Essential Oils for Fertility: Anxiety, Grief & Fear Relief
A fertility journey asks a lot of the heart. Waiting, hoping, losing and starting again can leave you anxious, grieving or simply worn down. In Chinese medicine, those emotions matter to fertility because they move qi, tax the blood, and draw on the jing, the essence we pass on to a child.
Essential oils are one of the most direct ways to reach that emotional layer. The approach in this post comes from Jeffrey Yuen, an 88th-generation Daoist priest of the Jade Purity tradition and a leading teacher of classical Chinese medicine, whose seminar Essential Oils for the Soul forms the basis of what follows.
Below are the oils Yuen teaches for anxiety, overthinking, fear, grief, low mood, frustration and trauma, the acupuncture points and body areas to apply them to, and the oils he links directly to conception. If you read our post on crystal healing for fertility, you'll find a different set of points here.
Aromatherapy complements medical and fertility care; it does not replace it. If you are struggling with depression or thoughts of self-harm, please reach out to your doctor or a mental health professional.
How Essential Oils Work in Chinese Medicine
Yuen's premise is simple: an essential oil is the essence of a plant, so it resonates with our own essence, the jing. At the same time, scent reaches the spirit (shen) directly, the way incense and chanting do in religious ritual. He argues that for emotional work, oils outperform herbs, with the possible exception of stone medicine.
Mood, emotion and temperament. Yuen separates a mood (you feel low and don't know why) from an emotion (you can name the cause). Moods live at the surface level of the body and respond fastest to light, quick-evaporating top notes. Emotions sit deeper in the blood and hormones and need heavier middle and base notes.
Smell it, don't just rub it on. For emotional work, Yuen prefers inhalation, because what you inhale goes straight to the brain. Applying an oil to the skin still gets it inhaled, but warmth speeds things up. He favors an oil lamp or diffuser over a cold application.
Every emotion has a direction. Anger rises, anxiety scatters, overthinking binds, grief sinks and fear freezes. Yuen applies oils to the yang channel partner of the affected organ, because the yin organ holds on to the emotion and the yang channel helps it dissipate. That is why the points in this post sit on the head, shoulder blades, belly and lower back.
Give yourself an area, not a dot. Yuen tells patients to work an area, such as "tap between your breasts," rather than hunting for an exact point. If you are in the right neighborhood, the oil will do its work.
Name it. In every one of his protocols, the emotion has to be put into words. If you don't want to talk it through, Yuen suggests a journal nobody else has to read.
How to Find the Acupuncture Points
Points are measured in cun, a unit scaled to your own body: 1 cun is the width of your thumb at the knuckle, and 3 cun is the width of your four fingers held together. Use your own hand on your own body, and press gently for a slight hollow or tender spot.
| Point | Area | How to find it |
|---|---|---|
| DU 20 (Baihui) | Top of the head | Trace a line from the tip of one ear, over the head, to the other. The point is where that line crosses the midline. |
| GB 20 (Fengchi) | Base of the skull | Slide your fingers up the back of the neck to the skull. The point is in the hollow on each side, between the two large neck muscles. |
| SI 18 (Quanliao) | Cheek | Directly below the outer corner of the eye, in the dip just under the cheekbone. |
| SI 11 (Tianzong) | Shoulder blade | In the center of the shoulder blade, in a tender hollow about one-third of the way down. A partner can reach it more easily. |
| LU 1 (Zhongfu) | Upper chest | Find the hollow below the outer end of the collarbone, near the shoulder. The point is about 1 cun below it, in the space between the first and second ribs. |
| ST 25 (Tianshu) | Abdomen | 2 cun (two thumb-widths) to either side of the navel. |
| CV 3 (Zhongji) | Lower abdomen | On the midline, 1 cun (one thumb-width) above the top of the pubic bone. |
| BL 23 (Shenshu) | Lower back | At waist level, beside the spine. Put your hands on your waist with thumbs toward the spine; the point is about 1.5 cun out from the spine on each side. |
| SP 8 (Diji) | Inner lower leg | Find the hollow below the inner knee where the shinbone flares. Go 3 cun (four fingers) down, along the back edge of the shinbone. |
| KI 2 (Rangu) | Inner foot | On the inner edge of the foot, in the hollow just in front of and below the bony bump in the middle of the arch. |
Essential Oils for Anxiety and the Two-Week Wait
Yuen defines anxiety as fear thrown forward in time: not a threat in front of you, but one you anticipate. Few experiences fit that better than the two-week wait. Anxiety belongs to the heart, and it scatters the qi, producing palpitations and racing thoughts.
- Lavender is high in linalool, which acts on the brain's calming GABA receptors. Yuen notes it regulates qi, relaxes the muscles and harmonizes the digestion, all in one oil.
