Aromatherap…Essential Oils Therapy
Humanity, the Spirit of the Earth, the synthesis of individuals and peoples, the paradoxical conciliation of the element and all of the unit and the Multitude: for all these things considered utopian and yet, so biologically necessary to acquire body come into this world, would it not be sufficient to imagine that our power to love is to embrace the whole of mankind and the Earth? "
– Teilhard de Chardin
Aromatherapy is an ancient art that is incorporated in this era of fast life and quickly life changes.
This discipline provides simple, pure flavors for a natural treatment and an important complement to help restore our balance and harmony.
Essential oils have many properties that lead stimuli in humans and become an invaluable component of welfare.
The use of essences is ancient and has references in all cultures and religions.
In ancient Egypt for 40 centuries AC, essential oils were prepared used in medicine, cosmetics, baths, temples, and harmonizing.
The Egyptians began the art of extracting the essence of the heating plant in containers of clay, Greek alchemists who kept the fragrance and healing properties invented distillation to obtain essential oils.
The use of essential oils was carried out for millennia in China, India and Persia. The Veda also used oils for their medicine.
The plants produce medicinal-aromatic essences, they are removed by distillation and pressure, there are other methods for some species.
Aromatherapy is undoubtedly another extraordinary possibility of natural holistic treatment that employs the use of the properties of plants, through which essential oils are obtained by processing them. The word "aroma" means sweet smell, and "therapy" treatment designed to cure.
The natural properties of plants have a critical range for the treatment of neuro-vegetative dystonia, Psychophysical imbalances, acting directly on emotional and physiological level of human beings. The ease of absorption into the skin allows the active ingredients to penetrate directly into the body, balancing and harmonizing the whole system through the energy meridians, blood and lymphatic circulation, cells, tissues, organs, apparatuses and systems.
Aromatherapy now gives us a contemporary version of the ancient art of healing, since it is based on the premise that the best way to prevent disease is to strengthen self-defense mechanisms of the body.
The key of essential oils used in aromatherapy is the alchemical ability of plants to unify themselves in the basic properties of life. Matter and Spirit, Heaven and Earth come together in processes like photosynthesis, which is fused light and matter, resulting in a final product that concentrates all the virtues of the plant, and expresses its power in the essential oil aroma.
When smelling the essential oil, our olfactory system has an immediate feeling of harmony, vitality, relaxation and a feeling of peace in ourselves and the universe, as the message of the plant that has been used. Through the smell, the attuned soul come into contact with the plants and their virtues, while enabling them to fulfill their service in the wheel of evolution.
It is no coincidence that each of us has our favorite perfume while others are indifferent or even dislike us, because each essential oil has a strong character. Male-female, cold-hot, sweet-bitter, acid-alkaline, are complementary opposites of each synthesized in a unique combination.
When we spread our aromatic preference intuitively completing or strengthening of the weakened our being. In aromatherapy, essential oils provide us with their attributes and qualities in both the physical and the mental and spiritual. We complete and balanced spirit, producing a state of wellness, harmony and contentment.
Action of essential oils
A way of essential oils through the nose is aligning the mental, emotional and spiritual states, the sense of smell is related to our emotions by be directly connected to the brain where the center of emotions, also the space of many vital activities of body, dreams, sensuality, thirst, memory, etc.
When you smell something, this evokes the emotional memory, emotions can be relational. The limbic system is where the center of emotions is related to the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that is connected to the sexual glands.
The associative memory of smells and situations generate the use of oils for therapeutic use, since that consciousness registers the aroma with the atmosphere.
Aromatherapy acts on the subtle planes and can therefore be used as vibrational therapy also helps meditation, visualization, concentration, and all those assertions techniques to find equilibrium and inner harmony.
Meditation
The oils were used since ancient times for meditation and religious rituals, for many cultures the aromas were used as offerings to the gods. We can achieve with oils:
- Purifying and preparing a place for meditation
- Helping calm the mind of everyday thoughts.
- Deepening and calming breathing.
- Achieving mental clarity
- Chakra Balancing
- Bringing the earth energy
- Harmonizing the energy of a group
Using Essential Oils
Method of choice for the home, meditation rooms, clinics, etc.. is the oven, the heat of a candle is heated a little ceramic bowl in places where water and 5 to 10 drops of essential oils.
You can use ceramic hanging on the neck or carrying a handkerchief with the essential oil chosen, there are some ceramic rings that are placed in the candles and there are drops of oil so aroma evaporates and brings environmental location.
