Aromatherapy harnesses the power of smell and the unique therapeutic properties of a vast number of essential oils to enhance our well-being—body, mind, and spirit. It’s a complex and powerful synergy that brings an almost mystical level of healing. Humans have been using plants for healing for as long as history has been recorded. Different forms of plant extracts, prepared as tinctures, unguents, macerations, and more, are identified for many medicinal uses. Essential oils, the distilled oily essence of the plant, finds its popular starting point in the 1600s, mainly for perfumery.
Aromatherapy, the therapeutic use of essential oils, got its start in the early 1900s. The aromatherapy we know today began as a medical and scientific study that was popularized in the English-speaking world during the 1970s. Today, essential oils have solid scientific validation for use in healthcare, though they are still largely misunderstood and extremely overstated by sellers in the consumer marketplace.
Recognizing the function of smell, and how it impacts every aspect of our lives, helps you to understand how and why essential oils have such a profound physical effect on us. The sense of smell is inextricably linked to survival and is closely linked to memory and emotions. It helped our ancestors know food from poison and when danger lurked nearby. We still rely heavily on our sense of smell, whether it’s the aroma of pizza that reminds us that we didn’t break for lunch by putting a gurgle in our belly, or the odor of gas that alerts us to a potentially life-threatening problem.
The emotional life is also deeply rooted in the sense of smell. Recognizing the feeling you get when smelling a floral garden, a newborn baby’s skin, or the scent of a favorite fresh-cut fruit is understanding the power of scent on emotions. To demonstrate how emotions and scent are linked, it’s been found that people who have lost the ability to smell, called anosmia, have a higher chance of developing depression and anxiety. Essential oils have a powerful emotional impact when inhaled, along with olfactory stimulated physical reactions. The normally mentioned responses to smelling oils are all emotional, such as soothing, calming, and uplifting. It may seem surprising that essential oils, when inhaled, also create a physical response that burns fat, or curbs appetite, even eases a muscle spasm, and supports digestion.
The more you learn about the olfactory response to essential oils and, well, all odors, the more interesting, accurate, and effective your use of the oils will be. When smelling essential oils, try not to like or dislike them; instead, attempt to feel or experience them in how they make you feel, both in your emotions and in your body.
| Wellness Concern | Helpful Essential Oils |
| Immune support | Clove, lemon, frankincense, peppermint, tea tree |
| Energy | Cinnamon bark, ginger, grapefruit, peppermint, pine, rosemary |
| Metabolism | Fennel, grapefruit |
| Meditation | Cedarwood, frankincense, myrrh, sandalwood |
| Concentration | Black pepper, cardamom, eucalyptus, peppermint, rosemary |
| Household detox | Eucalyptus, lavender, lemon, tea tree |
| Skin health | Cedarwood, fennel, frankincense, geranium, helichrysum, lavender, lemon, myrrh, neroli, rose, sandalwood |
| Hair health | Cedarwood, German chamomile, clary sage, geranium, lavender, rosemary, tea tree, ylang-ylang |
| Nail health | Eucalyptus, frankincense, lavender, myrrh, tea tree |
| Stress | Bergamot, cedarwood, clary sage, eucalyptus, frankincense, geranium, lavender, lemongrass, marjoram, myrrh, neroli |
There are many other ways to benefit from the use of essential oils. When you smell or use oils topically, they may enter the bloodstream to interact and communicate with cells. Though the aromatic enjoyment may be lacking with no detection of the odor, essential oils may still work when sniffing them.
Although essential oils are a modern development, people have been benefiting from aromatic plants for thousands of years. Ancient civilizations burned them, crushed them, ate them, and applied them for a variety of reasons. In ancient Mesopotamia, they were used to call on spirits. In ancient Greece, Egypt, India, and China, they were used as medicine for many ailments. Ancient Rome used aromatics as aphrodisiacs in scented baths and massage.
In 1928, the therapeutic use of essential oils truly began. As the story goes, French perfume chemist René-Maurice Gattefossé coined the term aromatherapy after he instinctively thrust his burned hand into a vat of pure lavender oil and found his pain relieved and his hand quickly healed. Since Gattefossé’s early research, much exploration has led us to experience the many therapeutic effects of essential oils. We learn by looking back at ancient uses for plant extracts and looking forward as new uses are revealed.
As people embrace the benefits of aromatherapy, essential oils have made their way into major brands and mainstream products. You can spot them in the ingredients lists of household cleaners, skincare and beauty products, pest repellents, over-the-counter medications, and more. Though it’s questionable to whether real essential oils or just a fragrance is being used in these products, it demonstrates the awareness of aromatherapy’s dynamic potential. Incorporating essential oils into your everyday life can improve your general well-being. The chart offers some suggestions for getting started.