- German (blue) chamomile is his first step for "clearing heart fire," which he describes as no longer feeling anxious about something you want to achieve.
- Vetiver, a root oil, grounds an overactive imagination. Yuen uses it for anxiety that is really imagining the worst: every twinge, every symptom-spotting search.
- Lemon eucalyptus (E. citriodora) is his pick for anxiety that comes with heat, flushing or irritability.
Where to apply
Because anxiety scatters, Yuen works the heart's partner channel, the small intestine.
- SI 11, the center of the shoulder blade. Ask a partner to massage the blend in.
- SI 18, under the cheekbone, if you're applying it yourself.
- The "hinges": shoulders and hips. Yuen massages the joints where scattered energy spins out.
For quick relief, he recommends taking a warm shower to let some anxiety out with the sweat.
Essential Oils for Overthinking and Obsessive Worry
Tracking cycles, reading every forum, replaying every appointment: Yuen calls this pensiveness, thought that won't stop. It belongs to the spleen, and it binds the qi into knots, often felt as a heavy stomach or poor digestion.
Yuen's spleen teaching is that our thoughts are a constructed "field," built from family, peers and, today, social media. The work is to notice which thoughts are intensifying a feeling and choose different ones, which he compares to cognitive behavioral therapy.
- Digestive spices: anise, coriander and rosemary. Yuen calls these "kitchen condiments" that clear the turbidity behind a cluttered mind.
- Citrus peel oils such as bergamot and Buddha's hand (Fo Shou) when stress goes straight to the stomach ("liver invading spleen").
Where to apply
- SP 8 on the inner lower leg, together with KI 2 on the inner foot. When Yuen is unsure which mental faculty is struggling, he starts by strengthening the spleen through this pair.
- Rub a few drops of the blend between your palms and inhale before opening a fertility app or forum.
Essential Oils for Fear and Losing Trust in Your Body
Yuen calls fear a biological emotion, rooted in survival and stored in the kidneys alongside the jing. It suspends the qi: you freeze, holding your breath. After a loss or a string of failed cycles, the fear often becomes a loss of trust that your body can do this.
In Yuen's model of the mind, trust and faith belong to water, the kidneys. "You trust what you have learned," he says, so the oils for trust are seed oils:
- Angelica seed
- Schisandra (Wu Wei Zi)
- Suan Zao Ren (jujube seed)
He adds ginger for the vulnerable, unprotected feeling that fear brings. In his teaching, ginger stands in for aconite (Fu Zi), whose name evokes the feeling of someone wrapping you in a warm hug.
Where to apply
- BL 23, on the lower back at waist level. Yuen treats fear through the bladder channel, the kidneys' partner, either at the point or over the whole lower back.
- Warm the blend in your palms, place your hands over your lower back, and breathe slowly for a few minutes.
Essential Oils for Grief After Miscarriage or a Failed Cycle
Grief belongs to the lungs, home of the po, the soul aspect tied to the body and to breath. Yuen says grief sinks the qi, leaving no energy to do anything. He also teaches that a full release needs a physical medium to carry it out. For grief, that medium is often tears, so crying is part of healing, not a setback.
- Myrrh, called Mo Yao in Chinese, literally "no medicine." Yuen reads the name as a teaching: no medicine can bring back what was lost, so it helps you let go. It moves you through pain and sadness.
- Frankincense, a resin like myrrh. Yuen uses resins for emotional wounds that keep reopening, sealing the raw, vulnerable feeling of reliving a loss.
- Sichuan pepper, which in a classical bereavement formula lifts the sorrow of those left behind.
- Blue lotus, the flower that rises from mud, for transformation after loss.
For grief blends, Yuen uses hazelnut oil thinned with sweet almond as the carrier, because nut oils belong to the lungs.
Where to apply
- ST 25, two thumb-widths either side of the navel. Yuen treats grief through the large intestine, the lungs' partner, and uses ST 25 to lift sinking energy back up.
- Massage slowly in a clockwise circle around the navel, then rest a warm hand there.
Essential Oils for Depression and Low Mood
Yuen's mood-versus-emotion distinction is especially useful here. If you wake up flat and can't say why, that is a mood, and it sits at the body's surface. Light, bright top notes reach it quickly.
- Citrus oils (bergamot, blood orange, grapefruit, lemon) are rich in limonene, which Yuen describes as uplifting and indicated for depression.
- Conifer oils such as pine and fir contain pinene, which is calming and encourages reflection. Yuen prefers them when moods swing between highs and lows.
- Sandalwood is the oil traditionally lit on altars "so you can perceive the divine." It opens the senses when everything feels gray.
