Top 10 Health Benefits of Incense

Incense is one of the best ways to keep your room smelling lovely. However, it has many other benefits people may not be familiar with. Here are the top 10 benefits of incense:

• Improves blood circulation – Boswellic acid is an ingredient in a popular incense known as frankincense. Boswellic acid is known for its anti-inflammatory effects and improving blood flow and circulation. This helps combat the inflammatory effects of arthritis, cysts, and Crohn’s disease.
• Aids the respiratory system – Incense can help you combat bronchitis, asthma, sinusitis, frequent colds and allergies. Just inhale a small amount of it everyday and you will see results.
• Reduces anxiety – A study on the effect of incense on women who were about to receive a breast biopsy indicated that incense did reduce anxiety on some level. Out of the two used, lavender-sandalwood incense was more effective than orange peppermint incense.
• Can help you sleep – If you are having trouble sleeping at night, incense may be just as effective as sleeping pills. As mentioned before, it helps reduce anxiety by slowing down the nervous system, which causes your body and mind to relax. There are a plethora of scents you can choose to from to help make your dreams smell nice. Lavender, vanilla, jasmine and many other can help you sleep.
• Reduces scars – If you suffer from bad skin you may want to consider the use of incense as a form of treatment. Frankincense has properties of helping the skin heal faster. Frankincense is known for having an infective potential, so this can help healing boils, scars, and pimples. So, in addition to acne creams and such, consider adding some nice scents to help you out with your skin.
• Improves the immune system – When burning incense, it can be used as an antiseptic and a disinfectant. It can be applied to wounds to help prevent Infection as well as help heal internal wounds.
• Can be used as an aphrodisiac – If you are looking to set the mood for your special someone this summer, pick up some blue lotus incense. Although incense is generally known for its relaxing and healing properties, it also carries other benefits. Blue lotus incense is known for activating the hypothalamus, is which is responsible for sexual arousal. It causes the production of testosterone to increase as well as increasing blood flow to the sexual organs.
• Acts as a natural air freshener – To help freshen up the room, light up some incense of any kind as a guilt-free air freshener. Incense is all natural, so no harsh chemicals will be flowing in the air. Big brand air fresheners usually contain four harsh chemicals in them. These chemicals are formaldehyde, petroleum distillates, aerosol propellants and p-dichlorobenzene, which are all known for having numerous health effects such as burning eyes, pulmonary damage, increased cancer risk and liver damage.   
• Can help with meditation – Many religions use incense when it comes to deep meditation. So why can’t you? People have been doing this since the beginning of time, so it does work. If you need to find yourself or just need some alone time to think, incense can help you calmly think about what is on your mind.
• Helps with depression and neurological damage – Frankincense is known as one of the best varieties of incense for overall healing, but one of the major benefits is alleviating depression and neurological damage. It has been proven that frankincense extracts assists in the reduction of depression and neurological damage.

As you can see, there are more advantages to burning incense than simply making the room smell nice. It has other benefits that can help your overall health and mentality. So maybe it’s time to ditch the air freshener and try something different.