What is Aromatherapy? Its History, Benefits and Uses

What is Aromatherapy? Its History, Benefits and Uses

Aromatherapy is an ancient therapy used by many century-old medicinal therapies in several cultures and traditions. 

It has many health benefits to a person’s overall health and emotional mood. Massaging, inhalation, or local application on the skin will solve all your tiredness, anxiety, and other health issues and keep you relaxed. 

Using an Aroma Diffuser is another popular method to disperse essential oils into the air, enhancing the therapeutic experience by promoting a calming and aromatic environment.

This blog will give you an idea about What Is Aromatherapy, its benefits, its history, how it works on your health, etc.

What is Aromatherapy?

Aromatherapy is a therapeutic practice using essential oils when inhaled or applied on the skin; massaging the oil has entered your body and provides you with healing properties for your health issues. 

It is proven that the inhalation of oil will enter the amygdala part of your brain and emotional centre and calm you from all the disturbances in your mind. 

 

What is the History Of Aromatherapy?

Let’s learn about what is the history of Aromatherapy and how this ancient therapy revolutionised into the 21st century.

  • The history of old essential oil therapies was started by the ancient Egyptians, Indians, Chinese, and Romanian people. It is believed that Hippocrates, the famous king of Greece, was the influencer in spreading knowledge about the benefits of aromatic herbs on health.
  • Mostly, the essential oils were used for fragrance purposes by women of Rome, Egypt, and Eastern countries. But with the civilizations, Indians took the benefits of plant-based essential oils and mixed them with the power of Ayurveda and promoted spiritual wellness and physical therapeutic uses. 
  • In China, essential oils were used in aromatic medicines for spiritual health benefits. Ginger, cinnamon, and camphor are mostly still used for therapeutic wellness. In the mediaeval era, the influences of Islamic culture took the aroma of oil into the rich heritage culture of fusion aromatic fragrances with distillation techniques.
  • The Contribution of European Monasteries took the practices of aromatic oils into the conservation techniques for future transmission with civilization. 

With modernization, the 21st century combines traditional fragrance oil with modern clinical studies to use the benefits of essential oils in Aromatherapy for health benefits.

Benefits Of Aromatherapy:

The benefits of aromatherapy are that it not only makes you stress-free, but also these plant-based aromatic oils are used to treat several health issues, from psychological to physical wellness. Let’s discuss some of the benefits of aromatherapy.

  • Improve Your Sleep- Studies have found that essential oils like lavender oil help improve the sleep of patients who are experiencing insomnia or any type of stress disease.
  • Relief From Pain- Therapists use these essential oils for pain management techniques for patients who have osteoarthritis, kidney stones, dialysis, etc.
  • Improve Quality of life- For people who are suffering from dementia-like diseases, aroma therapy works best to improve their quality of life by providing healing properties to their feelings as they are suffering from forgetting their everyday habits. So, the essential oil helps them to declutter their brain by relaxing their disturbed minds.
  • The well-being of life- Aroma therapy also increases your overall well-being if you are suffering from constant headaches, respiratory diseases, menstrual, and muscle or circulatory issues.

 

How does Aromatherapy Work?

  • When you smell the aroma of oil, it passes through your nasal bone to your brain and activates your nervous system by releasing small molecules of oil in the air. That means the molecules pass through your olfactory nerve through the nose and activate your brain cells. 
  • Particularly, the oils activate your brain’s amygdala, which takes control of your emotions and saves your memory. Then, the brain releases three types of happy hormones: Serotonin, Dopamine, and Endorphins.
  • These hormones will help you regulate your emotional mood, tiredness of the body, sleep, and digestive systems. With the release of these hormones, your anxiety, stress and emotional imbalance will vanish, and you will feel stress-free.

How To Use Aroma Therapy?

As the essential oils are so strong, you should know how to use aromatherapy on your body to get maximum health benefits. Usually, the oils are taken in small amounts, typically a few drops, to treat your health issues. Let’s discuss the proper usage of essential oil therapy.

Diffuse the Oils

This is probably the best way to use oil for the treatment. When you diffuse the essential oil, it will immediately affect your mood. When you inhale the oil in your nose, the aroma will directly impact your nervous system and stimulate it to reduce your stress and anxiety.

For essential oil diffusion, put two to three drops of oil in water and pour it on a diffuser. The aroma diffuser will spread the oil molecules in your entire room. When you smell them, you will feel relaxed.

You can try other diffusion methods, like taking a small amount of oil on a cotton ball or in hot water and smelling it. These techniques also work well.

Roll on your Skin

You can directly roll the oil on your skin. When the oils are absorbed into your skin, you can smell them for healing. However, the direct rolling method can be risky. The best way to mix it with some carrier oil is to apply it to your body, and it will give you several health benefits.

Conclusion

If you are suffering from any type of anxiety disorder or stress and want aromatherapy from a reliable therapeutic centre, then you can visit Sugandhim, which provides you with a certified herbalist who will heal your anxiety and other health issues with essential oil therapy or aromatherapy and works for your overall well-being!