Where to apply
- The area under the collarbone, around LU 1. Yuen's instruction is to tap gently across this area after applying the oil; three channels run through it.
- DU 20, the crown, with a drop of sandalwood blend. Yuen teaches that this is where the liver reaches the brain and takes in everything we perceive.
- For a quick lift, inhale a citrus blend straight from the bottle, or diffuse it in the morning.
Essential Oils for Frustration and Anger
Anger rises, which is why it shows up as tension headaches and a tight neck. Yuen notes that many people are taught not to show anger, so it gets pushed down instead and knots the stomach. Either way, it is liver energy that needs somewhere to go.
- Sandalwood and cedarwood: wood oils from branches, which Yuen uses to release the tight muscles and tendons that anger produces.
- German chamomile and bergamot, which regulate the liver's flow.
- Du Huo (Angelica pubescens) for the stuck feeling of "I'm frozen, I don't know what to do," helping you move and make changes.
For anger blends, Yuen uses olive oil as the carrier, because its green chlorophyll nourishes the liver's blood.
Where to apply
- GB 20, at the base of the skull. Yuen treats anger on the head through the gallbladder, the liver's partner, since only the gallbladder channel has points there.
- Massage up the back of the neck and along the sides of the head.
- In the moment, use the blend like smelling salts. Yuen suggests a higher share of top notes when you need relief immediately rather than in six hours.
Essential Oils for Trauma: Tapping and Shaking It Out
A traumatic loss, an emergency procedure or years of gruelling treatment can leave the body braced. Yuen pairs the oil with a hands-on technique, saying "the blend sometimes won't work unless you do the technique." He matches the technique to how the trauma happened:
| Kind of trauma | Yuen's technique | How to do it |
|---|---|---|
| Sudden: an unexpected loss, a frightening day at the clinic | Tapping (pak, slapping) | Apply the blend, then tap the area briskly with your fingertips. Yuen notes Western tapping therapy borrowed this from Chinese medicine. |
| Gradual: month after month of failed cycles, steady pressure from family | Jostling | Apply the blend, then gently shake and wobble the body in ripples, like Trager work. Yuen explains it recalibrates a nervous system that is always braced. |
Oils for trauma
- Sandalwood and cedarwood, which Yuen says peel away the layers that settle over a trauma and keep it buried.
- Frankincense and myrrh for wounds that never quite scar over.
- Dang Gui (Angelica sinensis), which nourishes the blood. Yuen reads its name as "protecting your return" to your original self.
Where to apply: tap the area under the collarbone (LU 1) or between the shoulder blades (SI 11), and jostle while lying down. Do the deeper trauma work with your practitioner.
Essential Oils for Sleep
In Yuen's teaching, the liver's blood returns at night so the hun, the soul aspect that holds our memories, can settle. When it doesn't, sleep is light and dreams are restless.
- Bai Zi Ren (biota seed), which classical texts say quiets the hun, settles the po and calms the spirit. Yuen links it to both sleep and mood, especially for the restless mind that retrieves too much, too fast.
- Lavender and German chamomile, from the calming sesquiterpene and monoterpenol groups he lists for agitation and insomnia.
How to use: diffuse the blend in the bedroom for 30 minutes before bed, or rub a drop between your palms and inhale slowly before lying down.
Fertility Essential Oils in Jeffrey Yuen's Teachings
Yuen names several oils that work on the jing and on conception itself.
The precious florals: rose, jasmine, gardenia, neroli and orange blossom. These are heavy base-note oils that, in Yuen's words, stimulate the jing. He lists them for increasing vaginal fluids, hormones and sperm count, and for infertility, which he calls "the inability of jing and shen to reproduce." He also teaches that they improve egg motility and morphology. Narcissus belongs to this group but is strong; Yuen warns it must be handled with care.
Magnolia flower (Xin Yi Hua). Drawing on the conception sequence in the Ling Shu, Yuen describes the spirit being carried into the parents' essence at conception. Magnolia works that link, carrying it down into the jing "to permit conception."
Hormonal oils. Yuen groups vitex (chasteberry), goji berry oil and clary sage as hormone-balancing. For the male partner, he uses cnidium (She Chuang Zi), which supports kidney yang and testosterone and, fittingly, a lack of confidence in overcoming obstacles.
Yuen's three-step spirit sequence
Yuen teaches this sequence for calming the spirit generally, not as a fertility protocol. It maps neatly onto the patient whose anxiety about conceiving is part of the picture.
- Clear heart fire with German (blue) chamomile, to calm the anxiety about something you want to achieve.
- Connect heart and kidneys with the precious florals, for a quiet dialogue with yourself.
