This is a transcript from an interview with Elizabeth Mulvey and Sharon White on aromatherapy and stress.
Sharon says;
Hi I’m Sharon White from Global Healing Exchange and Holistic Living Magazine. Today we have one of our beautiful experts with us Elizabeth Mulvey. Hi Elizabeth.
Elizabeth says;
Hello everyone how are you?
Sharon says;
I’m sure they are going to be wonderful after speaking to you. We’re going to be talking about aromatherapy oils and stress, but before we do that I’d like to talk a little bit about you, your background and what you do.
I know that you’re an aromatherapist and you work with the oils and you’ve been working in the industry for a very long time. You studied naturopathy and you have a naturopathic background. You’re currently doing personal mentoring.
I have read your book so you are also an author. Your book is called Finding Me Peacemaker. It’s a beautiful, easy, simple book to read. I read it in a day.
You know some books are very tricky, this was just very simple, very beautiful to read, very easy, so I loved it. So I really recommend your book to our viewers. I would love to ask you about stress and aromatherapy.
What oils would you recommend if somebody came to see you? What are aromatherapy oils and how can they help people?
Elizabeth says;
Aromatherapy itself is aroma. It is a sense of smell. It has such a quick action on our brain and therefore on our emotions. Essential oils can be really helpful in the acute state of stress, when people suddenly might be feeling anxious.
There are certain oils that would be really good for this and are fast acting. A lot of the citrus oils are very good to uplift your body and mood. Then you’ve got the deeper oils like cedar wood that are more sedating.
It’s for people that are continuously having stress or they get up and they’re already stressed before the days even begun.
Sharon says;
Okay beautiful. So it works through the olfactory system doesn’t it? Some people might not even know that we have an olfactory system so could you explain a little bit about that and how the oils actually work through that system, as well as how they work on the skin too.
Elizabeth says;
Sure. Aroma the sense of smell, is the first smell that we develop as a baby is born, it knows it’s mother’s smell. So it’s one of those primal senses that we are born with.
So when you smell an oil, it goes through your air passages up through the nose, and into the brain. So it can travel very quickly in that way into our brain, into our limbic system.
The limbic system has a lot to do with our emotions. Also in our fight or flight reflexes in which people can get into when they’re in chronic stress and in acute stress too.
So an aroma, within seconds, can go in and help alleviate some of those symptoms that someone may be feeling when they are stressed or having an anxiety attack.
Liz is an expert for Holistic Living Magazine.
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Oils We Can Use For Stress
Something like lavender is lovely and it’s very easy to find lavender. You can find it very quickly in a chemist or health food stores.
Lemon is also a good oil. Lemon is very clearing, it’s really clean and crisp. If you have a funky head smelling something like lemon (a citrus oil) is very uplifting to the senses. It also has that sense of calmness that comes with it.
So lemon and lavender would be two really great oils that people can have at home in their medicine cabinet, and they’re also multi useful so you can use them for so many other things apart from stress.
Sharon says;
I use lavender to help me sleep. I’ve got a spray that I put on my pillow and I absolutely love it. It’s really good and so calming isn’t it?
Elizabeth says;
Yes it is. I have written down a list of other oils that you could consider for stress.
Basil – which people might not think about, but basil is really good because it’s really helpful with the adrenals and the burnout that people can get when they’re in stress for a long time.
So applying basil topically, diluted with some coconut oil, (or something like that) as a topical massage can work as a tonic action on the adrenals. That’s really good for the whole nervous system.
Bergamot is also a really nice oil. A lot of the oils have a dual action so they have balancing actions. Sometimes, so you can get sedated and uplifted at the same time. So bergamot is a really good oil to use.
It can help you with mood swings, it helps with decreasing the cortisol stress state that people can get into, especially if you combine it with something like ylang-ylang. This is a really nice combination.
Cedarwood is a great oil.
Clary sage is really good oil that’s also going to be helpful if you have some sort of hormonal imbalances going on as well.
Frankincense everyone knows about.
Roman Chamomile is a lovely oil.
Lemongrass comes from the citrus family.
Marjoram
Melissa
Neroli
Orange
Chilli
So they’re the oils that I would look at blending. It depends on the individual and where they’re sitting and what the holistic picture for that person is. Do they have a headache? Do they experience digestive issues?
This knowledge is what will help me choose the oils that I will use and blend for them and their specific stress response, and how their unique way of dealing with stress in their life shows up. As you can see there’s quite a few oils to choose from.
For Use Of These Oils – Check out Part 2
Liz is an expert for Holistic Living Magazine.
Get ALL issues FOREVER at NO COST!
You can see more from Elizabeth here.
