What is Palo Santo? What are the benefits?

It’s Sunday morning, and you’ve made it to the yurt in Totnes for the Sunday Restorative yoga class.

Maybe you’ve had a bit of a rushed exit from the house, or perhaps a minor disagreement with your other half.

Maybe you’re still a bit sleepy and tired.

Even slow Sunday mornings can get a bit chaotic.

But as you walk down the path, through the evergreen trees and then open the yurt door, thing shift.

The sun is streaming through the roof lights, and the soft, sweet scent of Palo Santo fills the air.

You take a deep breath, and just like that, the stress of the morning starts to melt away.

Palo Santo, or “Holy Wood,” comes from the Bursera graveolens tree, native to South America, particularly Peru and Ecuador. It’s been used for centuries by Indigenous cultures in healing and spiritual rituals, often burned to clear out negative energy and invite a sense of peace.

These practices are still alive today, passed down through generations.

When I use Palo Santo in my work and in my sessions, it’s about clearing the space and setting the tone for deep relaxation and connection.

Here in the west we often have a hard time enjoying stillness.

Even in a luxurious yoga class like this, finding stillness in the mind is the hard part.

It’s funny, because while the poses in my class are deeply relaxing and the environment is soft and supportive, the real challenge is internal. Letting the mind quiet down, dropping into that elusive state of stillness, it’s not as easy as it sounds. It’s the kind of “hard work” that doesn’t look like work at all from the outside, but inside, there’s often a lot going on.

That’s where the magic of scent comes in. The sweet, citrusy aroma of Palo Santo helps bring us back to the present, gently softening the mind from its usual busyness.

I also use frankincense in my practice, which, like Palo Santo, comes from a tree in the same botanical family, the Burseraceae.

Frankincense has been used for thousands of years, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, where it’s known for promoting spiritual clarity and grounding. Its resinous, calming scent creates a peaceful atmosphere that’s perfect for the kind of work I’m

in offering restorative yoga and sound healing.

But what about sage, I hear you say.

As a white woman with Celtic roots, wouldn’t sage be something my own ancestors might have used in their healing practices?

Wouldn’t that feel more culturally aligned than reaching for the wood of a tree that grows thousands of miles away?

Well, in all honesty, I cannot stand the smell of sage.

And while that might sound like a personal preference, it actually matters more than you might think.

My work is underpinned by nervous system regulation, and that means every element of the environment plays a role. Scent, texture, light, sound, all of it feeds into whether the body feels safe enough to soften.

It’s not always just the energetic properties of a plant or its historical use. It’s also the physiological response it creates in the room.

If something feels intrusive or overwhelming to the senses, it works against the very state we’re trying to cultivate.

So while I respect sage for its historical ability to clear energy, I personally can’t handle the smell. It’s too overpowering, so I stick with the rich, woody scents of Palo Santo and frankincense, which feel more grounding, and inviting.

Palo Santo and frankincense help create a relaxing atmosphere that supports our nervous system. Our brains naturally associate certain smells with calm and relaxation, especially when we experience them in spaces dedicated to healing. So while these scents might seem like a pleasant touch, they are helping us shift from stress to rest, which is exactly what we need during restorative sessions.

As Palo Santo has gained popularity in the West, though, it’s important to talk about cultural appropriation. The use of Palo Santo and other sacred tools has deep roots in Indigenous cultures. When we use these practices without understanding their origins, we risk turning them into trends.

I believe that, simply put, all things of the world are for the world, but with that comes the responsibility to respect and understand the journey of these practices. When we burn Palo Santo, we’re connecting to the history, people, and land that have cared for and passed down these traditions for centuries.

It’s a complex, and at times controversial, subject. I see a lot of people online telling others what they can and can’t do in terms of the herbs and plants they burn, but underneath that messaging, as with so much on social media, there is often a stronger agenda at play, with practitioners seeking to be seen as superior, pious even, and simply using this topic as content, for thier engagement stats.

I have, in my early days as a practitioner, found myself caught up in that messaging though, allowing it to make me feel ashamed or guilty for using non-local plants in my practice.

There have been periods where I’ve made a conscious effort to move away from using anything not sourced from my own land. I’ve gone to great lengths to work with alternatives such as pine and sage, as I mentioned, but time and again I’ve found myself returning, and now settling for many years, on working with frankincense and Palo Santo as my two main scents.

