Aromatherapy

Tell this to anyone who’s about to brave the dentist’s chair or the doctor’s examination table, and he’ll expect nothing short of pain and suffering.

Tell this to anyone who’s about to try aromatherapy, and odds are he won’t expect a lavender-scented bath or a cup of tea that tastes like peppermint candy. But these fragrant, pleasurable treatments are typical of aromatherapy, a system of caring for the body with botanical oils such as rose, lemon, lavender and peppermint. Whether they’re added to a bath or massaged into the skin, inhaled directly or diffused to scent an entire room, these natural, aromatic oils have been used for nearly a thousand years to relieve pain, care for the skin, alleviate tension and fatigue and invigorate the entire body.

Aromatherapy through the Ages

While no one called it aromatherapy until the late 1920s, aromatic plants have played an important role in maintaining health for several thousand years. “Ancient Egypt was a very fragrant civilization,” says John Steele, an aromatic consultant in Los Angeles. “They infused fragrant oils for massage, bathing and medicine, burned incense in religious ceremonies and used aromatic cedar oil to embalm their dead.”

But it wasn’t until the eleventh century a.d. that European healers began working with essential oils, potent, highly volatile liquids extracted from plants through distilling or squeezing. The most concentrated, therapeutic form of the plant, an essential oil isn’t greasy, like mineral oil. It is more like water in texture, evaporates quickly and penetrates the skin easily.

Essential oils were introduced to Europe by crusaders returning from the East. Valued for their antiseptic properties, these oils were burned in homes and public buildings during the bubonic plague in hopes of stopping the disease from spreading. Legend has it that glove makers, who used essential oils in their craft, enjoyed special protection from the plague.

Eclipsed by the development of synthetic drugs in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the tradition of healing with aromatics was revived in the 1920s and 1930s by René-Maurice Gattefossé, the French chemist who first coined the term aromatherapy.

But while aromatherapy has been popular in Europe for many years—essential oils are available in many French drugstores, and pharmacists are often trained in their uses—it wasn’t until the late 1980s that Americans began to discover this fragrant medicine. “When I wrote my book Herbs and Things in 1969, my editors took ‘aromatherapy’ out of the index because nobody knew what the word meant,” says San Francisco herbalist Jeanne Rose, chairperson of the National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy and author of Aromatherapy: Applications and Inhalations, a practical guide to using aromatherapy at home.

Twenty-five years later, “aromatherapy” still isn’t a household word, but essential oils have been discovered by top-selling cosmetic companies such as Estée Lauder and the Body Shop, and aromatherapy creams and oils are showing up everywhere from department store cosmetics counters to the Home Shopping Network.

“People are feeling the need to take their health into their own hands,” says Judith Jackson, a Greenwich, Connecticut, aromatherapist and author of Scentual Touch: A Personal Guide to Aromatherapy. “They’re looking for ways to help themselves that are natural and without side effects. And if the treatment has an element of pleasure as well, so much the better.”

The Sense of Smell

Essential oils work on the body on several different levels. The most obvious is by stimulating the powerful but little understood sense of smell.

In recent years, medical research has uncovered what aromatherapists have always known: that the odors we smell have a significant impact on the way we feel.

“Smells act directly on the brain, like a drug,” says Alan Hirsch, M.D., a neurologist, a psychiatrist and director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Center in Chicago.

In the course of treating patients who have lost the sense of smell, Dr. Hirsch has found that a life without fragrance seems to lead to a high incidence of psychiatric problems such as anxiety and depression.

And while most depressed, stressed-out people can smell just fine, Dr. Hirsch believes that their emotional states are also affected by the odors they are—or aren’t—smelling.

Scientific research supports the notion that smelling particular odors has a direct effect on brain activity. “We know from brain wave frequency studies that smelling lavender increases alpha waves in the back of the head, which are associated with relaxation,” says Dr. Hirsch. “An odor such as jasmine increases beta waves in the front of the head, which are associated with a more alert state.”

