourself. How long can you balance that way? If it feels impossible, keep at it - like anything it gets easier with practice.

image credit: Stiggly Holistics

image credit: Stiggly Holistics

What's the best part of the new season, in your opinion?

A new season marks another chance for us to go inward and hit that proverbial "reset button" on ourselves. It's a chance to look within and see what's working, what's not, and a good time to re-evaluate our goals - personal & professional. I also love seasonal clothing, and Autumn is maybe my favorite, since I love jackets and home-made knitwear. It's the time to blow the cobwebs off the knitting needles and, in general, just start being creative. 

Truly it's hard to put into words just how intoxicating Autumn is, but I really love the collective hum, which feels like excitement. It's almost like culturally we become squirrel-like, all rushing around, gathering "acorns," preparing for the colder months ahead while the delicious scents of pumpkin spices and hot cider fill the air. It's all about the ritual, the familiar and the comfort in that.

How can we use the concepts of Stiggly Holistics to create holistic spaces?

When I think of holistic spaces, I think of creating home-space that feels safe and cozy - somewhere you want to spend time. 

When I consider nourishment and self care, it goes so much deeper than what we eat, as I've mentioned. And a very big component of that is home environment. I always want to know from my clients what home feels like. Does it feel safe, comfortable? Would you be comfortable inviting people over, even if your space is tiny? Do you make your bed every morning? Are the sheets and pillows comfortable? What is your lighting like? Do you have somewhere to sit and just be quiet - whether that's to read, meditate or just relax after a busy day at work? Are the things in your home relevant? Do you still love the art on the walls, the books on the shelves? Do you look around your abode and smile? Have a sense of pride? 

You can start small when creating a holistic home environment - you don't have to spend a lot of money, but get a few things in place. Clean out your fridge and fill it with healthful, life-giving foods and try to avoid a build up of leftovers. Use green cleaning products (make them yourselves), and avoid chemicals in your home (this includes laundry detergent so you can sleep better on eco-cleansed sheets). Every season, go through your "stuff" and have a little clean out. I'm a fan of natural, "organic" materials and found objects (as well as antiques, thrift, stoop sales...), and believe holistic home spaces should be as void of plastic as possible.

Our "stuff" contributes to the energy of a home, and what we lay our eyes on contributes to the way we feel, so let's make our home spaces as beautiful and comfortable as possible - in a way that works for ourselves. Your home may not be featured in Dwell magazine, but do you love it? Do you feel truly at home there? That's what really matters. Home is truly is where the heart is, and I think keeping that concept at the core when you declutter, design and get cozy will help guide you to really loving where you live.

As always, such wonderful advice from Sacha on remaining true to yourself and taking care of you! What can you do in the coming months to treat yourself with loving care as we transition from warm, yang weather to the colder, yin season? Be sure to try out Sacha's recipe for cleansing fire water too! 

by Anjie Cho

Sacha Jones is the founder of Stiggly Holistics. he hails originally from Wales but is a long time New Yorker and spends her time between the East Village, and Sullivan County upstate. Stiggly Holistics specializes in holistic wellness - we want to get to know the WHOLE you and get you on the path to feeling your very best self. We run group classes, women's groups & offer individual counseling - as well offering a line of organic body balms and herb teas, and returning soon to the line - hand made ceramics. You can learn more by visiting our website, www.stiggly.com and you can sign up for our Juicy Tuesday Newsie musings for weekly motivation right here.