Aromatherapy
What is Aromatherapy?
Aromatherapy means, "treatment using scents lotions and inhalants, in an effort to affect mood and promote health." It is an holistic treatment of caring for the body with pleasant smelling botanical oils such as rose, lemon, lavender, and jasmine. Essential oils can be added to the bath, massaged into the skin, inhaled directly or used in a diffuser to scent an entire room. Aromatherapy is used for the relief of pain, care for the skin, alleviate tension and fatigue, and invigorate the entire body. Essential oils can affect the mood, reduce anxiety, and promote relaxation. When inhaled, they work on the brain and nervous system through stimulation of the olfactory nerves.
Essential oils are aromatic essences extracted from plants, flowers, trees, fruits, bark, grasses and seeds with distinctive therapeutic, psychological, and physiological properties, which improve and prevent illness. There are about 150 essential oils. Most of these oils have antiseptic properties; some are antiviral, anti-inflammatory, pain-relieving, antidepressant and expectorant. Other properties of essential oils used in aromatherapy are their stimulation, relaxation, digestion improvement, and diuretic properties.
To get the maximum benefit from essential oils, they should be pure raw materials. Synthetically made oils do not have any therapeutic benefits.
Aromatherapy is one of the fastest growing fields in alternative medicine. It is widely used at home, clinics and hospitals for a variety of applications such as pain relief for women in labour pain, relieving pain caused by the side effects of the chemotherapy undergone by the cancer patients, and rehabilitation of cardiac patients.
Aromatherapy is already slowly getting into the mainstream. In Japan, engineers are incorporating aroma systems into new buildings. In one instance, the scent of lavender and rosemary is pumped into the customer area to calm down the waiting customers, while the perfumes from lemon and eucalyptus are used in banks to keep the staff alert.
How Does Aromatherapy Work?
Essential oils stimulate the powerful sense of smell. It is a fact that odours we smell have a significant impact on how we feel. In dealing with patients who have lost the sense of smell, doctors have found that a life without fragrance can lead to high incidence of psychiatric problems such as anxiety and depression. We have the capability to distinguish approx 10,000 different smells. Smells enter through cilia (the fine hairs lining the nose) to the limbic system, the part of the brain that controls our moods, emotions, memory, and learning.
Studies with brain wave frequency have shown that smelling lavender increases alpha waves in the back of the head, which are associated with relaxation. Fragrance of Jasmine increases beta waves in the front of the head, which are associated with a more alert state.
Scientific studies have also shown that essential oils contain chemical components that can exert specific effects on the mind and body. Their chemistry is complex, but generally includes alcohols, esters, ketones, aldehydes, and terpenes.
Aromatherapy....An Introduction and short history....
Aromatherapy has a fascinating history. Its earliest recorded use in China as long ago as 4000 year B.C. The techniques of pressing, steeping, boiling and drying were used to obtain aromatic essences and oils from flowers, leaves, woods, gums and resins. The Chinese were probably among the first people to use plant oils for medicinal purposes.
The Egyptians, Persians and Babylonians were known to have a passion for beautiful perfumes and made scented waters from a distillation of rose petals and orange blossoms. They used lavish amounts of perfumed oils and lotions in baths and cosmetics and as an aid to personal grooming.
The Egyptian Pharaohs were ritually embalmed with specific ingredients believed to delay decomposition, while the living made use of similar medicinal substances for their own healing purposes. It was the Persian philosopher and physician, Avicenna, who was among the first to refine the distillation process whereby much purer essential oils were produced.
Due to the increasing demand for these precious ingredients, trade routes were established with the Greeks and Romans who had extensive contacts, offering an expanded range of ingredients from all over the known world. It was the Romans in turn, who brought the idea to Britain.
There are records of the use of plant oils in Europe from the 13th century but it was not until the 17th century that their uses were codified by Nicholas Culpeper. He was to write the first herbal/medicinal handbook describing remedies derived from hundreds of plants. His research revealed just how essential oils work; by penetrating the skin via the extra-cellular liquids to reach the circulatory and lymphatic systems they are, in turn, carried to the inner organs.
This basic process varies enormously in each individual, sometimes taking as little as a half hour and in others up to twelve hours to complete the process. Skin penetration takes only a few minutes.
The advent of chemical substitutes in the 19th century almost destroyed the demand for natural oils although they did not have the same medicinal properties or efficacy.
It was a French chemist, Rene Gattefosse, who pioneered the use of plant oils in modern medicine after healing his own burns with lavender oil. He went on to successfully treat many severe cases of burns in the First World War and developed the wide range of healing oils with which we are familiar today. From the 1940's onwards, Marguerite Maury, the Austrian bio-chemist and beautician, experimented with the holistic use of essential oils, i.e. prescribing treatments for individuals while taking account of various imbalances of both body, mind and emotions. Her extensive research is responsible for developing aromatherapy massage and various beauty and skin care treatments as we know them today. she was the first person to establish the technique of applying essential oils diluted in pure vegetable oils (base/carrier) for massage.
Over the past 25 years there has been an upsurge of interest in the numerous therapeutic uses of essential oils. There exists a deep desire to preserve some of nature's treasured gifts in an age where there is widespread revulsion against the destructive elements of materialism on our environment. Nature is being recognised as a new treasure-trove of valuable gifts, which can heal both humankind as well as the environment...