In case of contact with the oil penetrating the skin through the pores of the same by entering the internal system, there must be diluted neutral oil such as wheat germ, sesame seeds, almonds or in neutral creams and massage.
When flavors are diluted in oil can be used as perfumes. You can also use the oil immersion baths placing 10 to 15 drops in water. When combinations serve therapeutic purposes it is important to consider:
- Mixing essential oils with opposite effects
- Do not use more than 3 or 4 oils
- The mixture should be nice for the person
Delivering a bit of history
The use of flavorings and vegetable oils dates back to at least 3500 years before Christ and were used on the body as a curative healing, protectors of evil spirits, and the various rituals that were carried out. For example, it was very common before the warriors fighting, protecting their bodies with small strokes, using branches of basil, to ward off evil spirits they believed that they placed their opponents.
Recently in Iraq, in 1975, a skeleton was discovered about sixty thousand years old who had his hand deposits of pollen from yarrow, Canadian and hyacinth bunch grass, plants still grown and used to heal the peasants of that country. The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Chinese have had a major impact on the development of aroma in the world, and researchers have been highlighted as a major Theophrastus, one of the pioneers in the therapeutic use of oils. In almost all ancient religions, from the beginning of time humans have been attracted by the fascinating aroma of nature, wise as ever, has indicated through the charitable contributions of smell for curing diseases of the body and soul.
Primitive man had to develop their sensory-intuitive powers to achieve survival. It appears as herbs, fruits and edible roots, which they soon discovered medicinal and magical powers. They noted that some aromas caused euphoria or excitement, and could induce sleep or meditation.
We consider the Egyptians as the discoverers of aromatherapy, because according to Jean Valnet used a primitive form of distillation to extract oil essential for plants, heating in clay pots whose mouth was covered with linen filters; rising, resulting in the steam and the essential oils they were impregnated in the filter, which was crushed to obtain the essential oil that was used in and medicine for any kind of religious rite. Archaeological records documenting distillation pots have found going back 3500 years a. C.
The Greeks took the Egyptian experience, and great alchemists, purifying distillation system by preserving the purity and fragrance oils, because for them the herbs were a way of life that came to their bathrooms, food, rites and magic, or in the form of ointments to preserve the mental and physical health. Hippocrates already alleged that the bath and massage with essential oils, ensures longevity.
Arabs in the eleventh century perfected the art of distillation to isolate the active ingredients of the oils from plants, a method which is attributed to famous Avicenna (Arabic physician, astronomer, mathematician and philosopher), who introduced the cooling system in the process of distillation. This made the extraction of essential oils have less waste and greater purity.
Aromatherapy makes its inception in the modern world where, in the twentieth century, René Maurice Gatefosse (French chemist), called "the father of modern aromatherapy ", incorporates the natural medicine. It all happened when, working in his laboratory, had large burns in one hand and plunged into a container of lavender essential oil and checking the curative effects, which not only relieve pain but prevented the infection and did not leave any trace of incident.
In modern aromatherapy, Milan (Italy), Dr. Paolo Rovesti alleviate depression and anxiety states of their patients by smelling cotton chips embedded in the essential oil, stimulating the limbic system and freeing up situations traumatic.
A physician and surgeon Jean Valnet made the greatest contribution to aromatherapy to be valued and recognized as a medicine able to cure. Essential oils used for wounds and burns of the soldiers in World War II, thereby achieving both relieve physical and mental problems in a few days, thus corroborating the rapidly acting oils in the body.
Margueritte Maury (Austrian born), who failed to supply oils orally, and on ways to incorporate them into the body, developed a technique to apply massage oil into the nerve centers of spine and in the face. She introduced the ratio of the specific formula of oil in each customer who visited her office to beautify and rejuvenate, and found that many of them disappeared chronic pain, headache, rheumatic pain and sleep states, and that the effects were long.
In 1962 and 1967, Maury was awarded internationally for her research on essential oils and cosmetics for health.
Cautions
The oils used for aromatherapy do not produce any unpleasant effects or contraindications, however we must take into account:
- Do not eat
- Do not exceed the amount of drops or time of use.
- Do not use in pregnancy: basil, camphor, marjoram, myrrh, clove, hyssop, juniper, cedar, sage, rosemary.
- Do not get in direct contact with skin: cinnamon, clove, bergamot, cinnamon, juniper, ginger, lemon, peppermint, pine, thyme.
- Do not use in case of epilepsy: rosemary, sage.
- Do not leave any essence the reach of children.
- Do not sunbathe after use on the skin: bergamot, grapefruit, orange, lemon, angelica.