How to Use Crystals in Your Self-Care Routine

Over the years, crystal healing has been gaining popularity as an alternative therapy for anxiety and stress relief. Crystal enthusiasts have considered these gemstones valuable parts of holistic healing, and many people use them as spiritual touchstones.

If you’re interested in crystal healing, here are easy ways to incorporate crystals into your self-care rituals.

Understanding Crystal Benefits

For centuries, people have used crystals and gems to heal, awaken, activate and balance our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual natures. Crystals can help foster harmonious energy in our homes and workplaces.

Crystals are known for their vibrational nature — people use them to receive, transmit and amplify energy. Amethyst, lapis and turquoise are just a few examples of crystals that people commonly wear as jewelry or incorporate into spiritual rituals to connect with the earth.

People often place crystals in different areas of the home, particularly where you sleep, work or relax. This helps promote positive energy flow while removing negative energies from stress, sadness or sickness. You can also use crystals to help with meditation or other sacred practices, focus healing energy on yourself or loved ones, inspire creativity, facilitate manifestation, and accelerate spiritual awakening.

How to Choose a Crystal

When choosing a crystal, the key factor is to determine what emotion you wish to focus on. Is it relief, love or gratitude? Each crystal is geared toward producing a strong emotion, so you should choose a crystal based on what you want to achieve.

 For example, crystals for self-confidence would look like the following:

• Citrine: Expansion and empowerment. It encourages us to access our inner strength, build trust from within and empower our best selves. 
• Honey calcite: Release critical self-judgments and sadness from past experiences, especially from early childhood. Opens your ability to feel joy.  
• Lapis lazuli: Connects you to your inner wisdom and invites your authentic self to shine through. Activates your intuition and experiences of synchronicity.  
• Aragonite-yellow: Transmutes patterns of betrayal and disappointment to strengthen your sense of personal empowerment and to see the uniqueness of your gifts. 
• Sunstone: Clear and strengthen your ability to follow through with your dreams and soul’s desires.

Where to Place a Crystal

Crystals can be used in a variety of ways to help increase your mental acuity. Some methods include placing a crystal such as a moonstone or azumar beneath your pillow for insightful dreams, wearing pyrite around your neck to provide you with energy throughout the day, or holding rose quartz while meditating to create feelings of love and contentment. My book “Detox – Nourish – Activate: Plant & Vibrational Medicine for Energy, Mood & Love” offers numerous crystal attunements for each system of the body.

However, with that in mind, there are things to avoid when choosing a place for your crystal. For instance, if you’re wanting better sleep, crystals that have pointed tips or are fragile shouldn’t be kept in your bed. Small crystals should also be kept out of reach of children.

Some crystals can be overstimulating, so it’s best to keep them out of places of quietude. For example, moldavite is highly stimulating to some individuals and is best kept away from the bedroom. Turquoise is another highly energizing stone and is best worn throughout the day instead of at night. 

Everyone has a different energetic response to specific crystals. If you live with someone, it’s good practice to explore their receptivity before adding crystals to your shared space.

Final Tips

Cleansing and caring for crystals is an important part of their use. Crystals should be cleansed monthly to keep their energy clear, and more often if you experience an emotional release or high-stress situations.

Additionally, when working with the elements of nature, it’s important to know your source. All minerals have energy that’s imbued into them when they’re formed and mined, so it’s important to know what practices are used to mine the mineral and what chemicals are used in the refinement process. When buying raw unpolished crystals, you’ll be able to bypass many of these issues and save money!

About the Author

Adora Winquist is the author of “Detox – Nourish – Activate: Plant and Vibrational Medicine for Energy, Mood & Love,” a modern alchemist and an essential oil expert.