May 2010, Holistic Health & Wellbeing
Aroma Therapy to De-stress
scent for its medicinal and healing powers
Darrin Reservitz
Women in the United States have used aromatherapy for over a hundred years. For instance, many used vanilla based perfume and washed with soap that contained rose petals, creating an aromatherapy body lotion. In essence, aromatherapy helped women smell wonderful.
People, in general, find the smell of a bathtub filled with warm water and essential oils combined with aromatic candles irresistible. To some, this what aromatherapy is about – a nice scent that relaxes you. But there’s more to it.
Aromatherapy, today, is as much art as business. Aromatherapy breeds millions of dollars in sales, from aromatherapy body lotion to aromatherapy nebulizers, each year. In addition, people even get degrees in aromatherapy. Yet if you’d like some quick aromatherapy knowledge, just go online and you’ll find many sites dedicated to the practice.
There are two metrics people use when choosing an aromatherapy scent and oil. The first is whether they like the smell. It may, for example, remind them of something they enjoy, like cinnamon apple pie. On the opposite end, the smell might be appealing for no concrete reason.
On the other hand, people choose a scent for its medicinal and healing powers. For example, grapefruit oil can help with stress. Perhaps proof of grapefruit’s power is a recent study that showed that men thought women wearing grapefruit as aromatherapy body lotion were 6 years younger than they actually were. The exact reason for this is unknown, but perhaps the scent made women feel and look more relaxed.
There are a lot of ways to practice aromatherapy. For example, you could inhale beneficial scents from aromatherapy candles or aromatherapy nebulizers. Regardless of the method you choose, to fully realize the nature of aromatherapy, you need patience – experiment and learn. You’ll be glad you did








