How Do Candles Help You Relax: Ways Candles Reduce Stress & Anxiety
Historically, candles have been primarily used to light up our homes in the middle of a pitch-black evening. However, modern candles have been increasingly used for more than this sole purpose. In fact, we have written an article dedicated to the topic of using candles in other ways which you can find by clicking here! In this article, we are going to suggest ways a candle can help you relax and reduce stress and anxiety as you go about your day.
Candles have been used all over the world across different cultures in many different ways. One of such ways is to help you relieve stress and anxiety by helping you focus and inducing you to a meditative state. This is caused by a lot of different things in the candle that influences this behavior such as its flicker, the scent, and even the way a candle can burn which can be so soothing! All of these different effects can be relaxing for you and we suggest you do some of the things we suggest here to help you deal with stress and anxiety.
Candles Can Trigger Happy Memories
A scented candle can offer you a lot of benefits, one of which is reducing the amount of anxiety that you feel. Our sense of olfaction or smell can lead us to feel good and relaxed if we choose the right scent to trigger that sense of nostalgia. This is the first step: picking the right scented candle for you!
A scented candle that complements the way you are currently feeling and your mood can be the difference between a good and a bad day. It will surely make a world of difference if you choose a candle that is pungent versus a candle that is delicately scented with complex fragrance oils and complex aromas. You can choose to use candles that will remind you of a past memory: bright citrus scents can remind you of open fields, woody and musky scents can trigger memories of walking the park and hiking the mountains, while fresh scents can remind you of a day in the beach. Furthermore, there are gourmand candles that smell like food that can remind you of dishes you previously enjoyed. The point is that scented candles can cause you to feel happy by encouraging happy memories to resurface.
Here at Hidden Candle, we offer a variety of candles that can lead you to jog down memory lane. Our candles have expertly blended scents that are light but potent. You can visit out our shop to check all of our products here! Plus, our candles have hidden messages INSIDE of them - so you have a full experience.
Candles in Ayurvedic Traditions
Ayurvedic medicine is one of the oldest, holistic healing systems that are used today. It is an alternative, whole-body medicine system with historical roots connected to the Indian subcontinent. It is based on the idea that health and wellness is a balancing act between the mind, body, and spirit. This means that there is a delicate balance that must be maintained in order to maintain an individual’s health and wellbeing.
There are three body types or doshas in Ayurveda: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. They are representations of some of the biological energies that inhabit our body; Vata is the energy of movement, Pitta is the energy of digestion and metabolism which deals with the things that we intake, and Kapha is the energy of lubrication and structure. All of these three energies are present in the body, but they exist in an ever-changing and fluctuating state, and the goal of Ayurveda is to maintain a delicate balance between these three biological energies.
Conventional aromatherapies may most probably give you specific scents that are to your liking, Ayurvedic traditions will take into account an individual’s overall disposition or Prakriti and then prescribe specific scents that are tailored to your individual necessities.
In general, the scents that are pleasant to you will lead to beneficial effects. The belief that Ayurveda is about balancing the three aforementioned biological energies means that you can manipulate the scents you smell to address your problems. For example, if an individual is Vata-dominant, then calming and focusing scents like geranium, cinnamon, orange, wintergreen, and rose can help you regain that balance. Similarly, Pitta-dominant body systems will benefit from hydrating and cooling scents in order to counteract the increased metabolism you have by using aloe, gardenia, sandalwood, lotus, violet, and jasmine. Finally, Kapha-dominant bodies will benefit from stimulating scents like eucalyptus, menthol, pine, sage, and cedar to help them rebalance.
It must be noted, however, that Ayurveda is often treated as pseudoscience and that many medical associations and circles often dismiss Ayurveda as “quack medicine”. However, the principles of Ayurveda stand for life and you can adapt some of the safer aspects into your daily life without compromising your health. This includes using scents that are pleasant to you to make you feel better about your overall wellbeing.
Candles Enable Better Concentration
If you take a look at a candle, you know what it will do because it is predictable: you light it up, the flame will flicker, and it will start melting the wax using the heat from the flame until it runs out of wax and wick to burn. This predictable nature is extremely beneficial for you in terms of reducing stress and anxiety because if you think about it, stress and anxiety are often rooted in things that are unpredictable and out of our control. The variable things and beyond our grasps can be extremely stress-inducing, and the simple yet predictable candle can help calm us down.
You may think: what are they talking about? Is it true that a candle can help encourage better concentration? The answer is yes, it does! In fact, a lot of meditation practices use a combination of candle and aromatherapy (which can also be achieved through a candle imbued with potent fragrance oils) to increase concentration. There are also visualization exercises that utilize the candle’s flame to help induce you into a meditative state. This is because the candle’s flame is constant and concentrating on this singular, simple thing can help you achieve that concentration.
Another thing that can help you achieve such a contemplative state is the fragrance and the muted flicker a candle has. We already talked about how fragrances can influence your overall mental and spiritual state by making you feel calm and collected. It can trigger specific happy memories that can be extremely beneficial for you. However, another factor that can influence your concentration is the sound of the candle burning. The muted sound of a flickering candle can cause people to feel what is known to be an autonomous sensory meridian response or ASMR. This is an overall pleasant experience for anyone who has experienced it and can vouch for the positive effect it can have. It can help you feel grounded and thus enable you to feel more relaxed and concentrated.
Our Hidden Candle products are sure to provide you with such a great experience. Aside from the wonderful fragrance that you would get from our candles, our candles have cotton wicks that burn cleanly so you can also have the pleasant visual experience that we talked about. Another thing that is unique to our candles is that they are embedded with a secret message that you can only unravel after burning through our candle. This pleasant surprise differentiates us from other candles in the market. Be sure to check those out in our shop here!
Conclusion of How Do Candles Help You Relax: Ways Candles Reduce Stress & Anxiety
The candle game has changed over the past few years and for good reason. Candles are so much more than what they used to be because of the way we revolutionized their use. Unsurprisingly, humans have found a way to be resourceful and found creative ways to use candles in ways beyond what they used to be. One of such ways is helping us in the reduction of our stress and anxiety. In this fast-paced world filled with uncertainties, the stress and anxiety we feel are so great that we need all the help we can get to help get rid of it. Scented candles are one of the ways that can help us achieve that.
In this article, we explained that a candle’s scent, the way it burns, and even the predictability of the wax melting can be beneficial by way of reducing our anxiety. Candles and scents have been used in traditional holistic medicine to help us regain balance within ourselves amidst the chaos brought about by the turmoil of this world. We should seek ways to help us cope with these things and we think that you should try to check this out for yourself if it works for you. It does you no harm to check these options out and see if it helps you. We sincerely hope that it does!
Thank you so much for reading our blog on how do candles help you relax! If you are interested, be sure to check our signature hidden message candles here at Hidden Candle. If you do, make sure to tag us on Instagram using our handle @HiddenCandleCo!