Aromatherapy is an alternative holistic therapy that uses the essential oils from plants to support the body’s natural healing processes and enhance wellbeing.

What are Essential Oils?

Essential oils are concentrated plant extracts and each have their own therapeutic properties. They are often referred to as the ‘life-blood’ or ‘hormones’ of a plant due to their highly concentrated essence.

How are Essential Oils Produced?

The oils are procured from different parts of the plants, such as the flower, wood, seed, root, peel of the fruit, resin, or bark of the tree.

Essential oils are obtained via two main methods, the first being steam distillation of the plant, the second, called expression which is cold pressing, this is specific to citrus essential oils such as lemon, lime and bergamot.

Another two means of obtaining essential oils is by solvent extraction or enfleurage. These two methods are not as common and tend to only be used when producing absolutes, as some flowers are too delicate to distil.

In What Ways Do Essential Oils Work With the Body?

Essential oils work with the body in 3 ways.

Pharmacological – this is concerned with the chemical changes that take place when an essential oil enters the bloodstream and reacts with your hormones and enzymes.

Physiological – is how an essential oil affects systems of the body e.g. whether they are stimulated or sedated

Psychological – this revolves around how an individual responds to the odour of an essential oil or essence when inhaled

(Lawless, 2014).

How is Aromatherapy Used?

Aromatherapy can be used in a number of different ways including:

• Diffusing essential oils into the air
• Applying oils topically to the skin in massage therapy
• Soaking in a bath infused with oils
• Inhaling oils from a bottle or oil-infused cloth

What Can Essential Oils Help With?

People turn to aromatherapy due to the anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and pain-relieving effects of essential oils. Their effects have improved emotional, physical and spiritual wellbeing.

To name some, essential oils can help to:

• Improve skin health
• Reduce stress & anxiety along with helping ‘overcoming symptoms of depression’
• Improve sleep quality
• Combat feelings of fatigue and improve energy
• Soothe joint pain and pain management
• Lessen the side effects of cancer treatments

Help with Skin Health

If you pick up a moisturiser, body scrub, toner, face wash, you are likely to find a list of essential oils on the ingredients label. Dermatologists largely recommend the inclusion of essential oils within skincare for many reasons, but largely due to the antibacterial and cleansing properties of many oils such as tea tree which can help with conditions such as acne (Lawless, 2014).

In descending order essential oils are largely used to treat infections caused by fungi, bacteria or viruses (62%), followed by inflammatory skin conditions (20%) including eczema, dermatitis and lupus, and then general skincare maintenance (18%) treating common problems such as wrinkles, scabs and scars. Overall, there are at least 90 essential oils which are recommended for dermatological use (Orchard, et al.2017).

It is important to note that everyone reacts differently to various essential oils and when applied to the skin they need to be diluted to the right dosage to prevent potential skin irritations.

Soothe Pain

Applying aromatherapy oils to a troubled area or inhaling them can help ease pain such as aching joints, headaches and tight muscles (Lakhan, et al.2016).

Oils that have warming properties, when absorbed into the skin and blood stream can help boost circulation. They can also bring this warmth to the surface of the skin and relieve pain through their numbing effect (Lawless, 2014).

These types of oils can also help reduce inflammation as they can cause your blood vessels to expand, thus allowing blood to move quickly and reduce any swelling.

Some oils can even help balance the circulatory system. For example, hyssop has the ability to lower your blood pressure if it’s too high or stimulate the system if it’s too lethargic (Lawless, 2014).

Improve Sleep Quality

My nightly ritual always involves spraying one of my homemade essential oil mists on my pillow to help me sleep. Whilst its summer I have been using lavender, in the winter I tend to make a tonka bean mist which has a soothing warmth about it.

Inhalation aromatherapy before bed time has shown effective for improving sleep quality and as a remedy to help treat insomnia, with lavender essential oil being particularly noted for assisting with such disorders. You could also use essential oils that are known for their soothing properties in the lead up to your bedtime, whether this involves lighting a lavender scented candle or using a diffuser. One study showed how students who had reported sleep issues wore patches on their chest infused with lavender essential oil across 5 nights and each time arose feeling vastly more refreshed (Lillehei, et al. 2015).

