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Aromatherapy For Insect Control

November 15th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

Aromatherapy through scents can lift the spirit of a person. Indeed aromatherapy can help to relieve stress, depression and anxiety in humans and animals alike. Just as it can help to lift the spirits so to it can create a scent that can be harmful or unpleasant smelling. Unpleasant smelling aromatherapy essential oils wouldn’t have much of a future if they were unpleasant to humans but when they are unpleasant to insects then they suddenly become very useful. If you have spent the occasional evening being harassed and annoyed by that high pitched whining of mosquitoes then you will know what I mean. Midges are just as bad or worse because you can’t hear them and only feel them when they have left an itchy mark on your skin. This article will discuss aromatherapy for insect control and concentrate on one essential oil that is particularly useful as an insect repellent.

You will also know that you can get sprays and burning coils that can prevent insects from bothering you. Many of these products have citronella in them (and some are even called by that name, as in citronella coils). Citronella is a wild grass native to Sri Lanka. It can be turned into an essential oil by steam distillation of the fresh or even dried grass. Once it is turned into essential oil this can be used as a burning oil through an aromatherapy diffuser to create a scent that insects hate. It will ward off insects and make your environment insect free.

It can also be blended with other essential oils and used as a massage oil. When used as a massage oil it is thought to help relive digestive and menstrual problems. It is also used in traditional Chinese medicine for relief of rheumatism. In theory if you were to massage this oil into your body it may prevent insects from bothering you. However pure citronella essential oil is quite expensive so probably this is not the best used of it.

Benefits Of Citronella Oil

November 13th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

Citronella oil is used for a variety of things besides aromatherapy oils. It is probably best known as a repellent of mosquitos and it can be used through candles, body sprays, air diffusers or burners. This article will cover what citronella is, how the essential oil is extracted and some of the benefits of citronella oil.

Citronella essential oil is extracted through steam distillation of the fresh or dried grass of the Managrass. This is a naturally occurring wild grass indigenous to Sri Lanka. It is often used in combination with other essential oils to tone down the smell. For example, using a combination of peppermint and citronella essential oils is often recommended to keep mosquitoes away. The best pure citronella essential oils are generally found in small bottles that are not labeled “For use in Oil Lamps only.” Burning oils are generally more diluted and considerably cheaper than pure citronella essential oil.

The smell of citronella is unique and is often something you love or hate. If you love it then you you can use it for more things than simply insect repellent. There are many therapeutic benefits to smelling the oil and including it in massage, steam inhalations or oil lamps or diffusers. Citronella is said to promote happiness and keep you calm. For physical ailments, a hot compress or a massage with a few drops of citronella essential oil added can sooth aching joints. It can have beneficial affects on common colds and flu. It can also relieve headaches and migraines. In Chinese medicine it is seen as a relief against rheumatic pain.

Other essential oils that really go well with citronella are lemon, lavender, tea tree, peppermint, geranium, orange and cedarwood. Aromatherapy oils shouldn’t be used by pregnant women. This applies to citronella oil. If you are planning to use a blend of citronella oil on the skin then it is advisable to test for any allergic reaction or skin irritation by doing a patch test first. This means applying a drop of the oil to your wrist or another part of your body. Leave it 24 hours to see if there is any adverse reaction. If all is well, then use the oil on the rest of your body.

Those of Pagan persuasion know that scents have a way of bringing certain energies about. These scents are like lightning rods – they attract or deter certain energies. Citronella essential oil is used in modern magic spells to deter anything. It can be argued that it isn’t the citronella oil that does the magic; it’s just the magician’s heightened sense of awareness about keeping away from undesired elements. However citronella works, it serves as a focus of the magician’s personal power to activate a spell.

Make Your Own Essential Oil Blends

November 12th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

One of the more enjoyable aspects of aromatherapy is playing with new scents by blending essential oils. This process of blending essential oils to create scents can be a hobby or a serious pursuit in your aromatherapy life. After all, this is the same process that perfumeries do to create expensive bottles of scent and perfume. Making your own essential oil blends is easy and enjoyable.

