Before any blog post or homework assignment I work on, I put lavender essential oil on my wrist so if I start feeling anxious I just take a deep breath and inhale the lavender which acts as a calming mechanism. Everyone is raving about them, you can buy them anywhere really and each essential oil acts in a different way. I wanted to explore the concept of essential oils more because after frequent use of lavender I have wondered if it actually works or if it is a placebo effect.
Every essential oil has a different benefit for your overall being. Lavender, Orange, Frankincense, and Ylang Ylang are a few of the essential oils I have heard about. Throughout this blog post I will discuss the benefits of different essential oils from different resources. Below are the essential oils I discussed above and what their overall effect are.
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Lavender: relieves stress & improves sleep
Orange: fights cancerous tumors & decreases wrinkles
Frankincense: reduces inflammation
Ylang Ylang: helps improve self confidence in ones self
How do essential oils work?
There are multiple ways to use essential oils including by massaging it into your skin, breathing it in through your nose, swallowing it, and taking medicine with the essential oils inside. These 4 ways were stated in this book. The picture below is how someone can react by inhaling the essential oils.
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It is hard to find specific studies that relate to if essential oils really do work. I did find a couple articles that talked about what essential oils are capable of doing. According to aromatherapists in the journal, the overall conclusion is that they don’t want all the scientific studies done in order to still obtain the symbolic procedure of essential oils.
Question: Do essential oils help or are they just useless?
According to the evolution of aromatherapy there are two types of aromatherapies that are present. The first one is clinical aromatherapy which focuses in on one problem like having a headache. The second one is holistic aromatherapy which involves a combination of different essential oils.
A study I came across talks about the different smells of rosemary and lavender have on the perception and mood in adults who are healthy. The sample of the study was 144 volunteers who were randomly assigned to 3 different groups. During the study they would place a volunteer into a room with the smell of rosemary, lavender or no smell. During that time the volunteers would complete the Cognitive Drug Research (CDR) assessment which is when you are presented with two answers, yes or no, and the assessment records how long it takes you to answer and if you selected the right answer. The results stated that lavender provided a reduction in active memory and damaged times for memory/attention tasks. On the other hand, rosemary allowed volunteers a sufficient amount of performance for memory. The overall findings of this study state these two specific essential oils, lavender and rosemary, can provide unbiased effects on brain function and personal effects on overall mood.
Take home message:
After researching this topic more, I am 100% positive that essential oils help and work. I go to a counselor for my anxiety and she always tells me to put lavender on my wrist and inhale it when I am starting to feel anxious. That is all I have ever known. On the other hand, a lot of people state that essential oils are what you make them. By that I mean that some people don’t believe that essential oils work and it’s all just what you make it.
I really found your article interesting. I always wanted to get into essential oils because of the different ways it could help ones body. I was doing some research myself and came upon 2 interesting topics within essential oils. The name is of the first article is Lavender Reduces the signs of Anxiety in Women. In this article the author was comparing Lavender Oil to drugs like Xanax, Valium, and Prozac, and stating that Lavender is as affective as all these other drugs. Also, these drugs are highly addictive so the oil would be some great to look into.
My second topic I was researching was How do these oils do so many wonders to the human body. I researched many articles and also did not find a single summary of how it worked. Scientists have just done a lot of studies and the results showed how much these oils affect us. I mean oils help with insomnia, anxiety depression, and even inflammatory conditions. But we still don’t know how it works. It kind of makes me wonder if there is some chance involved in some of the studies. Maybe some studies have better signs of lavender (doing better), and that’s why we believe it is so great.
But then again there are so many studies done, or meta-analysis, that it is hard to say that we don’t see any correlation between lavender and lessening anxiety.
What do you guys think? Isn’t it weird how we still don’t know how it lessens anxiety and other issues in our body ?
Sources:
http://universityhealthnews.com/daily/stress-anxiety/lavender-reduces-signs-of-anxiety-in-women/
https://draxe.com/essential-oils-for-anxiety/
I swear by essential oils. I have a blend for cold and flu, one for anxiety, one for sleep, one for headaches…just to name a few. I always thought it could just be a placebo, but this blog made me feel so much better! I’m not against taking medicines, but I prefer finding a natural remedy so knowing essential oils actually are helping makes me feel good about my use of them. Personally with research to back things like this, I think natural remedies should always be looked into for different ailments.
As soon as I read the title of your blog post, I knew I had to read it. Lately my mom has gotten into the hype of essential oils and their benefits. Now I too use them for certain things. I use peppermint for concentration and focus, lavender for helping to calm down or go to sleep, and then she also gave me a holistic mixture. This mixture is supposed to be specifically for focus. It composed of Amyris balsamifera, bark oil, pogostemon cabin oil, frankincense, lime, Ylang Ylang, Hawaiian Sandalwood, and Roman Chamomile. The mixture is called a “focus blend”. Now in my opinion, I think the peppermint oil works great. Each time I put it on, I felt very in tune with the task at hand. This focus blend however does not seem to be doing the trick. At first I thought it did, but as I put it on time after time, I saw the results decreasing. I still checked my phone and got distracted when I had it on. So who knows…maybe it’s all in our head that this stuff works. I also am told that there are certain places to put the oils. I put mine on the back of my neck, behind my ears, and on my temples. Overall, I think you did a good job articulating this phenomenon in your blog post. To make it even better, you could have used more terminology that we learned in class. I think we can all agree that essentials oils are on the rise. Here is an article about the focus blend I have.
https://doterra.com/US/en/p/in-tune-oil
I really like this idea that of the science behind oils! I used to use lavender but to excessive amounts so now I can’t smell it without feeling sick. Oils remind me of candles. They release a soothing smell and create a sense of comfort in the room. It also helps the body physically. Lavender also numbs the skin by effecting the nervous tension. It’s not a strong numbing but you can definitely feel it. Oil is also organic so most likely, it won’t do anything to hurt the body. https://draxe.com/lavender-oil-benefits/ There are some benefits from using lavender. There really isn’t any bad things that could happen from using it.