Most people have heard the word Aromatherapy. It is used by many companies to help sell items like body products, cleaning products and air fresheners.
But do you know what aromatherapy is and how you can use it safely?
A definition of aromatherapy is ‘the therapeutic use of pure essential plant oils to maintain well-being, promote healing and assist in recovery from illness’.
Essential oils can be extracted from the flowers, leaves, fruit, resin, wood and roots of over 400 aromatic plants.
The extraction process concentrates the essence of the plant. When used properly the oils can provide us with beneficial physical and psychological effects.
For example relaxing muscles and relieving mental tension as well as lifting, stabilising and balancing our moods.
Aromatherapy Treatment
Most people have an idea of the types of smells they like and dislike, so based on this I can normally offer a range of oils for them to choose from, then use one or two of their preferred oils in a blend with carrier oil for a relaxation massage, or use with other oils to stimulate or relax muscles during a therapeutic or sports massage.
It is interesting to note that no two people in this world are influenced by the same aromatic oil in exactly the same way and manner.
What is more, even the same person can be significantly affected differently, by the same oil depending on surroundings, time or mood.
Smell
Our sense of smell is the most basic of our five senses. Reception, interpretation, appreciation and analysis of smell are confined to the primitive brain called the limbic system.
Although humans can distinguish over 10 thousand different odours, we can only describe smell in a limited way. For example as pleasant or unpleasant, familiar or unfamiliar, like or unlike. We cannot describe its texture, flavour, shape or colour as we can with sight, sound, taste or touch.
When a smell enters our nose it meets millions of receptor neurons. These receptors convert the smell into a message which is sent to the olfactory bulb.
There the smell is processed and passed onto the olfactory cortex in the temporal lobe or to the limbic system.
The limbic system is basically made up of the hypothalamus, the hippocampus and the amygdalae.
The hypothalamus strives to maintain homeostasis in the body. It also affects, through the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems things like blood pressure, heart rate, the sleep/awake response and emotional arousal.
The hippocampus converts short-term memory into long-term memory and the amygdalae stores and processes the memory of emotional reactions (Marieb, 2003).
So how does aromatherapy fit into this? Every essential oil has therapeutic properties, for example stimulating, calming, balancing and sedating.
When we inhale an essential oil, it travels the smell pathway to the limbic system – especially the hypothalamus.
So for example if you inhaled lavender which has a calming effect – the hypothalamus receives the message to relax, so it creates neuro-chemicals to send through the body to relax and calm it. Likewise if the oil is stimulating, the limbic system will send messages to energize and become more active.
It doesn’t matter if the oils are inhaled from a bottle, through a massage or applied in another way, the odour molecules will travel to their limbic destination and create the appropriate neuro-chemicals to affect a physical response.
As with anything there are cautions to using aromatherapy. Our central nervous systems are unique and sensitive to some chemical constituents that make up an essential oil.
For example Ketones are a constituent group that are known to be neurotoxic. These constituents can irritate the central nervous system and over excite it – acting as a catalyst to a seizure if you are epileptic. So examples of essential oils to avoid if you have epilepsy include Camphor, Rosemary, Eucalyptus, Fennel, Sage & Hyssop.
But there are even more wonderful oils that can be used to help maintain everyday wellbeing, and have a positive effect on coping and possibly reducing the severity and frequency of seizures including:
Ylang ylang, Jasmine, Bergamot, Lavender, Fragonia, Sweet marjoram, Roman Chamomile, Neroli and Melissa (Battaglia, 2003).
History of Aromatherapy
The roots of aromatherapy can be traced back to more than 3,500 B.C., to a time when the use of aromatic plants was first recorded for their use as incense, perfumes, cosmetics, and for their medical and culinary applications.
In 1937 the term ‘aromatherapie’ was coined by a French chemist named René-Maurice Gattefossé.
An explosion in his perfume laboratory several years earlier had caused severe burns to both of his hands resulting in an onset of gas gangrene – infection of the wound – which at the time would have been fatal had he not applied pure lavender oil.
He noted the lavender rapidly stopped the gasification and promoted healing, leaving very little scarring.