Reduce Stress & Anxiety

Aromatherapy’s use of essential oils have long be known to help with alleviating feelings of stress and anxiety, to name just a few oils below:

Eucalyptus Citriodora, Lavender, Geranium, Clary Sage, Chamomile Roman, Sandalwood, Ylang Ylang, Neroli, Rose otto, frankincense, lemon, grapefruit. (Worwood, 1995).

It’s interesting that the effect of essential oils on the mind and connection to our nervous system is one of the most popular areas for discussion yet is the least understood area in aromatherapy.

What we do know is that there are two olfactory nerve tracts that connect directly with the limbic system (the area of the brain that is where our memories and emotions are stored). Each person can have a different emotional response to an essential oil. To explain this further, I’m going to touch on an area of research called Psychoneuroendoimmunology (PNEI), I know it’s a mouthful – but bear with me! To put it simply, this looks how the mind and body are completely interlinked. When it comes to aromatherapy and how a scent is able to help make us feel less stressed can be explained by this.

For example, if we smell lavender, these molecules travel up our nose and send signal to our brain which houses our memories and emotions. Instantly we are reminded of a holiday in the south of France where we could smell the lavender in the fields. Suddenly you start to feel happy and in turn, when you bring about positive emotions you’re instantly lowering your stress levels and blood pressure.

But if a scent is perceived uniquely due to an individual’s experiences how does that explain how so many of us react in the same way (e.g. calm) when exposed to lavender for example?

Aside from our response to scent being learned throughout the course of life, the other notion is that the masses react similarly to certain essential oils because of their chemical make-up. For example lavender known for its ability to reduce anxiety can be explained in its component of linalool. One study found how mice exposed to the aroma showed less signs of anxiety. Mice which had no sense of smell did not benefit from the same anti-anxiety effects, thus showing that the relaxation exhibited in the normal mice was in fact triggered by olfactory signals evoked by linalool odour (Harada et al. 2018).

Help Lessen the Side Effects of Cancer Treatments

An explanation of how these can help to reduce the adverse effects of cancer treatments can be found in many of the above points. They can very much help with your mood at times where it could be suffering the lowest, as we know the ability for essentials oils to help decrease anxiety, boost mood as well as helping to reduce inflammation within the body we’ve already looked at.

Nausea is often a side effect cancer treatments such as radiotherapy or chemotherapy. Whilst there is not yet the research to support this, many aromatherapists believe that the inhalation of certain essential oils can help ward of feelings of sickness (Cancer Research UK).

 

References

Cancer Research UK. Available at: https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancer-in-general/treatment/complementary-alternative-therapies/individual-therapies/aromatherapy (Accessed 21 June 2019).

Harada, H. Kashiwadani, H. Kanmura, Y.et al.(2018).‘Linalool Odor-Induced Anxiolytic Effects in Mice’, Front Behav Neurosci. NCBI [Online]. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6206409/ (Accessed 21 June 2019).

Lakhan, S. Sheafer, H. Tepper, D. (2016), ‘The Effectiveness of Aromatherapy in Reducing Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis’, NCBI [Online]. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5192342/ [Accessed 19 April 2018].

Lillehei, A. Halcon, L. Savik, K. (2015). ‘Effect of Inhaled Lavender and Sleep Hygeine on Self-Reported Sleep Issues: A Randomised Controlled Trial’, Altern Complement Med.(7) pp430-438, NCBI [Online]. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4505755/ (Accessed 20 June 2019).

Orchard, A. Vuuren, S. (2017), ‘Commercial Essential Oils as Potential Antimicrobials to Treat Skin Diseases’, Evidence Based Complement Alternative Medicine, NCBI [Online]. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5435909/ [Accessed 19 April 2018].

Worwood, V. The Fragrant Mind: Aromatherapy for Personality, Mind, Mood and Emotion,p273. Great Britain: Banton Books. 1995.

Lawless, J. (2014). The Encyclopaedia of Essential Oils: The Complete Guide to the Use of Aromatic Oils in Aromatherapy, Herbalism, Health & Well-being. pp8-9. Great Britain: HarperCollinsPublishers.

Harada, H. Kashiwadani, H. Kanmura, Y.et al.(2018).‘Linalool Odor-Induced Anxiolytic Effects in Mice’, Front Behav Neurosci. NCBI [Online]. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6206409/ (Accessed 21 June 2019).