Having spoken with a number of individuals who import the wood over the years, I’ve come to a place of peace with my decision. And ultimately, I think that is what each of us must do, arrive at a place that feels informed, considered, and personally aligned.

Rather than getting caught up in the noise, I believe the most sensible approach is a considered one, choosing to work with herbs or woods that feel aligned, informed, and right for you as an individual or practitioner.

That said, I do still feel it’s important to ensure that any Palo Santo you use is ethically sourced. Unfortunately, due to rising demand, unsustainable harvesting has become an issue. Traditionally, only fallen Palo Santo trees were harvested, allowing the wood to cure naturally.

Due to that demand, some suppliers have resorted to cutting down living trees, which threatens the species and local ecosystems. (using wood from trees to cut down actually changes the scent profile as well)

To avoid this, I always look for certifications like the Forest Stewardship Council or FairWild, which ensure the wood has been harvested sustainably. In Peru, SERFOR oversees the responsible collection of Palo Santo, ensuring only fallen trees are harvested. Supporting suppliers who work with Indigenous communities is another way to ensure ethical sourcing.

So, what are the benefits of Palo Santo?

One of the most immediate benefits is actually a modern one. The scent itself is warm, slightly sweet, and woody, and for many people it has become associated with calm, rest, and ritual simply because of how often it is used in those settings.

There’s nothing particularly ancient about that part. It’s a learned response. When a scent is repeatedly paired with a certain environment, especially one that is slower, and more contained, the brain begins to link the two. Over time, the smell alone can start to act as a cue, signalling to the nervous system that it is safe to soften.

This is the same mechanism behind why a particular perfume can remind you of a person, or why the smell of a place can take you straight back to a memory. Scent is processed through the limbic system, the part of the brain involved in emotion, memory, and survival, which is why it has such a direct and often immediate effect on how we feel.

In practical terms, this means that if you regularly use Palo Santo in moments of rest, stillness, or intentional pause, the scent itself can begin to support that state more quickly over time.

The body learns the association, and the smell comes to represent that instant shift into settling.

That, though, is the more modern, physiological layer.

If we step beyond that and look deeper, we begin to see where Palo Santo has come from, and why it has been used for far longer than our current wellness spaces. The tree itself, Bursera graveolens, is native to dry tropical forests along the coast of South America, particularly in Peru and Ecuador, where its use is embedded within long-standing healing and ceremonial practices.

Accounts of this use are anecdotal, but also appear in ethnobotanical research, which documents how plants are used within specific cultures, as well as in anthropological studies of traditional healing systems in the region.

In Peru, for example, the use of Palo Santo is closely associated with curanderismo. Within this context, healers, often referred to as curanderos, use smoke from the wood during limpias, cleansing rituals designed to restore balance within a person or a space.

These practices have been recorded through both written research and ongoing oral tradition, passed down through generations of practitioners. The use of Palo Santo in this way sits within a long-established pattern seen across many cultures, where aromatic plants and resins are burned in ritual contexts.

There are also material reasons why this particular wood was used. When the tree dies and is left to age, it undergoes chemical changes as the resin concentrates within the wood. This produces the distinctive scent when burned, rich in compounds such as limonene and other terpenes, which contribute to both its aroma and its practical properties. In environments where insects, humidity, and infection were part of daily life, burning aromatic woods and resins would have had tangible effects on the immediate surroundings.

What’s important, though, is that within these traditions there wasn’t a clear divide between the physical and the energetic. The observable effects, the scent, the smoke, the shift in the space, and the less tangible experiences of lightness, clarity, or release were understood as part of the same process, rather than separate explanations layered on afterward.

Alongside all of this, there is also a more personal way of understanding it. It’s my belief that, over time, human intention leaves an imprint. In the same way that words gather meaning through repeated use, I wonder if objects and rituals can begin to carry a kind of accumulated energetic weight. When something is used over generations with focus, care, and shared belief, it may begin to hold something of that attention within it.

There’s no way to prove that, and I offer it as a personal perspective rather than a fact. It may be that part of what people are responding to when they work with Palo Santo includes the scent, the chemistry, and the layers of human experience, intention, and meaning that have built around it over time.

So whether you’re enjoying the beautiful scent of Palo Santo during a class or using it in your own practice, remember that it’s about more than just a nice smell.

It’s about honoring the deep cultural traditions that come with it, respecting its origins, and creating an environment where true relaxation, ans mental stillness can begin to unfold.

And just maybe the intention that you offer when you work with it will add to that collective energy of it in its history of human use.

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