Aromatherapy is the fragrant art of using selected aromatic oils for therapeutic purposes. It is one of the fastest-growing complementary therapies in the world and is recognised as one of the most natural and holistic treatments available today.
Aromatherapy aims to treat the 'whole person' rather than just the symptoms of disease. The main aim is to release feelings of well-being, harmony and improved mental and physical health, through inhalation and massage of pure essential oils.
The essential oils used in aromatherapy are derived from the bark, roots,
stalks, leaves, flowers, and resins of certain trees 
and
plants, and are chosen for their particular therapeutic qualities that are
stimulating, refreshing, relaxing and sedative. We combine massage with the
use of oils to enhance their effectiveness. The physical touch of the massage
adds warmth to the body which helps the oils to be absorbed more quickly.
How Aromatherapy Can Help With Modern Stress
Stress produces a state of muscular tension - our hearts work harder, valuable
energy is burned up unnecessarily; we become fatigued and sometimes depressed.
Consequently our resistance to infection and disease is drastically reduced.
Many of today's causes of stress are here to stay, and we can only deal with the effects if stress through the administration of treatments that are specially designed to relax tension, restore vitality, and reduce the workload of the heart, nerves, etc. Such treatments nearly always include massage.
How The Essential Oils Work
As we use essential oils we are using the energy, essences or hormones of
plants - their 'life force' in fact. Minute oil glands produce the essence
of plants in the stems, leaves, flowers, seeds and fruit, wood, bark, and
resins of plants and trees. This essence gives the plant its natural state,
releasing this scent slowly into the atmosphere. These oil glands can be encouraged
to burst by crushing or heating and the resulting harvest of essences can
be collected. A process of distillation can then extract the essential oils.
When
used in aromatherapy, the essential oils transfer their vibrational energies
and medicinal benefits to the person being treated. Essential oils have many
chemical components that reflect the life force of the plant, and they possess
a variety of functions in the plant from which they are derived. These
varied functions found within the oil are elements that, in the plant form,
help to fight disease, stimulate growth and reproduction. It is not therefore
unreasonable or illogical to expect those same elements to have a variety
of functions on the human body.
Essential oils have a remarkable power to penetrate the skin. Once the oils are applied they infiltrate the fatty parts of the skin , then quickly permeate the different layers and are then absorbed into the blood stream. It takes anything from twenty to seventy minutes for the oil to be absorbed into the blood stream.