How Aromatherapy Works

We know more about the intricacies of Earth's environment than we know about the internal environment of our brain. We're getting closer to understanding how the brain transmits thought and sensory impulses as energy, but we're only beginning to explore how the brain's biology affects the mind.

Aromatherapy offers you the chance to use your sense of smell to create a state of wellness. Aromatherapy isn't for everyone, but there is a good bit of new evidence showing that, like it or not, what you smell affects your state of mind.

The Science of Smell

Smell is determined by complex communications between the nose and the brain. Odorants bind to sensory cells in the nose, and those impulses are sent on to the olfactory bulb. From this point, "...in a way still unknown, higher parts of the brain, or the cortex, read the spatial map..." to invoke memories, thoughts, emotions, and very possibly the ability of the mind to heal the body.

Fact is, whereas there is a lot modern science has proven about our sense of smell and the workings of the brain, modern science has yet to prove that aromas, or odorants, have no effect on the healing abilities of the mind and body. This is in part an unfair statement.

For one, science cannot and does not seek to 'dis-prove' anything - science is unwilling to accept as fact what it cannot prove. And two, we know so little about the mind/brain connection in a scientific sense that modern science cannot really be expected to speak of the mind's abilities on a factual level.

We may 'know' something works long before modern science 'proves' it to be so. Therefore, we have to be patient with modern science. We're asking scientists to do a lot of 'proving' in a very short amount of time, and that request isn't entirely fair.

Science works because it builds on itself over time. In the meantime, follow what your body, mind and spirit reveal to you, and use your body to explore your world on your own terms.

Aromas Heal

People around the world use aromatherapy to promote an active state of healing both as a preventative practice and as an antidote to certain diseases or uncomfortable symptoms of disease. For 5,000 years, people have known that aromatherapy is capable of treating and preventing disease and unease of the mind, body and spirit. Now, modern science is backing up the beliefs of our ancestors.

Many people believe that aromas work as placebos. The key word in that belief is "work." If you think aromatherapy works and you benefit from practicing it, then it doesn't matter if science backs up your belief or not. Everything really is in your mind, and what you think determines your results.

Science Investigates Aromatherapy

You know the science of aromatherapy is gaining 'real' scientific and medical interest when the 2004 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine goes to a project determining how our sense of smell works!

This project is fascinating not only because it explains how 'smelling' works, but because the doctors involved know there is much left to discover about how scents are transferred from 'smells' to the higher brain and translated into emotions and thoughts.

Dr. Axel, one of the shared Nobel Prize doctors, stated, "This ability of the higher cortex to read and translate a sensory map into appropriate thought and behavior is the central problem in neurobiology and even psychology."

With that statement, Dr. Axel recognized the problem in understanding how smells affect biological and psychological behaviors. When a doctor of this caliber sees a problem, you can bet that others will jump on the chance to research it.

This project's natural extension is to discover where the scent molecules go when they exit the olfactory receptors and head into the "higher regions of the brain."