Standardised oral lavender oil 80 mg
Five placebo-controlled trials, 1,213 patients. More data than ashwagandha — but all funded by the manufacturer.
The short version
What it does On diffuse, established anxiety, it lowers anxiety scores by about 4 points more than placebo over ten weeks. That is more patients studied than for any other “stress” product on this site.
What it does not do It does nothing on the day — for a one-off peak, that is theanine. And one thing has to be said: the five trials are paid for by the manufacturer, with overlapping authors. The result is consistent, but it has not been replicated by an independent team.
What the studies say
Five randomised placebo-controlled trials, 1,213 patients, covering subthreshold anxiety, generalised anxiety disorder and mixed anxiety-depression: a fall on the Hamilton scale about 3.8 points greater than placebo over ten weeks, and one and a half times as many patients judged improved. A phase III trial in 498 patients, with sertraline as active comparator, found an effect on mild to moderate depression of the same order of magnitude.
The reservation is serious and we put it up front: all five trials were funded by the manufacturer of the preparation, and several authors recur from paper to paper. Replication is therefore less independent than the number of articles suggests. And a 2-point gap on a depression scale running to 60 remains modest in absolute terms.
More data than ashwagandha, which rests on a single trial of 64 people. But less independent funding. If ashwagandha gave you nothing in eight weeks, this is the next lead.
How to take it
Relevant for diffuse anxiety lasting weeks, or evening rumination that theanine does not settle. Pointless for a one-off peak.
80 mg a day, in one dose, at a fixed time. Allow six to ten weeks before judging — that is the duration of the trials. Can be taken in the evening if you get burps.
Judge at six weeks on your background anxiety level, not on a single day. If nothing has moved at ten weeks, stop: the trials found no effect beyond that. And if anxiety stops you functioning, it is a doctor you need, not a capsule.
What is inside
Standardised Lavandula angustifolia essential oil, in a capsule for ORAL use. The two active components identified are linalool and linalyl acetate. Standardised here means the content of those two molecules is controlled from batch to batch.
The criterion is standardisation and an 80 mg dose per capsule: the data is on one precise preparation, and the authors write explicitly that it does not transfer to other lavender oils. Look for “oral use” and a stated assay.
Bottled lavender essential oil, intended for diffusion or skin application: it is NOT the same product, and none of the data above applies to it. Caution if you are on sedative or anxiolytic medication.
Cautions
- Ongoing sedative or anxiolytic treatment: medical advice
- Pregnancy and breastfeeding: insufficient data
The three options
The Silexan from the trials is not sold here
The trial product cannot be found
SILEXAN, the standardised preparation used in all the anxiety trials, is not sold on Amazon.fr — there are only two oral lavenders on the whole platform. This is the closest: 80 mg of organic essential oil per capsule, the right dose, oral route. But it combines it with mandarin and publishes neither its linalool content nor its standardisation. The dose is there, the composition guarantee is not.
For whom — Anyone wanting to reproduce exactly what the trials tested.
80 mg in an oral capsule
Only 4 reviews
Lavender essential oil capsules from a well-known French laboratory, but the formula combines several oils without quantifying the lavender share. This is not the Silexan from the trials, and we are not pretending otherwise.
For whom — The default choice for a six-week trial.
Take the free levers for stress first
Nothing to buy
Slow breathing at six cycles a minute, 150 minutes of movement a week, and sleep sorted. Those three are better documented than oral lavender.
For whom — Everyone, before this product — these three levers have better data than any anti-stress capsule.
Nothing to buy here — the text above explains why.
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