Oil is Medicine: A Love Letter to Abhyanga
Why Women in Perimenopause Need Oil, Weight, Warmth, and Ritual
There is a particular quality to perimenopause that I see again and again, in my clients, in my friends, and if I am honest, in myself.
It is not dramatic. It is not always visible from the outside. But it is unmistakable, and it feels like dryness.
Not only dry skin, though that often appears too.
It is a dryness of sleep. A dryness of patience. A dryness of tolerance for noise, chaos, or being pulled in too many directions.
The nervous system feels less buffered. The body feels less forgiving. The resilience that once seemed automatic now requires intention.
The Vata Stage of Life
In Ayurveda, this stage of life is understood through the lens of Vata dosha—the qualities of air and space.
Vata is light, cold, subtle, and mobile. It governs movement in the body: the nervous system, circulation, elimination, breath, and thought. As estrogen and progesterone begin to fluctuate in midlife, many women experience what Ayurveda would describe as a natural rise in Vata. This is not pathology. It is physiology. But when Vata increases without balance, dryness becomes depletion.
The Ayurvedic principle that guides all treatment is simple: like increases like, and opposites balance.
If the body is becoming more dry, light, cold, and irregular, the medicine must be oily, heavy, warm, and rhythmic. This is where Abhyanga enters—not as a luxury, not as self-indulgence, but as foundational medicine.
Abhyanga is the practice of warm oil massage, traditionally done daily. The oil, often sesame, sometimes blended with herbs, is warmed gently and applied from feet to head, using deliberate, unhurried strokes. The joints are massaged in circular motions, the limbs in long strokes toward the heart, and the abdomen in clockwise circles to support digestion.
Abhyanga as Containment
But to describe Abhyanga only in technical terms misses the point. Abhyanga is containment.
During perimenopause, many women describe feeling “untethered.”
Sleep becomes lighter. Thoughts feel faster. Emotions surface more quickly and sometimes more intensely.
There can be a sense of being internally unmoored.
Oil quite literally gives the body weight and gives the nervous system a boundary. The tactile pressure of warm oil against the skin stimulates the parasympathetic response, signaling safety and reducing the hyper-alert quality that often accompanies hormonal fluctuation.
In midlife, many women are holding immense responsibility: careers, children, aging parents, relationships, and often unprocessed grief.
We are accustomed to being the ones who provide containment for everyone else.
Abhyanga reverses that direction of care. It says: your body deserves to be held as well.
This is precisely why, at Sacred Juniper, every body treatment includes Abhyanga.
It is not an add-on. It is not optional. It is the foundation.
Oil Softens our Armor
Whether a woman comes in for nervous system support, chakra healing, a seasonal reset, or deeper ritual bodywork, we begin with oil. Because oil prepares the tissues. It softens the armor. It tells the body it is safe enough to receive. Without that step, any further work is incomplete.
Oil allows the herbs to penetrate. It supports circulation and elimination. It steadies Vata before we ask the body to release anything deeper. In a world that constantly stimulates women, Abhyanga slows them down before we go anywhere else. It is my way of ensuring that every session begins with nourishment rather than extraction.
Sesame oil, in particular, is deeply appropriate for this stage of life. In Ayurvedic energetics, sesame is warming, nourishing, and strengthening. It penetrates deeply into the tissues, supporting the bones and joints; areas that also become more vulnerable as estrogen declines. There is wisdom in its density. When a woman tells me she feels brittle, scattered, or “tired but wired,” I do not recommend more stimulation. I recommend warmth and oil.
Beyond the physiological, there is an emotional layer to Abhyanga that cannot be ignored. Perimenopause often brings clarity. It reveals where we have overextended. It highlights relationships that no longer feel reciprocal. It surfaces old narratives around worth, productivity, and visibility. The body becomes less willing to tolerate what the psyche has long endured.
We live in a culture that encourages women to dry out as they age—less appetite, less voice, less presence. Oil contradicts that message. Oil says: remain supple. Remain warm. Remain embodied. It affirms that aging is not a fading but a ripening.
Abhyanga as a Self- Care Ritual
Abhyanga does not require hours. Fifteen minutes, three to four times per week, can be transformative.
Warm a small amount of organic sesame oil.
Sit somewhere quiet.
Long strokes on long bones, and circular motions to joints.
Let the oil rest on the body for ten to twenty minutes before bathing/showering in warm water.
The ritual itself matters as much as the technique. The pause before you begin. The intention with which you touch your skin. The refusal to rush.
Perimenopause is an initiation into deeper embodiment. It is a descent inward rather than an expansion outward. That descent requires warmth, weight, and rhythm. Oil provides all three.
Oil is Medicine
When I say “oil is medicine,” I do not mean it metaphorically. I mean that in the language of Ayurveda, oil rebuilds depleted tissues, calms excess Vata, steadies the nervous system, and restores continuity between mind and body. But I also mean that oil teaches a woman how to remain in relationship with herself during a time when everything feels as though it is shifting.
At Sacred Juniper, Abhyanga is woven into every offering because I believe women deserve to be met first with nourishment. Before shirodhara . Before we place a basti. Before we work with marma or chakra.
We begin with oil. We begin with warmth.
We begin with the reminder that your body is not a problem to fix, it is a landscape to tend.
When you book your first session at Sacred Juniper, you are gifted with a bottle of oil I have made specifically for your Abhyanga and your Garshana gloves, so you can begin your own treatments at home, with the tools in hand.
My intention is never that you rely on me alone, but that you leave empowered, equipped, and connected to your own daily ritual.
In the world of Ayurveda, our goal is not dependency, it is education. It is embodiment. It is teaching you to heal yourself.
Perimenopause does not signal that you are unraveling. It signals that you are being invited inward. And if you are willing to meet that invitation with ritual, with oil in your hands and patience in your breath, you may find that what felt like dryness is simply the body asking to be nourished differently.
Oil is medicine.
And in midlife, it may be the medicine we most need.