- Return home with fennel or anise, which in Yuen's teaching lower stress hormones and the sense of urgency.
Where to apply: CV 3, one thumb-width above the pubic bone. Yuen describes the hormonal oils traveling through this point to support the kidneys and jing. Pair it with SP 8 on the inner leg.
How to Make Your Own Blend: A Two-Week-Wait Example
Yuen builds every blend from three notes: 20% base, 50% middle, 30% top. Here is a gentle two-week-wait blend built on that ratio, in 1 oz (30 mL) of sweet almond oil:
| Note | Oil | Drops | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base | Vetiver | 3 | Grounds the imagination that leaps to the worst |
| Middle | Lavender | 8 | Calms the nervous system and relaxes the body |
| Top | Bergamot (bergapten-free) | 4 | Lifts the mood quickly |
Mix it the way Yuen does
- Put the base note in a small dish and stir clockwise, creating a spiral.
- Add the middle note and keep stirring, lifting the oil as you go so it spreads.
- Add the top note carefully, since light oils pour fast, then swirl the dish to bring it together.
- Pour the blend into the carrier oil in a dark glass bottle.
Use it
- Apply twice a day. Yuen times applications by the middle note, which lasts about 6 to 7 hours.
- Follow his rhythm of 3 days on, 3 days off.
- After 18 days, swap one note (for example, rose in place of vetiver) rather than changing the whole recipe.
- Each time, rub it into SI 11 or SI 18, inhale from your palms, and spend a few minutes journaling what you are feeling.
Essential Oil Safety for Fertility Patients
Dilute gently. Yuen follows the French physician Jean Valnet and works at 4 to 6% in his clinic, about 40 to 48 drops per ounce. That is higher than many aromatherapy texts recommend. While you are trying to conceive, we suggest staying at 1 to 2% (about 10 to 24 drops per ounce), the range Yuen uses for children.
Pause the hormonal oils once you conceive. Vitex, clary sage, sage, fennel, anise and Dang Gui act on hormones or blood. Stop them at a positive test, and check with your fertility clinic before using them during a medicated cycle. Yuen himself warns that narcissus can be toxic for some people.
Never take oils internally. Use them by inhalation and on diluted skin only.
Watch for irritation. Yuen notes that some skin reactions come from oils clashing in a blend. If irritation persists, lower the dose or change one oil. Use bergapten-free bergamot to avoid sun sensitivity.
Choose a carrier for your skin. Yuen suggests sweet almond or grapeseed for oily skin, jojoba for dry skin, sesame for very sensitive skin, and argan for mature skin.
Frequently Asked Questions About Essential Oils for Fertility
What is the best essential oil for fertility anxiety?
In Jeffrey Yuen's teaching, lavender calms the nervous system and German chamomile clears the "heart fire" behind anxiety. Vetiver grounds the imagination that jumps to the worst. Apply them to SI 11 on the shoulder blade or SI 18 on the cheek.
Which essential oils help with grief after a miscarriage?
Yuen uses myrrh to help let go, frankincense for emotional wounds that keep reopening, and Sichuan pepper to lift sorrow. He applies grief blends to ST 25, beside the navel.
Which essential oils support conception?
Yuen names the precious florals (rose, jasmine, gardenia, neroli and orange blossom) for stimulating the jing, and magnolia flower for the link that permits conception. He applies hormonal oils through CV 3, just above the pubic bone.
Can I use essential oils during IVF or pregnancy?
Use them diluted and on the skin or by inhalation only. Check with your clinic before using hormonal oils such as vitex or clary sage during a medicated cycle, and stop them once you are pregnant.
Is it better to diffuse or apply essential oils for emotions?
Yuen prefers inhalation for emotional work, because scent reaches the brain directly. Applying a blend to the skin also gets it inhaled; warmth from a diffuser or oil lamp speeds it up.
Do essential oils replace fertility treatment?
No. Aromatherapy is a gentle complement to acupuncture, herbal medicine and your medical care.
Aromatherapy and Fertility Acupuncture on the Upper West Side
At Fire Over Water Acupuncture & Functional Medicine, Christine Palma, L.Ac., DACM, FABORM, blends essential oils into fertility acupuncture alongside Chinese herbal medicine, functional medicine, FSM, red light therapy and Mayan abdominal massage. Christine is board certified by the American Board of Oriental Reproductive Medicine (ABORM) and has studied essential oils and stone medicine through Jeffrey Yuen's teachings.
If you would like a blend made for your own pattern and applied during your session, book an appointment at 125 West 72nd Street, Suite 3F, New York, NY.
This article is for educational purposes and is based on the author's study of Jeffrey Yuen's teachings. It is not medical advice and does not replace care from your physician or fertility clinic.