Just a Green post

The idea of Aromatherapy and scents has been on mind from a while and I have been mulling over aromatherapy and reading books and articles on flower essences and essential oils. Its a parallel world existing just next to science. As someone who believes in both the worlds, it comes as an immense challenge and opportunity to combine them together and bring an offspring that can offer best of both the worlds.

Sipping over countless cups of tea, reading papers on how scents effect us, am wrapped in a wonderful world. Watching a documentary on hear the forest calls has made me literally smell everything.

If you feel refreshed and energetic post a walk in forest, there is a chemical explanation. The Japanese have a practice of forest bathing from many years. Citing many benefits. The magic being the tree is not just a tree its much more. It has the one of the most complex chemistry in its furnace. It releases chemical aerosols that directly benefit one’s immune system. Trees produce many chemicals that are used in multiple medicines other than supporting other lives and fungi.

Changing with every season building a living library for medicines and food, the forests have a story tell every season.

Trees are the poems that earth writes upon the skies.

Kahlil Gibran

Every forest has its own song and scent. In chemistry, a scent is believed to consist of volatile chemicals with a molecular weight of less than 300 Da that humans perceive through the olfactory system. And imagine, in humans, about 300 active olfactory receptor genes are devoted to detecting thousands of different fragrance molecules through a large family of olfactory receptors of a diverse protein sequence. How complex is the fragrance and the olfactory process and yet so magnificent.

Electrophysiological studies have revealed that various scents affect spontaneous brain activities and cognitive functions. This study being supported by an electroencephalograph (EEG) that measures these responses. The sense of smell plays an important role in the physiological effects of mood, stress, and working capacity and this has been very well established in history. Look at the aromatherapy treatment, it is a natural way of healing a person’s mind, body and soul. Many ancient civilizations, including Egypt, China and India, have used aromatherapy as a popular complementary and alternative therapy for more than thousands of years. India itself has been a land of ayurveda where healing is rooted in plant based science.

Not only are the scents healing, plants are medicinal in multiple ways. If you are from India and reading this, remember the “kaadha” your grandmother prepared with various herbs when you fell sick. In todays (modern) times we call them herbal teas. In traditional medicine as well as in aromatherapy and herbal medicine, essential oils and fragrance compounds have been used for the treatments of various psychological and physical disorders such as headaches, pain, insomnia, eczema, stress-induced anxiety, depression and digestive problems . Right from herbs and aromatherapy they stand this time tested belief as long as history goes.

And I certainly plan to dive deeply into trees and the essential oils and herbs in my further posts. I do hope you will stay here with me to ready more on this. Leave a comment if anything here resonates with you.