People Who Follow A 5000-Year-Old Body Oiling Tradition Brag About 9 Health & Beauty Benefits

By Samira Vishwas On Feb 13, 2026

Many Westerners love body oil for the beauty beneifts, but traditional practices have long understood the more profound benefits of body oililng. Nidhi Pandya is a Certified Advanced Ayurvedic Practitioner based in NYC and the creator of the Inner Climate Frameworkm where she merges ancient wisdom with modern science for a dedicated practice and deep understanding of Ayurvedic principles.

As Pandya shared on the Getting Open podcastthere are powerful ways to bridge the gap between traditional Ayurvedic teachings and the needs of contemporary women for a balanced, empowered life. And body oil just happens to be one of the traditions at the center of the whole thing.

People who follow a 5000-year-old body oiling tradition brag about 9 key health & beauty benefits

“It is the science of all of life,” as Pandya says. “Ayurveda provides the lens to understand yourself, understand the world, and how we can come to a place of oneness and balance and healing.”

Everyone is chasing longevity through “cold plunges, butter coffee and breathwork,” she shares. But Ayurveda has a 5000 year advantage over more modern techniques. In the tradition of body oiling, the “magic” is not in fasting, ice, or breath, but in oil.

1. Feeding the skin’s microbiome

Aging is “drying,” so you have to start nourishing, or you’ll reach the autumn of life and all your leaves will fall. You can’t defeat dryness by drinking water. You have to lubricate. A natural part of life is aging, so you want to slow it down and make it a loving experience. And a big way to do that is by oiling your skin.

Body oiling for five minutes a day with raw sesame oil is a great method to feed your skin. Raw sesame oil can be a bit costly, but you can start with a fancy-smelling body oil like Trader Joe’s Lemongrass coconut oil. Then you can source some high-quality sesame oil. Just be careful not to use toasted sesame oil or you will smell like a bowl of fried rice.

Pandya explains how oiling skin “creates the right climate for the microbiome to live and fight. You give them what they need. Instead of sanitizing, drying it out, and just creating this kind of dry desert.”

2. Enhancing vitamin D absorption

Starting with morning sun is the best since the UV index is much lower at that time of day. “Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin,” points out Pandya. “When you have enough oil on your skin, you absorb all the rays from the sun, and your body and liver can synthesize vitamin D much better.”

Just be careful with mid-day sun, the climate, and skin sensitivity, she advises. Times have changed since the Ayurvedic wisdom was written, including changes to the ozone layer. In addition, not everyone has the same amount of melanin to protect against the sun’s harmful rays.

3. Boosting oxytocin

A study explored the ready availability of self-touch and demonstrated that “a natural and dynamic self-touch intervention leads to elevated peripheral oxytocin concentrations. Therefore, these results suggest that self-touch may substitute pleasant social-touch.”

So take five minutes each day and give yourself a nice body oil massage. Turn off your phone or the TV, and just enjoy five minutes of supporting your circulation and boosting the “happy hormones” in your brain.

4. Aiding digestion and immunity

Research describes how the skin is a primary barrier against infection for the human body. The protections of the skin helps guard against pathogens and other unhealthy compounds, which can have a direct negative impact on digestion.

Once the barrier of the skin is broken, a host environment is created. Oiling the skin keeps it more pliable and intact, and keeps the natural, healthy, microbiome thriving.

5. Enhancing joint and muscle recovery

“It is the best recovery,” says Pandya. “When you’re exercising, and you have that oil in your body, you’re going to protect your joints, but you’re also going to the muscle fiber much better. You’re going to build better muscle. You’re going to have less lactic acid buildup.”

During your five-minute body oiling sesson, you can also pay special attention to your muscles and joints, noticing soreness or stiffness. You can rub the body oil in a little more, creating warmth and energy to help your recovery.

6. Lymphatic drainage

“There’s so much stagnation that happens in the body,” Pandya adds. “We are sedentary beings, you know. We are not grinding our own grains. We are not on our farms. We’re silently being, and there’s stagnation.”

It makes sense, if you think on it. We sit so much compared to our ancestors, and our bodies are designed by nature for movement. Oiling the skin helps break up that stagnation and get things moving so the system can process the blockages, drain, and strengthen.

7. Gut microbiome enhancement

Pandya is especially passionate about belly button oiling.

“Your belly button is a portal. It’s important,” she told host Andrea Miller, who seemed fascinated by the idea. “This is where you ate your food from. We believe it’s important to your microbiome. So when you oil the belly button, we believe that it goes into the lining of your gut.”

8. Replenishing the oral microbiome for stronger teeth

Oil pulling, especially with coconut oil, replenishes the microbiome in your mouth. As Pandya describes it, “If you swish for about five to ten minutes, you’ll see that there’s nothing oily left. The oil becomes the consistency of water, and you spit it out.”

With that watery oil, you are spitting out any food caught between the teeth and any bacteria growing in the mouth. You do this without alcohol or other compounds that can also eliminate the healthy microorganisms that protect your gums and teeth from the effects of sugars and other compounds that can feed the “bad” bacterial overgrowth.

So try it! Oil your skin, oil your mouth, oil your joints. The wisdom of the ages reinforces what science has already learned to be true: that our microbiome is key to our health. Ayurvedic practitioners like Nidhi Pandya who have made sure this ancient information is preserved and revitalized, and we are all the better for it.

Will Curtis is YourTango’s expert editor. Will has over 14 years of experience as an editor covering relationships, spirituality, and human interest topics.