And since most people can detect many different odors, the potential therapeutic uses of smell seem endless. Experts say that inhaling essential oils can benefit many conditions linked to nervous tension, including headaches, insomnia and anxiety. Inhalations are also used to treat respiratory complaints such as colds, allergies and bronchitis.

Experiencing the mood-altering power of scent can be as simple as adding several drops of essential oil to your bath or placing a couple of drops of essential oil on a scent ring, which sits on a warm lightbulb. A longer-lasting way to scent a room is with an aroma lamp, a porcelain or clay pot in which essential oils are mixed with water and heated over a candle, or an electric aromatic diffuser, which reduces essential oils to a fine spray and disperses the scent throughout the room. These are sold in some health food stores and through mail order (refer to the resource list on page 633).

More Than Meets the Nose

But fragrance isn’t the only way that essential oils work on the body. “ ‘Aromatherapy’ is actually a very bad name,” says Galina Lisin, a European-trained aromatherapist and president of Herba-Aromatica in Hayward, California. “Essential oils have never been used in perfumes. They’re medicines, and inhalation is only one of many ways they can be used.”

Essential oils are also effective when used topically. “Unlike mineral oils, which just hang around on the skin, essential oils are made up of very small molecules that actually penetrate through the skin into the blood system,” says Steele.

Topical application is used to treat a wide range of skin problems, and essences are popular ingredients in skin care products and other cosmetics. Mild essential oils such as lavender can even be applied full strength, or “neat,” to treat cuts, burns, headaches and other simple first-aid conditions.

“For the layperson, there aren’t many essential oils I would recommend using neat on the skin,” says Steele. “Even a trained aromatherapist can’t always predict who will have an allergic reaction to an essential oil, so using them diluted provides an extra measure of safety.” While an essential oil diluted in a carrier oil is less quickly absorbed into the skin, many experts prefer this method because it guards against skin irritation. “A rule of thumb is that more is not always better with essential oils,” adds Steele.

Another topical use of essential oils is aromatherapy massage. When added to traditional massage oils such as almond, olive and sesame, essential oils enhance the benefits of massage, relieving stress, improving circulation and creating a feeling of well-being.

While European medical doctors also administer essential oils orally, in suppositories and even transdermally (as in a patch on the skin), experts recommend consulting a medically trained aromatherapist before taking any oils internally. Steele also advises that you learn about essential oils before using them, since some aren’t recommended for certain conditions. (For more information on using essential oils safely, see “Some Words of Caution” on page 21.)

Using Aromatherapy

To explore the healing power of aromatherapy, begin in your local health food store. Essential oils vary widely in price and quality: A 1¼2-ounce vial of lavender oil, for example, can set you back as little as $7 or as much as $15, depending upon its purity and where it’s produced. The most popular home care oils retail at $5 to $16 per five-milliliter bottle, says Steele, but because essential oils are highly concentrated, a small quantity can last for months with normal use. (If you have trouble finding essential oils in your area, try one of the mail-order companies that specialize in aromatherapy supplies. Refer to the resource list on page 633.)

Experimenting with aromatherapy shouldn’t cost a fortune. By investing in a few versatile, inexpensive essential oils, you can try many of the remedies in this book and explore basic aromatherapy massage. (See “Essential oils for Beginners.”)

Because many applications involve blending essential oils with other ingredients, you’ll also need a few glass or hard plastic bottles to store the mixtures in. And since light can damage essential oils, experts recommend using tinted glass bottles and storing them in a cool, dark place. Stores that sell essential oils often sell bottles as well, as do many mail-order houses.

Finally, whether you are serious about learning aromatherapy or just enjoy discovering new fragrances, experts say a home diffuser is a great investment. “A year ago, you couldn’t buy a good diffuser for under $150,” says Rose. “But the market is getting more competitive every year, and diffusers are now in the price range of the average American.” Rose herself uses a $40 electric diffuser from the Maryland mail-order company Phybiosis. (See the resource list on page 633.) “The diffuser is a must for respiratory treatments,” says Rose, who suffers from asthma. “And it makes a great alarm clock! I run mine on a timer, so I can wake up to whatever scent I like.”