Emotional Well-Being and Essential Oils
There is a significant connection between emotional and Physical Health. Emotional Stress, whether acute or chronic, can have profound effects on the body. A range of illnesses, from headaches to digestive issues, lack of sleep, and heart disease, can be the result of emotions such as grief, anxiety, and depression taking a toll on the immune system and other cells, tissues, and organs of the entire body.
Here is a little chemistry to help explain how essential oils can help with emotional health;
Each cell in the body is surrounded by receptors. These receptors face outwards and scan for chemicals that exist outside of the cell. Each receptor will bind with a specific chemical Once bound, the chemical (now called ligand) will then deliver information and cause chemical reactions within the cell. There are two types of ligands: endogenous and exogenous. Endogenous ligands, such as serotonin, are produced in the body and can have an impact on emotions. Exogenous ligands are substances that are introduced into the body and have a similar effect. These, too, are messenger molecules and come from a variety of sources, including medications and ESSENTIAL OILS!
The Limbic System – the Seat of Emotion!
The Limbic system plays a huge part in controlling emotions. A part of the limbic system called the hippocampus helps us form and retain memories, which is very important for learning and development.
The Hypothalamus, which is another part of the limbic system is often referred to as ‘the control and command centre’ of the brain. It converts mental thoughts and emotions into hundreds of different types of ligands, specifically called neuropeptides.
The thoughts and emotions we have in response to a threat whether real or just perceived, initiate the release of a specific ligand which then attaches to specific receptor sites affecting cell function. Whatever the hypothalamus “believes to be true” determines what ligands (chemical messages) it produces and therefore what affects we experience.
The Scent Alarm
The sense of smell is our most primal, and it exerts a powerful influence over our thoughts, emotions, moods, memories, and behaviours. A healthy human nose can distinguish over one trillion different aromas! Aromas serve as exogenous ligands. They are received via olfactory receptors, which are highly concentrated in the limbic system. The amygdala which is found in the centre of the Limbic system, instantly receives the incoming scent information before other higher brain centres. By the time the information reaches our “thinking” and decision–making cortex and we figure out what we smelled, the scent has already triggered emotional and body chemistry responses.
Many researchers agree that physical illnesses are often the result of an emotional inflammatory response to trauma or negative experiences. What can begin as “emotional inflammation” can later become physical issues and disease. Although medical technology is not advanced enough to see them, memories, trauma, and painful emotions are stored in the body and eventually manifest as physical inflammation when the body’s tissues follow suit.
The Power of Essential Oils – Choose Your Mood!
Moods are often perceived as having chosen us, as if they are happening to us. Rather, the chemical impact of our emotions and other exogenous ligands is the real chooser of moods! This is why we reach for certain foods, sugar, caffeine, or a drug of choice, interact with certain people, do certain things because of how it makes us feel and to get a “chemical hit”.
What if we could use this knowledge to choose the mood we want to feel and then actually feel it – without harmful substances or recreational drugs? What if we could think of a desired mood and then choose to use a healthful exogenous ligand that is capable of creating it? With essential oils, we have the ability to direct our own emotional traffic!
As exogenous ligands, essential oils can powerfully influence our emotions, much like mood- altering drugs, like morphine, but with healthful results. Unlike synthetic medications or drugs that are designed to alter behaviour, their complex molecular structure allows them to intelligently bind to the receptor sites of cells in our body and support a desired effect to restore balance and healthy function.
Emotional Healing and rebalancing of moods is accomplished when a new stimulus is introduced to the same chain of command in the brain. Depending what aroma is introduced and the information it conveys determines the brain’s response. Traumatic memories stored in the amygdala can be released by utilizing the sense of smell and essential oils.
The diverse and concentrated chemical constituents in essential oils work to cleanse, ground, lift, balance, and calm the central nervous system and the emotional body. Some essential oils – like frankincense, patchouli and sandalwood – have high concentrations of sesquiterpene molecules that have been clinically demonstrated to cross the blood – brain barrier. These molecules have significant oxygen supporting effects on the brain and, when combined with aromatic, stimulation, can assist the amygdala in releasing the effects of stored memories.
In summary, Essential oils offer a fresh, effective support tool to aid in the emotional healing process and to shift out of old habits and ineffective coping patterns. Aromatherapy allows the individual to harness the olfactory power of plants for healing, or simply to enhance a state of well-being using scents to create a powerful influence over how one thinks, feels, and behaves.
For more information – The Essential Life Book is a great resource