Healing your body and senses with aromatherapy

Aromatherapy – you just say it out loud and it already gives you an idea of how it feels like. Can you smell the incense? Can you see the candles slowly burning? Can you feel the floral smell? Can you hear the smooth music playing in the background? I don’t know about you but that’s what I feel when I hear the word aromatherapy. I know it seems really fancy but believe it or not aromatherapy is not so complicated once you get the grip of it. Let's get to the basics so you can start using aromatherapy in your everyday life. 

Aromatherapy is the use of essential oils extracted from plants for psychological and physical well-being purposes. Aromatherapy can be used in various ways such as inhalations, massages and even swallowed (these cases are less frequent, and I personally didn’t give it a try yet). Inhaled or applied on the skin, essential oils are becoming an alternative treatment for infections, pain, stress and other health problems. Essential oils have been used for therapeutic purposes for nearly 6,000 years. The ancient Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans used them in cosmetics, perfumes, and drugs. They were also used for spiritual, therapeutic, hygienic, and ritualistic purposes.

Note: You should never take essential oils by mouth without specific instruction from a trained and qualified specialist.

Aromatherapy can be used for more than healing proprieties. It can also be used for:

• Air freshening
• Bathing
• Compresses
• Recipes for creams and lotions
• Floral waters
• Foot and hand baths
• Hair care
• Jacuzzis
• Massage
• Saunas
• Showers
• Sits bath
• Steam inhalations
• Vaporization / diffusing

So what are essential oils?

Essential oils are concentrated extracts taken from the roots, seeds, leaves or blossoms of plants. Each contains its own mix of active ingredients, and this mix determines what the oil is used for. While some oils are used to promote physical healing (to treat swelling, fungal infections, nasal decongestion, allergies and so on) others are used for their mood shifting powers (help you relax, energize your body, induce a well being feeling, make a room smell pleasant and so on). Many of the oils have powerful antibacterial and antiviral qualities which, unlike pharmaceutical drugs, do not leave behind dangerous toxins.

For example, orange blossom oil contains a large amount of an active ingredient that is thought to be energizing, whereas lavender essential oil can be used to help you relax. Essential oils, the pure essence of a plant, have been found to provide both psychological and physical benefits when used correctly and safely.

Keep an eye out for "perfume oils" or "fragrance oils", since they are not the same as essential oils! Fragrance oils and perfume oils contain synthetic chemicals and do not provide the therapeutic benefits of essential oils. Because of the chemical substances they contain they can actually be harmful if ingested. This doesn’t mean you should avoid them; just don’t apply them of the skin or even worse swallow fragrance oils. Use them just for the pleasant smell they have – air freshening. Of course it’s best if you use essential oils at all times but fragrance oils are cheaper.

How to tell if essential oils are genuine

Not all ready-made aromatherapy products labeled with the word aromatherapy are pure and natural. When shopping for essential oils you should always check the ingredient label to be sure that the product does not contain fragrance oils or impure (chemical) components. A general rule-of-thumb is to be wary of products that do not list their ingredients and those that do not boast of having pure essential oils (look for products that contain pure essential oils on their ingredient list and avoid those that have words like fragrance).

Using essential oils

Inhaling essential oils. Essential oils that are inhaled into the lungs provide both psychological and physical benefits. The aroma of the natural essential oil stimulates the brain to trigger a reaction, and when inhaled into the lungs, the natural constituents (naturally occurring chemicals) can supply therapeutic benefit. Diffusing eucalyptus essential oil to help ease congestion is a good example.

Applying essential oils to the skin. Another way of using essential oils is to apply them to the skin from where they will be absorbed into the bloodstream. The constituents of essential oils can aid in health, beauty and hygiene conditions. Since essential oils are powerful and concentrated, they should never be applied to the skin in their undiluted form. To apply essential oils to the skin, they have to be diluted into carrier oil. The carrier oil, also known as base oil or vegetable oil, is used to dilute essential oils before they are applied to the skin in massage and aromatherapy. They are so named because they carry the essential oil onto the skin Common carrier oils include sweet almond oil, apricot kernel oil and grape seed oil.