There are a few things you need to make your own essential oil blends. These are an eye dropper, the bottles of essential oils that you will be experimenting with. You will need some empty bottles to mix and store the new blend. You may also need an aromatherapy reference book to help choose your oils and get ideas on interesting mixtures. Make your own essential oil blends on newspaper or something you don’t mind accidentally ruining. Essential oils can sometimes leave a permanent stain.

If you are planning to use the new blend as a massage oil for the skin then you will need a carrier oil or base oil to mix with the essential oils. Undiluted essential oils are too harsh for the skin and will irritate it. They need to be diluted in some form. Useful carrier oils are jojoba, apricot kernel, grapeseed, coconut, sweet almond and olive oil.

Detecting The Notes

For best results, you need at least one drop of oil from each of the three “notes” assigned to scents. Notes means how they hit the nose. Top notes are what you immediately smell, but they soon fade away. Base notes last the longest and are usually the strongest scent overall. Middle notes are exactly that – they can be scented longer than top notes, but usually not as long as middle notes. Some oils like patchouli are assigned different notes depending on who you read. In that case, use your own judgment.

Making A Blend

Choose which empty bottle is to have the blend. Then, fill with an eyedropper from the other essential oils. If you want to make a pure essential oil blend, then you need twenty drops of middle and top noted for every ten base note oils. If you are making a massage oil, then for every ten drops of essential oil, you need 90 of the carrier oil. Don’t worry if you loose count. Near enough guess is usually still good. If you are unsure, then do a patch test. Put a drop of your new blend on your arm, leg or wrist and see if there are any adverse reactions after 24 hours. If not, your new blend is safe for you. After you make your own essential oil blend, store it out of sunlight in a cool, dark place.

As you become more experienced with essential oils and aromatherapy you can start to experiment on all sorts of different blends that might produce mood altering scents, have healing qualities or simply make the room smell nice. Once you are comfortable blending you can then start to make essential oils from the source ingredients.

Healing Through Aromatherapy Massage Oils

November 8th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

The aim of aromatherapy is to treat the body of pain or an illness through the healing properties of the essential oils of a variety of plants. The treatment can be applied in a number of ways but a popular method is to massage the natural oils into the body, either at the point where there is some pain or through a complete body massage. In theory, apart from effecting some cure for your illness, the aromatherapy massage can enhance your energy and well being by rejuvenating your body’s cells. Thus the treatment works on two levels, the aromatherapy massage oils rejuvenation affect and the healing affects of massaging that can heal your muscles, immune system and mind. This is partly why aromatherapy massage oils are so popular.

How Aromatherapy Massage Oils Work

Massage oils along with the touch of another persons hands can have therapeutic effects on the mind and the body. It is this combination of essential oils and human touch which can nurture the body and heal ailments and prevent other ailments and illnesses occurring. By having a regular aromatherapy massage you can improve your overall health and keep the body is a sense of equilibrium.

Aromatherapy massage oils can also be blended together. This means that the benefits of the individual oils can complement each other and help to heal a variety of problems at the same time.

Using aromatherapy massage oils will also help to improve your immune, muscular, nervous and circulatory systems. Some of the other benefits to using aromatherapy massage oils include: relaxation, flexibility, improved blood circulation, rejuvenation of the cells, your immune system strengthened, pain reduced, your body relieved of harmful toxins, your heart strengthened and reduction of stress.

Aromatherapy massage oils are thought to be absorbed into the body and transported throughout the body. Thus they can have such wide ranging affects. The principle is similar to taking a pill or oral medicine that comes from the pharmacist. Indeed, much of our pharmaceutical industries products come from research done on natural plants and herbs.

It is believed that aromatherapy massage oils are also very effective for the common cold, aches, menopause, skin problems, physical injuries, sleeping problems to name a few. They can also have reviving powers on the mind as well as the body. After a massage the person may have more ability to concentrate and to be alert.

