Aromatherapy
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How can Aromatherapy help you?
Aromatherapy is a holistic healing treatment that uses natural plant extracts to promote health and well-being. Sometimes it’s called Essential Oil Therapy. Aromatherapy uses aromatic essential oils medicinally to improve the health of your body, mind, and spirit. It enhances both physical and emotional health. (HealthLine)
Aromatherapy can promote relaxation and help relieve stress. It has also been used to help treat a wide range of physical and mental conditions, including:
- Infections
- Depression
- Insomnia
- High Blood Pressure
Overview
Aromatherapy is the use of essential oils to promote healing and a feeling of well-being and relaxation. The essential oils are extracted from parts of herbs and plants and contain all the properties of the plants themselves. There are several ways of administering the oils, including adding the oils to your bath, applying them directly to certain areas of your skin, or inhaling them…but the most popular and effective is through massage.
In choosing the oils for an Aromatherapy massage, the Aromatherapist generally creates a synergistic blend of three oils which are then added to a carrier oil. A synergistic blend means that when a particular set of oils are combined together, they enhance each other’s properties, and make a pleasing scent. According to the International Federation of Aromatherapists: “A blend of Lavender and Ylang Ylang can be more effective in normalizing blood pressure than either of the oils used on their own.”
During Aromatherapy massage, your skin is warmed, and your blood drawn to the surface, increasing circulation and encouraging the elimination of toxins from your body. This can assist with speeding up recovery time from any illness or injury. The manipulation of your muscles continues the process, while at the same time releasing tense knotted muscles by dispersing the buildup of any lactic acid.
As the circulation increases, the oils are absorbed through your skin and carried round your body, allowing their healing effects to permeate to all your major body organs.
Often, the benefits are immediately noticeable after a massage, but over time, it may be noticed that underlying or long-term problems have also been eased by massage. (International Federation of Aromatherapists)
When you break up the word “Aromatherapy” you get:
- aroma = a noticeable, oftentimes pleasant smell
- therapy = from the Greek therapeia “healing;” to minister to
Translated literally, Aromatherapy is the use of aromas for their therapeutic properties.
Aromatherapy as a healing modality has evolved over time, and has taken on a wide range of definitions, perspectives, and applications. Today, Aromatherapy is known as the use of aromatic plant materials in the form of essential oils and extracts to support and promote the balance of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. (American College of Healthcare Sciences)
Aromatherapy, or Essential Oils Therapy, use a plant’s aroma-producing oils (essential oils) to treat disease. Essential oils are taken from a plant’s flowers, leaves, stalks, bark, rind, or roots. The oils are mixed with another substance (such as oil, alcohol, or lotion) and then put on the skin, sprayed in the air, or inhaled. You can also massage these oils into the skin or pour them into bath water.
Aromatherapy, as used today, originated in Europe and has been practiced there since the early 1900s. Practitioners of aromatherapy believe that fragrances in the oils stimulate nerves in the nose. Those nerves send impulses to the part of the brain that controls memory and emotion. Depending on the type of oil, the result on the body may be calming or stimulating.
The essential oils are thought to interact with the body’s hormones and enzymes to cause changes in blood pressure, pulse, and other body functions. Another theory suggests that the fragrance of certain oils may stimulate the body to produce pain-fighting substances.
Aromatherapy treatment may work well with
Aromatherapy is commonly used to treat
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