Stress Management Strategies – Using Aromatherapy to Help Calm Stress
Did you know that you can use aromatherapy as part of your stress management strategies? Whilst some are sceptical about the power of alternative therapies to help and heal, aromatherapy has been shown in studies to help calm stress. Read on to find out how you can use aromatherapy to calm and relieve your stress and its symptoms.
Aromatherapy is a method of using scents or aromas, generally produced from plant essential oils, to create balance and healing in the body and mind. Think for a moment about the power of smell. Have you ever been overtaken by a scent that took you straight back to a past memory or reminded you of a person who is long since out of your life? Our sense of smell is very powerful and can produce impressive effects in the body and mind.
Aromatherapy works by stimulating our sense of smell, through the olfactory nerves in our nose. This affects our limbic system which is the part of the brain which regulates our moods, emotions and behaviour. This part of our brain also exerts control over our hormones and stress levels. It is thought to have evolved to manage our fight or flight response, an essential part of our reaction to stress.
It is therefore not surprising that scents can have a powerful effect on state of mind and emotions and, therefore, that certain essential oils should be effective in treating certain states of mind, such as stress. The main method of aromatherapy treatment is by inhalation which invokes the response in the brain specified above. And if our mind is responsible for producing the symptoms of stress in the body, then improving our state of mind can only help our stress symptoms. Studies have shown inhalation of essential oils to reduce blood pressure, pulse rate, subjective stress, anxiety and cortisol levels (the “stress hormone”).[1][2]
Research has shown that our brainwaves are affected by aromatherapy. The frequency of our brainwaves corresponds to our state of activity or relaxation. For example, a brain actively engaged in mental activities would be generating beta brainwaves, whereas alpha brainwaves would indicate a more relaxed state of mind. John Steele and Robert Tisserand showed that when calming oils are inhaled, they alter our brainwaves to a pattern of calmness[3]. Lavender has been found to produce the effect of alpha brainwaves. To calm stress we would want to relax and it is no coincidence that Lavender is one of the most cited essential oils for stress relief.
Another method of applying aromatherapy is through topical application, directly onto the skin. The oils are absorbed into the body through the skin and there is evidence that the chemical compounds contained within have antibacterial and antioxidant properties and a beneficial effect on various tissues.