Gattefossé went on to study and define aromatherapy as a medically based system of treatment, utilising essential oils that had been scientifically researched, and proven to be equivalent to the conventional drugs of the time. (Tisserand, 2009)
Treatments for soldiers during World War 1 included using essential oils like clove, thyme, lemon and chamomile to treat injuries and sterilise equipment were so successful other people soon followed suit, developing their own unique style and theories on essential oils and their applications.
Interestingly enough, aromatherapy was not introduced to the English speaking world until 1977 when, Robert Tisserands’ book titled “The Art Of Aromatherapy” was the first book to be published in English, and is still available today.
Nowadays, the popularity of essential oils and aromatherapy is rapidly rising especially in the western world, making it fundamental for alternative and holistic medicine.
Did you know – of all the essential oils produced worldwide today approximately only 5% are available for aromatherapy purposes?
Most are produced for the food flavouring, perfumery and pharmaceutical industries. At least one consumable that is used by us contains essential oils, like toothpaste, soaps and cleaning products.
Unfortunately with the increased interest from people, recognizing the importance of combining the mind, body and spirit, in equal measures to achieve optimum health and well-being, there is a large amount of mis-information and mass produced synthetic products being marketed at the general lay person.
Purchasing essential oils from reputable suppliers who are qualified Aromatherapists is very important as they understand the properties of the oils, and where they have come from – not all oils are safe for use, and many claiming to be pure have been adulterated or created in a lab.
Quality is important
I always advocate the use of quality oils only – none of the cheap $2 shop type oils that are available in many stores.
Unfortunately, many businesses improperly use the term aromatherapy on products that contain unnatural and perfume oils, so it is important to purchase your oils from a reputable reseller who specialize in pure aromatherapy products.
Quite often you can tell the quality of an oil by the name or the price.
To my knowledge there is no plant in existence called “Sea Breeze” or “Ocean Fresh” so obviously if an oil has this type of name you can be pretty sure it is synthetic even though it may claim to be an essential oil.
These products smell nice, and you can still use them in an oil burner to scent your home, but you won’t get the emotional/neurological benefits that go with a pure oil, and please don’t put them on your skin!
The price is another give away. For example to make 1 litre of rose oil you need 3500 kilos of flowers, – approximately 1.4 million handpicked blossoms.
40,000 blossoms are needed to make 30 mls of oil. And 67 blossoms are needed to make just 1 drop of oil – if we calculate that there are 600 drops in a 30 ml bottle (roughly 20 drops per ml) you can understand there is a lot of work just to produce a small amount of oil.
This equates to a large amount of time and energy needed to produce this beautiful oil, therefore you can understand why rose is very expensive when purchased in its pure form.
Just to give you an idea, to purchase a 30ml bottle of pure rose oil (Rosa damascena from Turkey) retail is approx. $450.00, (10 years ago it was around $350).
You can purchase a diluted rose (normally 3 or 5% diluted in jojoba oil or something similar), but a 30ml bottle of this still retails for around $40, so if you find a rose oil for $10 you can be pretty guaranteed it is not pure!!
So how can you use essential oils?
First and foremost always dilute the essential oil if it is going to come in contact with the skin in a carrier oil like grapeseed, sweet almond, olive, apricot or avocado. What ever you do, don’t use canola oil – it leaves a nasty smell on your skin!
For adults:
In a bath or massage blend a maximum of 6 drops of essential oil in 10 – 15 ml carrier oil.
In an oil burner or diffuser 3 – 4 drops of essential oil is plenty – don’t forget if you are using a candle burner you will need to keep checking there is still water in the bowl on top – my advice is to look around for a plug in diffuser, they cost between $50 – $120, but they are a lot safer as they do not require water to be added.
For children or elderly halve the amount of essential oil drops.
Essential oils should never be taken internally, and if in doubt refer to a qualified Aromatherapist for advice.
References
Battaglia, S. (2003). The complete guide to aromatherapy (2nd ed.). Brisbane: The International Centre of Holistic Aromatherapy.
Marieb, E. (2003). Human anatomy and physiology (6th ed.). San Francisco: Pearson Benjamin Cummings.
Tisserand, R. (2009). Gattefosse. Retrieved from http://www.tisserand.com/category_s/1866.htm