How to Use Essential Oils for Cough Prevention

There can be nothing more annoying than a racking, persistent cough that you feel like you can’t get rid of no matter what you try. It can be distracting and make you feel horrible. A cough can cause your throat to start hurting and play havoc with your day. You may have yourself convinced that it’s just a part of life, and there’s nothing you can do for it. The truth is that you can start using essential oils for cough prevention to help your body fight off the cause of a cough. It’s time to start learning about how these easy home remedies can help you to live a healthier life.

Tutorial Topics Covered

This tutorial covers:

  • The essential oils you should use for cough prevention
  • How you are able to use essential oils for preventing coughs
    • Aromatherapy
    • Home Blend Cough Syrup
    • Homemade Vapor Rub
  • How to create oil blends
  • A cautionary note on using essential oils for preventing coughs

Best Oils for Preventing Coughs

Items Needed For Cough Prevention Using Essential Oils

Items necessary to create blends of essential oil:

  • Your preferred oil or oils
  • Mixing bowl
  • Mixing spoon
  • Container that can be sealed to hold your blended oil

Items necessary for aromatherapy:

  • Your choice in oil or oil blend
  • Cotton balls
  • Water to be heated
  • Pot or kettle
  • Large Towel
  • Aromatherapy Diffuser (optional)

Items necessary to create a home blended cough syrup:

  • Honey
  • Lemon essential oil
  • Lavender essential oil
  • Peppermint essential oil
  • Frankincense
  • Glass
  • Spoon

Items necessary to create a home blended vapor rub:

  • Carrier oils of olive oil and coconut oil
  • Beeswax
  • Peppermint essential oil
  • Eucalyptus essential oil
  • Mason jar with lid
  • Pot large enough to fit mason jar
  • Water
  • Metal tin or another container

Instructions for Creating Essential Oil Blends for Cough Prevention

Step 1: Get Together Your Ingredients

Essential oil blends can be a great way to personalize your cough prevention treatment method. Gather together all the ingredients and materials that you’ll need to mix up a batch. This includes the oils you want to blend, a mixing bowl, a spoon to stir, and something to store it in after it’s blended.

Step 2: Blending Oils

You’ll want to pour in your essential oils into the mixing bowl. You may find that it’s easier to add equal parts of each one you like, or you may want to experiment with going heavier with some oils over others per your personal tastes.

Step 3: Recipes and Experimentation

When you experiment with your oil blends, it’s a good idea to start writing down your recipes. This will allow you to duplicate your results that you enjoy, and avoid the blends that didn’t work out as well as you would’ve liked.

Step 4: Storing Your Blended Oil

After the oils are blended nicely, you need to pour them into the container you’re using for storage. Keep them stored in a cool area with a container that seals up completely. Mixing up a larger batch means that you’ll be able to use this into the future for more than one use.

Step by Step Instructions for Cough Prevention Using Essential Oils

Step 1: Which Oils Are Right For You?

You may often find that some essential oils work great for you, and others are more irritating. Everyone has those smells that bother them so badly that no matter how good an essential oil works for a particular condition, he or she just cannot use them. Experimenting with finding the right oils for you is a good first step towards cough prevention.

Step 2: Which Treatment Method?

Another thing that you need to determine is which treatment method do you prefer. You can choose from aromatherapy where you inhale the essential oils, creating your own cough syrup with a honey base to consume, or mixing up a vapor rub concoction that can you apply topically to help prevent coughing. Each of these methods offers benefits over the other, and it all boils down to personal preference.

Step 3 A: Aromatherapy

Essential oil and aromatherapy go hand in hand. They work well for cough prevention by inhaling the essential oils. An easy way to inhale this essential oil is to put it in your pillow. Rather than trying to dump a whole bottle on your pillow, add some drops to a few cotton balls that you can tuck into your pillowcase to use while sleeping. You can also use the cotton balls to smell during the day.

An aromatherapy diffuser is another easy way to use essential oils for cough prevention, but you may not have a diffuser or feel like purchasing one. That’s okay. There’s a way that you create your own steam treatment method using a pot of boiling water. Just add a few drops of your chosen essential oil or blend to the boiling water so that it blends into the steam. Cover your head with the large towel to help the steam concentrate around your head, and breath it in. This will help to soothe and prevent your cough.

Step 3 B: Home Blended Cough Syrup

You can create your own home blended cough syrup using several of these essential oils and some honey without having all of the sugar that store bought syrup often contains. Honey will help to coat your throat making this more effective as a cough syrup.

One popular recipe uses a blend of several essential oils. In a jar, combine a teaspoon of honey with a drop of peppermint essential oil, lemon essential oil, lavender essential oil, and frankincense essential oil. Mix this syrup well. Drink the mixture right after you’ve finished mixing.

You can experiment with finding a cough syrup that provides you the best relief. You may find that adding ginger works better for you, or that you don’t like adding the frankincense, and this is okay.

Step 3 C: Home Blended Vapor Rub

Unlike the cough syrup, you’ll make a larger amount of the home blended vapor rub that you can use for more than one application. You can rub this mixture on your throat and chest for cough prevention and relief.

In the mason jar, mix up a half a cup of coconut oil, a fourth a cup of olive oil, and a fourth of a cup of grated beeswax. You’ll want to put the mason jar into the pot of water that is on a low to medium heat. This will melt and blend the carrier oils and beeswax. Let this mixture start to cool before adding twenty drops of both peppermint and eucalyptus essential oils. Before this completely cools, pour it into the tin or other storage container you’ll use to hold it. Let the mixture set up before use, or it may make a bigger mess when trying to apply it. Apply it as necessary.

Step 4: Repeat As Necessary

The first dose of any medication that you take may not be effective enough that you don’t need to take any more of it. The same is true with home remedies. You will need to repeat these treatments as necessary to help you feel better. It can be frustrating to find something that you think will work, but then it doesn’t work right away. Patience is a good idea as you need to give these a little time to work but feel free to experiment to find what’s going to work the best for you personally.

Caution

There are some cautionary measures that you need to remember when using essential oils, especially when consuming them. The first is that the type of essential oils you purchase should be a high-grade oil that is meant for consumption. Also, some essential oils, like tea tree oil isn’t meant for consumption at all.

Using essential oils directly on your skin without diluting essential oils can cause irritation, and even with dilution, there’s the possibility that the oils can irritate your skin. It’s a good idea to start with a small amount for the topical application of the vapor rub or any blends that you create.

If you find that your cough has persisted for over a week, it may be necessary to seek the opinion of a medical professional to be sure that you don’t have something more serious than just a cough.

Conclusion

A cough can be a major annoyance. It makes you feel uncomfortable to the point where your throat feels raw and even can impact on how your day goes. There’s nothing more annoying than being on the phone and having to stop talking or listening to the person on the other end to have a bout of coughing. You’ve got to apologize for coughing and try to get back on track. It can be the worst. Thankfully, you can turn towards these home remedy methods of cough prevention to help you with dealing with this annoying part of life.

What do you think? Let’s hear from you on your experience if you’ve ever used essential oils to prevent a cough. What oils did you use? Are you willing to try using essential oils in the future for preventing coughs? Comment below, and let others know your thoughts. Be sure to share this with your friends, so they can learn more about how essential oils can prevent coughs.