Wellness Unwrapped: the power of the essential oil

Your essential guide to aromatherapy.

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Who doesn’t love a good essential oil? I’ve even asked for an essential oil diffuser for Christmas this year, which isn’t surprising considering that I now spend 99 per cent of my time at home. At the moment, I think we all need the welcomed wash of tranquillity that essential oils provide when sprinkled on pillows or mixed in a hot bath. 

With rising demands in organic products, sales of essential oils in the U.S. alone are expected to increase by 7.5 per cent in the next seven years. In fact, most health food shops in the UK now sell both essential oils and diffusers.  Nevertheless, this obsession is no recent phenomenon. Aromatherapy is a long-established method of improving general health and raising one’s spirits. Both the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Greeks used aromatic plant extracts and oils for health and wellbeing purposes, as well as for embalming the dead. Although today we tend not to use essential oils for embalming the dead, we still widely acknowledge their calming benefits.

As I was routinely dripping (or drowning) my pillow in lavender oil last night, I began to wonder: why are we all so obsessed with scents? Our scent is actually “the most direct and evocative of the senses” meaning that it has a powerful influence over our mood and emotions. Humans are able to detect more than 350,000 different scents - impressive, I know. Our sense of smell is also the one sense that can’t be “turned off” and so we have the ability to smell 24 hours a day. More riveting still is the fact that 75 per cent of our daily emotions are influenced by our sense of smell. It’s no wonder that essential oils have such an effect on our minds; our brain associates scents such as bergamot and lavender with the feeling of relaxation.

Although it’s easy to dismiss the presumed influence of essential oils on the mind, recent scientific study has revealed more about the brain-smell connection. The olfactory complex is the part of the brain responsible for the smell. It is located in the temporal lobe and is directly connected to “the amygdala, hippocampus and hypothalamus,” all of which process our memories, emotions and perception, explaining why we tend to associate certain smells with specific memories and feelings. This close relationship between the brain and the olfactory complex plays a significant role in the therapeutic benefits of certain scents, therefore, essential oils may actually have the ability to impact our mood.

Regardless of whether my little bottle of lavender oil has an actual scientific impact on my brain or not, I will be continuing to use it every night. There is something magical and mysterious in the effect (or the placebo effect) of aromatherapy. Not having to consume anything in order to reduce anxiety and increase relaxation is definitely an attractive aspect of essential oil use, and I would highly recommend their addition on your wishlist. 

This article is published as part of the Wellness Unwrapped series, written by Pi Media columnist Priya Patel.