Smoking Lavender Pros And Cons – Is It Safe to Use?
As a herbal practice that is thought to encourage relaxation and provide a number of potential advantages, smoking lavender has grown in popularity. Before smoking lavender, you should weigh the benefits and drawbacks, just like with any herbal remedy or complementary therapy.
In order to help you decide whether to adopt this practice into your lifestyle, we will examine both its potential benefits and disadvantages in this article. You can decide whether or not smoking lavender is in line with your wellness objectives by being aware of the possible effects and taking into account your unique situation.
What Does Smoking Lavender Do?
Lavender is an herb that has long been recognized as a calming herb with a variety of advantages, including aiding in the management of stress, depression, anxiety, and pain. Lavender is a fantastic herb to relieve stress and encourage relaxation, whether you drink it as tea or use the essential oil for aromatherapy.
Linalool, one of the main terpenes in lavender, is largely responsible for its calming effects. Terpenes are organic compounds that affect how a plant smells, tastes, or even it’s color. It is linalool, which also has calming and healing properties, that gives lavender its distinctive natural fragrance.
When you smoke lavender, terpenes like linalool can pass through your lungs and into your bloodstream. The numerous health advantages of lavender can be experienced by people more quickly in this way. Additionally, when you smoke a herb like lavender, your house fills with the wonderful aroma, which acts like incense and fosters a calm, relaxing atmosphere.
Is Smoking Lavender Ok?
The short answer is yes. It is perfectly okay to smoke lavender and gain some of the benefits that come with using this herb.
Despite the fact that we want to make it clear that smoking is generally a bad habit. Tobacco smoking may help you break your addiction if you have one, according to lavender. Additionally, blending it with other herbs like chamomile, rose, or cannabis can help produce a stronger herbal concoction with a range of health advantages.
Read More: How Old Do You Have To Be To Smoke Hookah
Why Do People Smoke Lavender?
Throughout the pandemic, the use of marijuana and cannabis multiplied. This increased use posed a considerable health risk, and the users themselves admitted to being “drained” with the help of nicotinic products. As a result, when there are gaps, creative minds show themselves.
People started incorporating different herbs devoid of nicotine to smoke products that weren’t harmful and could still be used for their relaxation fix.
In fact, in doing so, people found that smoking these “herbal cigarettes” actually helped them to get over their habit of smoking cannabis.
Those who couldn’t find good cannabis strains, on the other hand, started putting lavender buds in their joints because they found that both worked incredibly well.
In addition, users reported that smoking lavender increased the calming effect the herb produced by allowing the herb’s fragrance to linger in their rooms for a protracted period of time.
What Are the Pros and Cons of Smoking Lavender?
As we have established, smoking lavender or anything, in general, can harm your health. in addition to other respiratory issues, such as lung cancer. However, it also has some well-known advantages!
Pros:
- Smoking either lavender by itself or in combination with other herbs has a calming effect. It relieves stress and makes one feel a little dizzy in a good way.
- Headaches are relieved by it. Lavender has a depressing effect, which helps people relax completely by letting them loosen up.
- Lavender has been used successfully in aromatherapy to lessen anxiety and depression and is smoked for this reason. When faced with stressful situations, people with severe anxiety claim that smoking lavender frequently helps them relax.
- Lavender has a wonderful flavor and aroma, and it frequently covers the flavor and sensation of other products that can be difficult to smoke due to their unpleasant flavors.
Cons:
- When smoked, lavender can make you feel nauseous and induce diarrhea and vomiting when consumed orally. It can affect muscle mass and cause malnutrition if used frequently.
- Although lavender is calming to humans, it is poisonous to animals. If handled carelessly, dogs and cats can develop respiratory and cardiovascular problems due to the chemicals present in the smoke of the herb.
- Lavender is not tested in clinical trials to see if it is harmful to unborn children or pregnant women. Nevertheless, it is likely to lead to health issues in children down the road, just like every other smoking product.
- Even if you use lavender to reduce your cannabis consumption, smoking can still result in addiction. Additionally, smoking lavender has the potential to become addictive.
- Smoking lavender increases the risk of developing melanoma, according to a study in the Journal of Oncology.
- Additionally, smoking lavender may cause dry mouth, changes in sexual propensities, libido issues, a weakening of the muscles around the eyes, tooth decay, fatigue, tremors, and dizziness.
Can Smoking Lavender Kill You?
The answer is that it won’t kill you, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take precautions. It is beyond a shadow of a doubt that breathing inhalant smoke of any kind is harmful to human health because breathing inhalant smoke of any type causes the consumption of tar, carbon monoxide, and numerous polyphenol compounds, which pose a long-term health risk.
The use of any smokable herb, including tobacco, cannabis, and even those that are naturally smokable, like sage, tea, lemon balm, or calendula, repeatedly over an extended period of time is not advised.
If you like the flavor of smoking lavender but don’t want to take any chances, using a dry herb vaporizer like the DaVinci is the best option.
Is Smoking Lavender Healthier Than Tobacco?
Because they believe it to be healthier than tobacco, some people prefer to smoke lavender. This assertion has not been investigated or found to be true.
The absence of nicotine in lavender gives it an advantage over tobacco. Those who use tobacco become addicted to nicotine. Herbal cigarettes without nicotine may be beneficial for smokers who want to stop. That being said, smoking lavender does not automatically imply health.
Is Smoking Lavender Safe During Pregnancy?
Although no studies have examined the safety of smoking lavender while pregnant, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advises against doing so. This could be harmful to the expectant mother and the fetus.
Before smoking anything or using anything containing lavender oil, pregnant women should talk to their doctor.
Better Ways of Smoking Lavender
There has long been a tradition of using lavender. Lavender cigarettes have only recently gained popularity compared to regular cigarettes, perhaps as a result of younger generations’ preference for flavors other than tobacco.
Dried lavender can be used to flavor teas or other drinks, among other ways to enjoy lavender. It can, however, also be used in baking. Both using a scent in your home and getting fresh lavender are great options.
A good substitute for therapeutic use of essential oils has occasionally been considered. The oils may interact negatively with other medications, so consult a doctor before using them. Instead of consuming you can use the essential oils in these ways:
- Aromatherapy diffuser
- Carrier oil to help the skin feel better
- Bath oils, salts, soaps, or even scrubs
- Using it as a pillow spray, a great way of perfuming the bedroom
Conclusion
You probably already know that smoking lavender cigarettes may not be the best idea if you’ve read this far. Smoking lavender appears to produce similar amounts of harmful carbon monoxide as other toxic perfumes.
There hasn’t been any research to support the notion that smoking lavender has any health benefits, so any website making such a claim is probably just trying to sell something.
There are a variety of safer ways to enjoy lavender. Dried flowers can be used to flavor foods and beverages. To wrap up, we want to stress the value of consulting a doctor before using lavender essential oils because there is evidence that it may have an adverse effect on other medications or prescriptions.
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