Aromatherapy is much more than covering a smell in your house, or being hit in the face with the waft of Lavender so commonly associated with old ladies.
Aromatherapy, or specifically essential oils, is plant medicine and it has been around for 1000’s of years. Ancient civilisations such as Indians, Egyptians, Chinese and even Greeks and Romans used essential oils both medicinally and as perfumes. French chemist René-Maurice Gattefossé first coined the term aromatherapy when he discovered the healing properties of lavender oil by accident in 1910 after burning his arm and plunging it into a bucket of the only liquid available - pure lavender oil. He noted the speed at which the burned tissue healed and the lack of scarring he was left with. This, in turn, lead him to experiment with a variety of essential oils when working with wounded soldiers during World War One.
We can’t argue that pure essential oils can have wonderful benefits in a topical manner, but what about working with them through our senses, and in particular smell, after-all smell is our closest link to memory.
The scent of something can take you back to a moment you could have previously forgotten and leave you feeling as though you are reliving that time. Your sense of smell is also linked to parts of the brain responsible for regulating things like hormones and emotions, which is why aromatherapy can be a wonderfully healing practice.
Oils can relieve feelings of stress, tension, anxiety or even nausea. There can be huge benefits in adding a drop or two of lavender to a bath for soothing anything from a headache to tired muscles or a stressed mind. Alternatively, if you are feeling sluggish and need a pick me up, wild orange oil can be more effective than even the strongest shot of espresso. Steam inhalations of tea tree or eucalyptus oil may be old wives tale when suffering from sinus congestion, but it’s one that even doctors still recommend.
Aromatherapy yoga is a wonderful chance to relax and rejuvenate. No matter what you are feeling when you step onto the mat you will be amazed at what you can experience through essential oils. The possible level of relaxation can be much deeper than you realised, your thought patterns or mood can be lifted, even menstrual or muscular pain can be diminished through a gentle practice and deep inhalation of oils. If you are working with blends it can often be interesting to think about how the smell changes throughout the practice. If ever there is a particular smell that you are repulsed by this is often a sign of what you need the most at that moment! So ask your teacher about the smell and what it might mean or what changing scents throughout the practice could be showing. The journey of self-discovery can be a very different one to your usual practice when you are working with aromatherapy.
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