The olfactory process and the aromatherapeutic work

Let’s talking about the aromatherapy definition at the first place:

Aromatherapy is used to describe a particular branch of herbal medicine. It’s coined from two words, “aroma” meaning pleasant scent and “therapy” meaning a treatment.

Essential oils are known as volatile oils, ethereal oils, aetherolea, or simply as the oil of the plant from which they were extracted. An oil is “essential” in the sense that it contains the “essence of” the plant’s fragrance and chemical properties, the characteristic fragrance of the plant from which it is derived. (Ess16)

These specific properties treat a range of imbalances that may affect our body, helping to recover the general welfare of the human being and the environment they live in. (Carneiro, 2016)

Then aromatherapy uses these essential oils with pleasant scents and their proprieties to treat an unbalanced condition or conditions.

So far, so good...

Essential oils are very versatile and their healing proprieties can be released in our body through different ways: penetrating in our skin through a massage treatment, for example, and following in our blood stream, into our body. But here it is the magical moment of them, their volatile proprieties simply are not absorbed by the skin, they can “fly” using the air to find a beautiful way to work more deep in our body, travelling through olfactory system.

At that moment, because the way our olfactory system works, the essential oils proprieties can help our imbalances more effectively.

When they travel through our olfactory system, they found there a very complex place full of features linked with our nervous system and our brain. Leading to a specific part of our brain, called hypothalamus, it controls our inner responses, i.e. our emotions and our memories, as well as the body and hormones. These links allow a quick and beneficial response from us.

Coming to the end of my explanation, I think it's clear how special the aromatherapeutic is. Working with aromatherapy is a path without return, a fantastic possibility to support and help many ones.

“Feeling the aroma is like travel through the sensations stored in your memory. In a brief breath, everything comes, images, sensations, like a movie, where you are the main person.”  - Carneiro, 2016.