What Happens When You Inhale Essential Oils?
The effects of essential oil inhalation start before you’re aware they’ve begun.
The response to scent reaches the brain before conscious processing happens. This is why the reactions happen before you become aware of your response. Sometimes, you don’t even recognize the response. You just feel and react to it.
Scent-Memory-Emotion
Scent is directly connected to memory and emotion. Every memory, every emotion has a scent attachment. This is the Scent-Memory-Emotion Bond. Your feelings, reactions, and the events that surround your first exposure to a scent is locked into scent-memory. A similar, if not exact, feeling will occur every time the scent is repeated.
Smell is an evolutionary, biological protection mechanism. We feel, we respond—before the thinking can interfere. The immediate reaction to a repeated scent is, at its core, telling you whether the environment, the substance, or conditions, are safe or dangerous. And it prepares your body to act accordingly. This function can be used as a therapeutic tool when you have systems for this in place.
The Musical Message of Essential Oil Molecules
When you inhale essential oils, molecules are transported through the nasal passage, binding with olfactory receptors. This then becomes a message, communicating throughout the body. Pay attention to this. Understand this. It's where you learn to write these messages through your essential oil formulations.
The message is carried through the central and autonomic nervous systems. Hormones respond. This becomes a biological and physiological symphony. When you create essential oil blends you assist in this musical composition.
I Thought Smelling Oils Was Just Emotional
Olfactory neurons are wired to the limbic system. That means every scent has access to the parts of the brain responsible for regulating emotion, fear, pleasure, and fight or flight, an autonomic nervous system response. One breath can influence blood pressure, heart rate, and hormone balance. Actually, there's great therapeutic potential when essential oils are combined with breathing practices having similar physiological response.
Inhalation of essential oils does affect emotions. There's just more to it than emotional response. Therapeutic scent will affect skin function, inflammatory response, respiration and digestive balance. There's also a behavioral response. This fact I use often to help regulate or stop bad habits.
The Olfactory of The Holistic Essential Oil Triad™
I developed the Holistic Essential Oil Triad to help therapists get more accurate treatment results from essential oils. Thinking that inhaling oils is emotional is limiting at best. The olfactory response also triggers physical response in the body, related to the pharmacology of the triad.
Skin also responds to inhalation of essential oils. Smelling the oils will help relieve nervous tension in the skin, reducing sensitivity. Acneic skin conditions can be reduced due to anti-inflammatory reactions through inhalation. There are studies showing how essential oils, especially lavender, have been used to reduce postoperative pain in patients after surgeries. Other studies show a reduction in labor and chronic pain through inhalation.
Your Therapeutic Scent Focus
The art and skill of using essential oils through inhalation can be an effective therapeutic tool. It can also take an immense amount of study to become proficient. As a starting focus, use experience. You’ll have your recipes and formulas from literature, your training and other sources. With this, take your awareness of the results beyond what is expected. Pay attention to reactions and response outside of your intended use. Keep in mind, there are memory-scent bonded reactions specific to each person using the oils. These can be positive or negative. And they will be part of the healing, or not.
The response to scent reaches the brain before conscious processing happens. This is why the reactions happen before you become aware of your response. Sometimes, you don’t even recognize the response. Always pay attention to feeling and how you are reacting.
A Next Step
Understanding the science of smell is essential to getting the most effective therapeutic results from essential oils. No matter your focus or practice, olfaction can be your most dynamic ally.
Learn how you can get the most benefit with a holistic focus using essential oil inhalation.
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