There are three main ways that the essential oils used in aromatherapy enter your body:

* through your skin
* through olfaction – your sense of smell
* through your lungs

The Skin
Using essential oils in massage is the most common use of aromatherapy. The massage oil is made from a carrier oil with a few drops of essential oils added, this allows the essential oils to be absorbed into the skin. Applying heat will increase the rate at which the oils are taken in. The massage itself will produce a bit of heat, and covering the area with towels or blankets or a heated wheat bag is also common.

Once the essential oils are absorbed into the skin they work their way into the underlying tissue thereby affecting the nerves, organs and blood stream.

Here’s a quick and easy experiment to prove that essential oils really can enter your body through your skin. Cut a clove of garlic in half and rub the liquid (garlic essential oil) from the cut end on the bottom of your foot. See how long it takes before you can taste garlic on your breath (usually about 15-20 minutes).

The Sense of Smell (Olfaction)
The olfactory receptors, which are called chemoreceptors, are nerve endings embedded deep within your nasal passages. Fragrance chemicals in the air are inhaled and dissolve once they hit the fluid lining in your nasal passages. This allows the chemoreceptors to pick them up and send the ‘chemical message’ to the brain.

These chemical messages are sent first to the frontal lobe of the brain where the smell is analyzed, and secondly to the limbic system and autonomous nervous system. This is where emotional and physical responses to the fragrance are created. For instance, you might feel calm or sleepy, or you might sneeze. You might also be reminded of something in your past, and this experience will have an emotional response attached to it.

Some essential oils actively mimic neurotransmitters which have a powerful ability to alter mood. These can be helpful for conditions such as stress and depression.

The Lungs
Inhaling essential oils is the fastest way to get them into your bloodstream where they can start working. This is because the lungs are very efficient at absorbing oxygen, and vaporized essential oils that you breathe in. Since your respiratory system is designed to get oxygen into your bloodstream, when you inhale the fragrance of essential oils, they too are carried quickly into your bloodstream.

Some Benefits of Essential Oils
In France, where modern day aromatherapy originated, it’s a part of mainstream medicine in the control of infections because of the strong antibacterial, antiseptic, antiviral and antifungal properties of many essential oils.

All essential oils are antiseptic to some degree. However, a few of the more powerful antiseptics are lavender, thyme, clove, cinnamon, tea tree, manuka and oregano.

Essential oils are extremely beneficial in skin care. The ancient Egyptians, who invented cosmetology, used essential oils in skin care around 5000 years ago.

A study in Japan showed that lemon, vaporized in a room, reduced typing errors by 54%. Lemon is well known for it’s antiseptic and antimicrobial properties which would also make it beneficial throughout office buildings.

These are just a few of the many uses of essential oils in aromatherapy. But there is also an important aspect of aromatherapy that doesn’t get mentioned often – the pleasure aspect. Using essential oils is fun, even if you aren’t a qualified aromatherapist. Have some fun discovering which fragrances you enjoy, they are bound to have a beneficial effect even if you just use a few drops in your bath water.

Until the coming-of-age of antibiotics in the medical field, aromatherapy was still a viable therapy for certain types of illness. After modern medicine made its debut, the belief in the “old ways” began to decline. The decline continued until about twenty years ago, when society realized that all the magic bullets touted by the medical field were not working. By this time even the doctors and nurses were looking toward alternative medicine to complement current therapies. Thus, the name now commonly used in the medical profession is “Complementary Alternative Therapies/Modalities(CAM)”. Aromatherapy is considered one accepted form of CAM.

The nursing organization began using aromatherapy about fifteen years ago when they recognized the benefits for their acute-care and long-term care patients. Other medical fields have begun using aromatherapy in their treatment. For instance, in psychology, the essential oils can be used to enhance traditional painkillers which can be a boon to the approximately 80 million people who are afflicted with chronic pain. In the area of heart disease, the oils can be used to relieve “anxiety” in the patients allowing the patient to begin the healing process. Other areas are more practical such as cleaning the work area (home and hospitals) with essential oils as they do in Europe instead of chemical products. This has a dual purpose: the antibacterial properties of the oils clean and disinfect plus the scent affects the individual(s) in a positive manner.

Aromatherapy has grown over the years and the main concern today is using this modality safely. There is more to this therapy than mixing a few oils and inhaling or massaging it into the skin. Knowing the compounds and what effect they produce, knowing the quality of the oils, knowing the proper mixtures, where to buy quality products and the risks associated with its use are fast becoming a concern.

Aromatherapy is becoming a very big business and along with its growth comes a real need to begin the process of setting-up legitimate certifications and accreditation standards. The potential for fraud is evident. The oils do not come cheaply. The process of extracting the oils from the plants or seeds is very expensive. Whether or not the essential oil performs properly is dependent upon its quality and the reputation of the manufacturer. Mixing the wrong oils or setting-up protocols for clients improperly can have dangerous consequences.

Generally speaking, the use of aromatherapy is safe; however as more people become involved in this area there will need to be some type of training and testing available to force people to meet certain industry standards. A good first step would be to seek out the nurses involved in holistic medicine, working out of the major cancer centers, universities and hospitals who have been schooled and trained in the use of aromatherapy and find out where and how they received their certification.

The field of aromatherapy encompasses not only individuals seeking health through alternative medicine, but also the medical field seeking to use aromatherapy to enhance treatment and patient care. Certification standards would guarantee that individuals who prefer the use of aromatherapy will be offered the safest and best quality products and patients under a doctors care will not be denied the benefits of aromatherapy in their treatment.