What's your favourite essential oil? How does it support you mentally, socially, emotionally and spiritually?
Been making some little tea, smudge and oil kits lately for loved ones.
Aromatherapy is a holistic therapy to assist with physical, social, emotional and spiritual health and well being.
Here's a bit of the research I've compiled in the past.
Physically
Biological changes brought by aromatherapy include an effect on the nervous system but their effect is not purely psychological
Some examples of physical changes could include
- Measurable changes in cerebral blood flow in the brain [1]
- Potential against stress-related psychiatric disorders [2]
- Potential to improve social stress-induced mental illnesses [3]
- Improved depression- and anxiety-like behaviour and neurogenesis [4]
- Reduction in agitated behaviour [5]
- widespread alteration of stress-induced gene expression changes [6]
Essential oil inhalation is often effective in reducing the stress index, and that it effectively regulated the activity of the hypothalamus to provide stable and relaxing conditions by creating balance and harmony in the sympathetic nervous system
"A clinical study with depressed patients revealed that it was possible to reduce the needed antidepressants' doses by inhaling a mixture of citrus oils; moreover, inhalation of the oil by itself was antidepressive and normalized neuroendocrine hormone levels" [7]
With regard to agitation and anxiety, in a clinical mental health population, there were significant reductions in needed medications for anxiety or agitation
With regard to depression, significantly more improvement in scores on depression, anxiety, and severity of emotional symptoms, studies finding effects independent of personality traits, psychological status, and psychotherapeutic medication
It is said there are parasympathetic-stimulating oils like lavender and the sympathetic-stimulating oils like rosemary but a study has noted that short inhalation of essential oils suppresses parasympathetic nervous activation while continuous inhalation suppresses sympathetic nervous activation [8]
Oils that cause parasympathetic stimulation of the autonomic nervous system in turn are associated with decreased anxiety, improved mood, and increased sedation whereas the sympathetic-stimulating oils have been associated with increased arousal, improved cognition and memory, and enhanced performance on cognitive assessment tests [9]
Socially
Some like lavender "showed an intense prosocial effect" [1] but also the social attitude of people can also be effectively modulated by aroma. For one, prosocial behaviour can be enhanced in the presence of positive ambient odours: people exposed to pleasant ambient odours were more inclined to help [2]
Aromas can act as a cognitive modulator, favoring either an exclusive or an integrative control mode. A more exclusive state induced by stimulating odours modulates information processing in such a way that attention is drawn to the local details, thus emphasising the distinction between self and other. A more inclusive state can be induced where local details tend to be ignored while attention is drawn to the global stimulus situation – the “big picture.” [3]
Emotionally
Olfaction is intimately related to social communication and emotions
One can start exploring:
Using scent to bring one to the present moment
Observing what emotions does this evoke?
Breathing into it, to feel it.
Regulating back to a grounded state
"Essential oils used with the conscious breath and mindful reflection are perfect companions for cultivating positive emotions. The aroma interacts directly with your limbic centred emotions, quickly changing your emotional landscape." [Oils and Positive Emotions]
Emotionally, "Odour can colour perceptions about the world both positively or negatively through emotion processes and thus can modulate mood and behaviour"
Effects of inhaled essential oils cannot be explained by pharmacological mechanisms alone. "Olfaction is intimately linked to emotional processes, sharing some same neural bases and thus constitutes a valuable emotion-inducer" [1]. Expectancies play an important role in the subjective effects of inhaled essential oils [2].
Odour pleasantness selectively shifts human attention in the surrounding space [3] and modulates the hedonic value of rewards [4]
In monotonous situations it improved mood and other measures [5] Odours that evoke positive autobiographical memories being able to increase positive emotions, decrease negative mood states, disrupt cravings, and reduce physiological indices of stress, including systemic markers of inflammation [6]
Odour may serve as a powerful cue for the recovery of autobiographical memories, inducing subjective reliving and more positive memories after odour exposure [7] producing a number of and more specific memories after odour exposure than without odour [8].
Beneficial effects of same nature to odour and music exposure were observed for autobiographical characteristics (i.e., specificity, emotional experience, and mental time travel) [9]
Spiritually
There's also spiritual dimensions to essential oils which is interesting
"Imaginative consciousness enables one to go beyond analysis of the physical properties of a given essential oil via a complementary perception of the spiritual roots from which these physical properties arise" which can "help an individual overcome the separation from one’s higher self which lies at the core of emotional and physical disharmony" [1]
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