¿What is Aromotherapy?
The sense of smell and its health connection
The sense of smell and its health
connection:
The senses, besides providing information about the world around us, are an important source of pleasure. Human beings have evolved near the sound of the sea and the wind, seeing the stars, the sun and the moon, feeling someone's touch on our skin, tasting the foods and smelling the flowers.
It's been discovered that the sense of smell is directly connected with the limbic system, the part of the brain that controls emotions and also has important functions related to memory. We smell when some aromatic molecules get into the nose and stimulate the nervous terminals that detect smells.
This terminals convert the influx of the aromatic molecules into nervous impulses and send it to the limbic system where, depending on what aroma we are dealing with, provoke different emotive reactions and stimulate recalls. Recent studies confirm that the smells we smell have a significative impact on our psychic state. On the other hand, the importance of the sense of smell can be seen on the observations made by Dr. Alan Hirsch, he found that patients who had lost the sense of smell presented an increase in problems as depression and anxiousness. It's been discovered that some aromas can calm the claustrophobic sensation that some feel when going on elevators or on medical treating when they have to be inside a machine for a long while. Also, some aromas can improve the productivity in work.
Not only is aromotherapy the use of aromas or smells, but it is based in the use of what is known as essential oils. This are aromatic essences strongly concentrated extracted from flowers, leaves, roots or branches of lots of plants. These oils contain a great variety of substances that have useful properties to fight bacterium, viruses and mushrooms. They also contain hormones and lots of nutrients.
The therapeutical properties of essential oils is known from the beginnings of time. In the medical system of India, known as "Ayuvedra", essential oils have been used from unknown times. Egyptians used the aromatic oils as medicine and for massages and baths. Greek and Romans also used aromatic oils to heal injuries, lubricate the skin, fight insects, purify the air and embalm bodies.
Ending the XIX century, the develop of synthetic medicines begins, with it, the use of essential oils was declined. However, an accident in a chemical laboratory in the early 20´s took the use of this substances back to life, and launched a new era of investigations and applies for the modern aromotherapy.
Ending the world war II, the French doctor Jean Valnet kept working with aromotherapy, extending its usage to emotional problems treating. In 1964 Valnet wrote a book called "Aromotherapy". This book turned into the main text of the new discipline.
The real pure essential oils are those obtained by vapor destilation. This method consist of a vapor going through the plant. This vapor picks up different components of the plant. The vapor is then collected and mixed with alcohol and soya, almendra or other kind of oil used as base. Another very used method is the cold pressed.
En términos estrictos los aceites esenciales puros son aquellos que se obtienen por medio de la destilación al vapor. Este método consiste en pasar un vapor a través de la planta. Este vapor, a su paso, recoge diversos componentes de la planta. El vapor es luego recolectado y mezclado con alcohol, aceite de soya, almendra u de otro tipo que le sirve de base. Otro método muy usado es el de prensado en frío.