Can Aromatherapy Improve Health?

There is a lot of misinformation about what aromatherapy is....and, what it can do. Right off: aromatherapy is NOT nice smelling dish soap. It is the use of natural plant extracts, called essential oils, that are used in a therapeutic manner so as to achieve balance in body, mind, and spirit.

Brown University  (Providence, Rhode Island) noted in a recent review of 18 aromatherapy studies that "odours can affect mood, physiology and behaviour." It can do this, because nerves that carry odour signals to your brain communicate directly with areas involved with emotion and learning. It may explain why aromatherapy can do the following:

(1) The scent of grapefruit dampens food cravings. This study was done at Osaka University, in Japan. Grapefruit is one of the oils used in eScential Wellness' Food Craving Tamer Inhaler (http://escentialwellness.com/products/food-craving-tamer)

(2) Lavender, sandalwood and sweet orange can relax a person, and may reduce anxiety. One study found the scent of these oils reduced anxiety in breast cancer survivors; and another found that the scent of lavender reduced the pain of needle injections for children who had had tonsillectomies. Yet another study provided evidence that sniffing lavender, roman chamomile and neroli calmed anxiety, improved sleep and stabilized blood pressure in heart patients who received stents to open blocked arteries in the heart. eScential Wellness Anti-Anxiety inhaler contains lavender, and other, proven anti-anxiety scents not mentioned in these studies. (http://escentialwellness.com/products/anti-anxiety-inhaler)

(3) The scent of rose essential oil leads to deeper, longer sleep. (Japan's Mie University Graduate School of Medicine.)

(4)Rosemary improved memory (U.K's University of Northumbria)

(5) Peppermint oil, inhaled post surgery, reduced nausea. (See eScential Wellness' Nausea Relief Inhaler   http://escentialwellness.com/products/Nausea-Relief-Inhaler)

Next post, I will provide some ways to incorporate these oils into your life, and, provide some safety information.