Flower power therapy
Essential oils, the potent essences of plants, are said to have a physical and emotional impact on people
JANICE MAWHINNEY
LIFE WRITER
Toronto Star
Friday, January 7, 2005
Joan Kenzie's giant schnauzer, Liefje, has always been terrified of thunderstorms.
When the lightning and thunder began around Kenzie's Richmond Hill home, 11-year-old Liefje would cower and shake, pant fearfully and often hide.
While Kenzie was studying to become an aromatherapist and learned that some essential oils can have calming and tranquillizing effects, she had an idea.
She put five drops of neroli essential oil in a misting spray bottle with some distilled water, and decided to spray the mist over Liefje's head so the dog would inhale it.
"I waited for a thunderstorm, and then shook the bottle and used the mist. Liefje stopped trembling and calmed right down. I couldn't believe how fast it worked," says Kenzie.
Essential oils are booming in popularity, more for people than for pets.
Aromatherapists abound. Schools training people in this field are busy teaching individuals how to help others by massaging with dilutions of essential oils, and by advising people which oils to use for themselves, and how to use them.
Many books offer information and advice about using essential oils to help with problems like insomnia, anxiety, stress, muscle aches, digestive troubles, restlessness, irritablilty and warding off colds and flu.
"This is a good time for people to be looking into the use of essential oils," says aromatherapist Joie Power, a retired neuropsychologist in North Carolina with a company called Dreaming Earth Botanicals.
"There are now so many antibiotic-resistant bacteria out there, and viruses like SARS. And there are powerful antibacterial and antiviral agents in some of the oils."
Curiously, essential oils are not really oils at all. And they aren't even essential to people: they are essential to plants. They are the fragrant liquid essences of plants, taken from flowers, seeds, fruit, roots, leaves, resins, bark or wood. They have to be carefully stored in a dark opaque glass container in a cool shaded place away from sunlight.
Because essential oils are such powerful substances, a very small amount, often a single drop or a few inhalations, has an impact.
The substances can irritate skin and damage eyes, ears and mucous membranes, and they are usually used heavily diluted with a carrier oil such as olive oil or fractionated coconut oil.
Because it takes so much of a plant material to make up an essential oil, high-quality varieties are often expensive. The comparatively rare Blue Lotus Absolute essential oil, reputed to be a wonderful support for meditation, costs $300 for 5 ml.
Small amounts of more common essential oils are available for under $20, but it is sometimes difficult for a layman to assess the quality, or to tell how diluted the substance might be, without buying through a reputable aromatherapist.
"Quality is critically important," says Danielle Sade, president of the Canadian Federation of Aromatherapists, who operates the Healing Fragrances School of Aromatherapy in Thornhill. "The essential oil has the life force of the plant in it.
"The synergy of the components is also very important. Rose oil alone has 300 chemical constituents, not counting traces."
Synthetic fragrances, or inexpensive oils taken from a third or fourth distillation after the best of the plant has gone to the first and second distillation, will not have the effect on the brain and body that high-quality oils have, Power says.
Price does reflect quality in this respect: although an inferior oil can sell for a high price, a good quality oil will not sell for a low price.
Essential oils have an impact both physically and emotionally, aromatherapists say.
They work both through the sense of smell, and by passing through the skin and circulating in the bloodstream and lymphatic fluids, according to Toronto aromatherapy teacher Suzanne Catty, of the Aromatic Lyceum of Acqua Vita.
Catty did her aromatherapy training in France, where a medical model is common and where much of the medical research on essential oils has been done. Many French physicians make use of essential oils in their practices.
A particular scent can create a remarkably powerful memory or sensation, because the scent is received and interpreted in the limbic system, the most primitive part of the brain, Catty says.
She adds that the smell of an essential oil "goes straight to the hypothalamus, which is intuitive, and is involved with feelings of well-being. The part of the brain affected deals with emotion and memory.
"Essential oils that actually cross the blood-brain barrier, though, do it through the bloodstream rather than the sense of smell."
Power, who sometimes works with a neurologist using essential oils to treat migraines, muscle pain and nerve pain, says the substances are especially good for treating emotional difficulties such as anxiety, depression and irritability. She has also seen them work well with insomnia and fibromyalgia, she says. Power knows some holistic physicians, nurses and chiropractors who use essential oils in their practices, and many lay individuals who have learned enough about a few specific oils to be able to use them personally.
"Most essential oils offer a safe and effective way for people to address many of the routine everyday health challenges that we all have to deal with, things like colds, sore muscles and headaches," Power says. "But it is very important for people to take the time to read a good book or two on the subject before using them."
A few essential oils are so potentially damaging that they should not be used at all, she notes, and her personal advice is that the majority need to be diluted heavily before use. Many are especially difficult to use with infants and children. Certain oils are not for use during pregnancy, or for anyone spending time in the sun, or for particular health problems.
Many aromatherapy courses are available in Canada, but the field is an unregulated one in this country so it is a case of buyer beware. Anyone can decide to use the title aromatherapist, and teach or practise with little or no background.
There is also controversy in the field, with some aromatherapists criticizing each other and knocking each other's theories and products, on websites and in articles.
The Canadian Federation of Aromatherapists is an organization aimed at setting and maintaining educational standards in the field, according to Sade.
The federation's website, http://www.cfacanada.com, sets out its code of ethics and standards of practice for members, as well as listing schools and instructors who have met their criteria.
"Many people are turning back to the kinds of herbal remedies that have been used for hundreds of years," says Catty. "I see this growing interest in essential oils as a part of that."
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