In addition to therapeutic benefit at the emotional and physical level, essential oils are helpful in other applications. Essential oils can be used in household and laundry cleaners. Some oils act as a natural insect repellent and pesticide. Citronella essential oil is well known for its ability to repel mosquitoes.

Essential Oil Blends

Essential oils can be blended together to create appealing and complex aromas. Essential oils can also be blended for a specific therapeutic application. For example a blend of tea tree, sandalwood and rosemary essential oils, make a great “cocktail” that’ll help you fight hayfever (the mix has to be diluted with a carrier oil and will be used for inhalations or massages). Essential oils that are carefully blended with a specific therapeutic purpose in mind may be referred to as an essential oil synergy. A synergistic essential oil blend is considered to be more powerful in total action than each oil working independently.

Wishing you the best,
Rachel

 

Books I recommend: Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality

"Don’t try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it irritates the pig." Anthony de Mello

Anthony de Mello's Awareness book was one amongst the first books on spirituality that I've read and it was the first I resonated with on subjects such as: love, happiness, spirituality, ego and so on.
Besides the funny yet practical short stories that stuck inside my head I also loved his natural way of writing. I've always been interested in what the message is saying not how sophisticated the words are. Sophisticated words with no meaning leave me cold whereas simple words with great meaning do move me. And that's exactly what Tony's message is all about, therefore I adored it from the very start. 
Another great thing about the book was that it made me think, whereas some books I just read and moved on saying: "Aw yeah, that's so cute." or "So impractical, let's move on" and some just seemed a complete waste of time, having a book to make me stop reading to consider for more than two seconds what is written inside it, is a great experience for me. Sometimes I just passed pages smiling, reading the confirmation of what I've always thought but there were times when I just had to stop to think about what was written in there, to try and see if there was indeed a connection between what the book said and certain aspects of reality. And nine out of ten times, I was amazed to see he was actually right. 

This book changed me - in a good way I like to believe. Truth is, this book helped me get rid of a whole awful lot of headaches and helped me see things through one more perspective. He did open my eyes once and for all regarding the expectations I had of others with the following phrase"A young man came to complain that his girlfriend had let him down, that she had played false. What are you complaining about? Did you expect any better? Expect the worst, you're dealing with selfish people. You're the idiot—you glorified her, didn't you? You thought she was a princess, you thought people were nice. They're not! They're not nice." It made me realize that I always used to judge people as this or that and then I expected from them what I thought of them, which was really rude and wrong of me. With that phrase in mind, I started looking at people differently, stopped expecting them to be the way I thought they should and guess what? they turned out to be way cooler than I would've imagined it. And oh, that was not the only thing this book helped me with. It also confirmed my beliefs on happiness. 

I'm a happy person most of the times and with no apparent reason. I don't know why, all I know is, I've been this way ever since I know me. Oh and trust me, I have problems as well, actually loads of them, but they never stepped in the way of my happiness. Being like this, I rarely place my happiness in things. Of course, I cursed a couple of times when things didn't go my way, I might have even been rude to those that "stood" between me and my happiness, and I even cried a couple of times, but I was never the obsessed kind, the one that completely refuses to be happy unless they get what they want. That's why this passage of the book convinced me I was right "...we don't want to be happy. We want other things. Or let's put it more accurately: We don't want to be unconditionally happy. I'm ready to be happy provided I have this and that and the other thing. But this is really to say to our friend or to our God or to anyone, 'You are my happiness. If I don't get you, I refuse to be happy.' It's so important to understand that. We cannot imagine being happy without those conditions. We've been taught to place our happiness in them." It would make me a big fat liar to say I don't act stupid sometimes and refuse to be happy unless I get things my way, but it's even less than before and I snap out of it faster. 

Not to mention the thing that triggered my interest from the very beginning of the book was this "Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence." Now, I could talk about this book all day long but I don't intend to ruin the reading experience for you by commenting each phrase of the book, so I will finish this post by telling you that this book helped me very much in life and I hope it will help you as well. If, however you don't like it, just let it be, don't waste your time trying to like it or waste energy disliking it. If it doesn't appeal to you, if it doesn't feel natural, just let it go. 

Wishing you the best,
Rachel