Aromatherapy Research Paper

710 Words2 Pages

Using Aromatherapy as a Complimentary Alternative Medicine to Increase Mental Health and Physical Well-being
The use of aromatherapy and essential oils to increase ones mental health and physical well-being has been a common practice for centuries. Dating back to the middle ages, The National Cancer Institutes’s PDQ summary about Aromatherapy and Essential Oils describes their use in the following way: "aromatherapy is the use of essential oils from plants to support and balance the mind, body, and spirit. It is used by patients with cancer mainly as a form of supportive care that may improve quality of life and reduce stress and anxiety." While there is limited scientific research on the therapeutic uses of aromatherapy, it will be my goal …show more content…

In the first section, I will show how the use of aromatherapy and essential oils can help to increase one's quality of life and mental well-being by relating information taken from current clinical studies regarding the use of aromatherapy and essential oils on patients who suffer from a variety of mental illnesses - including one study in which researchers found that the use of Melissa essential oil may reduce the amount of agitation experienced by patients who suffer from severe dementia. In the second section, I will discuss how the use of aromatherapy has been shown to alleviate pain associated with chronic health conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and headaches. I will finish my paper with a third section that will discuss how essential oils used for aromatherapy have also been found to have limited to no side effects and have been proven safe for use and conclude with a fourth section that discusses the importance of expanding the current research regarding the beneficial uses of aromatherapy and essential oils for patients with mental and physical illness alike. I have also included a Works Cited that contains the studies in which I have chosen to examine. Before I can begin with the explanation of the benefits of using aromatherapy and essential oils, I will first need to provide information that will explain what aromatherapy is, as well as how essential oils are made. It is to this …show more content…

These oils, referred to as essential oils, are the basic materials used in aromatherapy and are taken from parts of the plant such as the root, stalk, flowers, leaves, bark, or rind. "Each type of essential oil has a different chemical composition that affects how it smells, how it is absorbed, and how it is used by the body" (NIH). Once the plants oils are extracted, they may either be distilled with steam and/or water or mechanically pressed. Oils that are made from chemical processes are not considered to be pure essential oils and therefore their benefits will not be the same as using a pure essential oil. Pure essential oils are extremely concentrated. For instance, according to AuraCacia, a main distributor of pure essential oils, "It takes 150 pounds of lavender flowers to produce just one pound of lavender essential

More about Aromatherapy Research Paper

Open Document