Now listen up gang, this one is important and could save your life!

e all know how easy it is to feel sleepy while you are behind the wheel on a long journey, your head starts to nod and mind is miles away, certainly not on the road ahead. It doesn’t just happen on long journeys either, our busy lifestyles mean we are often tired and falling asleep at the wheel is the cause of a huge number of accidents worldwide.

Here is a natural way to stay awake when driving – use the power of herbs!

Rosemary and her good friend Basil could well do you a favour in the car. Whoops, sorry that sounds bad doesn’t it. Let me start again…..

Rosemary and Basil are really good herbs for keeping you alert and awake. That’s better, no innuendo there. Actually the essential oils in both of these herbs are well known for their invigorating properties and ability to boost brain function to keep you alert.

While we all like our cars to smell fresh and clean and just nice to be in, these two herbs could really be life savers when it comes to in-car fragrance.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m driving long distances, or am just tired at the end of a long day and still behind the wheel wishing I were home already, I sometimes get that hellishly frightening ‘nodding off’ feeling. You know you are just okay one minute then dog tired the next. It’s not just annoying, it’s seriously dangerous.

Well herbs can help here, step up Rosemary and Basil and take a bow if you will.

While it’s easy to keep a nice fresh sprig of rosemary in the car tucked into one of those little nooks on the dashboard within reach for a quick squeeze and sniff (oooooh!) to keep you alert. Dear old Basil can be a bit of a problem. The old boy has a tendency to get limp very quickly (no, no, let’s not even go there, behave!) and just look like a dead weed. You are better using a little bottle of basil essential oil (not a fragrance oil, must be essential oil) and put a few drops on a cotton pad to sniff.

Keeping these herbs in essential oil or fresh form in the car won’t just keep the car fresh, they could keep you awake and save your life.

So ditch those nasty dangly things that ‘freshen’ your car and bring in the real thing, invite Basil and Rosemary to share your journeys and keep alert in the driving seat.

Karon x

PS Forget lavender and flowery herbs in the car, you need the punchiness of the strong aromatics to keep you alert not soft flowery fragrances that can lull you to sleep.