(NaturalNews) Aromatherapy is one of the fastest growing fields in alternative medicine. It has been used for centuries around the world but is just recently becoming more popular and accepted in our own country. In Japan essential oils are being pumped into buildings to calm customers and employees. In dental offices orange essential oil is mixed in with laughing gas to create a sense of calm.

Aromatherapy can be used just about anywhere - in your home, your office, in your car - anywhere you need a pick me up. It's simple to use. All you have to do is smell the aroma of essential oils. How does it work? Our brains can register aromas twice as quickly as it can pain. Smell is the only sense that can bypass everything and go straight to our nervous system. That means that essential oil molecules have direct access to the part of our brains that controls emotions and memory. That is what makes aromatherapy so powerful and effective.

Aromatherapy means "treatment using scents". Stress can lower your defenses and make you more susceptible to illness. Next time you feel stressed try aromatherapy. Purchase a bottle of lavender, geranium, basil, or rose essential oils from a local health food store. You can put a few drops (7 drops is what is recommended) in your bath water to help you unwind. It's best to add the drops after you're done running the water. For children and the elderly just 4 drops of essential oil are recommended. You can also make a hot compress by soaking a hand towel or wash cloth in warm water that has a few drops of your preferred essential oil. Apply the compress to the back of the neck. If you're in public you can put a few drops on a cotton ball and inhale deeply. This is an easy way to use aromatherapy in the work place.

If your stress is also bringing on depression and you need a pick me up try using sweet orange, lemon, peppermint or cinnamon essential oils. You can make a cold compress using these essential oils by soaking a cloth in ice cold water that has essential oils already added. Wring out the cloth and apply it to your neck. You can also add these oils to a vaporizer to help release the oils into the air. You can usually purchase a vaporizer that is specifically for the oils where ever essential oils are sold. You can also add the oils to a diffuser.

Regardless of how you use the essential oils, more and more research is showing that aromatherapy does work and it works quickly. The next time you feel tense and stressed out stop and smell the roses, or the lavender.

Resources:
http://www.essentialoils.co.za/vapo...
http://holisticonline.com/Aromather...
http://www.essentials-of-aromathera...

About the author

Maddie is a health and fitness enthusiast who likes to research and write about all health and green living topics. She writes about herbal remedies for Sassafras Station, a health and fitness website, and edits the blog at http://www.sassafrasstation.com/blog/ .