How to Use Essential Oils for Healthy, Thriving, and Happy Kids with Dr. Elisa Song, MD (Ep.387)

(Listen to the full episode here.)

According to The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, chronic health conditions impact 10-30% children. This results in ten to twenty million kids and adolescents being impacted by a chronic illness or disability. Furthermore, the national mental health crisis has created a surge in the amount of psychiatric illnesses, particularly impacting our youth.

Thankfully, we have trailblazers in medicine, like Dr. Elisa Song, MD, who are living their mission to make this world a better place for our children. As a prestigiously trained integrative pediatrician and functional medicine expert, she has extensive experience in integrating the best of conventional medicine with evidence-based, holistic treatments. These include herbal medicine, homeopathy, Traditional Chinese medicine, flower essences, and of course, essential oils.

Dr. Song is a go-to resource on using essential oils with kids. She has incorporated them with her own children and within her pediatric medical practice for over twenty years.

In this episode of the Essential Oil Revolution, Dr. Song helps us set the record the straight on safe essential oils applications for our little ones. We review some of the unfounded myths of essential oils and the importance of supporting kids’ vagus nerve and microbiome. Dr. Song also teaches us how to apply essential oils on particular acupuncture points to ease anxious minds, enhance focus, reduce fevers, support immune health, and assist with nausea.

You are not going to want to miss one minute of this show, so make sure to tune-in!

Below is a more specific breakdown of topics covered during the interview:

• How Dr. Song became interested in integrative pediatric medicine and how her background in law complements her mission to enhance the health of children worldwide.
• How the vagus nerve is the mediator between the gut and brain and plays a critical role in regulating immune and brain health.
• How essential oils can be used to support the vagus nerve and to get children into a parasympathetic state to enhance their resiliency and recovery.
• The role of a healthy microbiome for children’s immune and brain health and how certain medications can disrupt its balance.
• How Dr. Song integrates essential oils into her pediatric practice with acute and chronic illnesses.
• Two acupressure points, Heart 7 and Pericardium 6, that support vagus nerve function and can be stimulated with essential oils. For example, Heart 7 can help with calming the brain and Pericardium 6 can relieve nausea. (See show notes for the links to the locations of acupressure points.)
• Safety considerations for children with essential oils. These include considering their potency and proper dilution ratios. (See show notes for links to dilution guides.)
• Two essential oils that can decrease breastmilk production.
• Why young children should not ingest essential oils, unless under proper supervision.
• The unfounded safety scares regarding lavender and tea tree oils in youth.
• The myths around fevers with children.
• What oil to apply to the Large Intestine 4 acupuncture point for remedying fever, headache, and constipation.
• What acupuncture point to apply oils to during infections.
• How to apply lavender and citrus oils to a certain acupuncture point for relieving stress and anxious feelings.
• What essential oils to use with kids for focus, memory, and concentration.
• When not to use peppermint oil with homeopathy, but why you can use them together in the same wellness plan.
• Closing Questions: (1) What Dr. Song does for daily self-care and what’s “Jeff” got to do with it? (2) What Dr. Song thinks we should ditch and replace with instead to be healthier.

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