Aromatherapy massage oils can provide some wonderful benefits for the physical and mental parts of your body. However, it is advised that you see a trained therapist or learn how to give a proper massage before doing it yourself. Without the proper training you may find that the results are not so good or you may even cause more harm. Once you are comfortable giving massages you should also understand how various oils have different affects on the body.

Again, this can be learned by speaking to a therapist or by doing further research. Always buy your aromatherapy massage oils from a reputable and trustworthy source so that you know that it will be pure. The oil may have to be prepared before use, like diluting with water or another substance. Check the labeling or get instructions on how to use it. Using a massage oil in it undiluted state might cause skin irritation.

Aromatherapy Reiki Treatment – East meets West

November 5th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

You may not have heard of aromatherapy Reiki treatment but if you are aware of alternative and holistic medicines you are probably aware that the two fields are popular ways to treat unusual problems that standard medicine struggles to diagnose or treat at times. This article will explain the two treatments and go on to describe a combination aromatherapy Reiki treatment.

What is Reiki

The practice of Reiki was created by Mikao Usui in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century. It is similar to the laying on of hands to heal the body. It has a similar philosophy to healing as that of acupressure and acupuncture. This being that the lifeforce (or ki) that flows within all body’s is blocked or unbalanced when somebody is ill. The Reiki practitioner can apply his/her hands onto an affected area and allow energy to flow into this area from the hands. This has the affect of healing the area of the body that is ill or sick. Many people that describe the laying of the hands say it feels like that part of the body becomes warm.

What is Aromatherapy

Aromatherapy is a form of alternative medicine that uses the essential oils of plants to improve a persons health or mental state. Essential oils can be diffused into the air where the person is or it can be massaged into the skin. Aromatherapy is often used in conjunction with other therapies and this makes it ideal for being combined with Reiki to form one treatment. Aromatherapy and Reiki together are practiced in Western countries because Aromatherapy is not really recognized in many Eastern countries.

How An Aromatherapy Reiki Treatment Works

An aromatherapy reiki treatment is performed by a master who has experience working with aromatherapy.  Herein the 2 different systems are combined to help a body heal.  This works quite well because reiki is able to reinforce the effects of aromatherapy. Healing essential oils like lavender oil can be combined with the laying on of hands to a painful part of the body. The combination of the Reiki masters hands and the soothing lavender oil should help the body heal quicker. 

Besides an aromatherapy reiki treatment, there are also other practices that Westerners have a tendency of combining with reiki.  These other practices include such things as crystal therapy, which are able to be smoothly incorporated with reiki in a way that is able to heighten the curative powers of both systems working together.

Aromatherapy Reiki Treatment has proved to be successful in treating Fibromyalgia This is a chronic syndrome that can cause pain in the muscles, bones and joint of the body. Severe cases can leave people unable to work and experience fatigue and tiredness. Many people who suffer from this syndrome have found that reiki is a very effective fibromyalgia alternative therapy.  Aromatherapy has also been found to help ease the symptoms of fibromyalgia.  For this reason, many fibromyalgia sufferers have discovered the great benefits of receiving an aromatherapy reiki treatment. Of course, this is just one example of where an aromatherapy reiki treatment is of great benefit.

Can Aromatherapy Quit Smoking Products Really Help ?

November 2nd, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

Most people that smoke want to quit at some point in time. Not only is there increasing pressure on smokers to quit from advertising campaigns, doctors admonitions and nowhere to actually smoke anymore but it is now pretty expensive to smoke (and this will only get worse). However every time you try to quit you struggle. Few people can quit cold turkey, sooner or later you get nicotine withdrawal symptoms. You hang out with friends who smoke or you socialize in a smoky environment. The temptations are everywhere and before you know it, you’re smoking again. There are many methods and devices to help you quit, some seem better than others . One approach to quiting is to use aromatherapy. This article will discuss aromatherapy quit smoking products like inhalers or oils. It will explain how they work and if they can help you really quit smoking.

If you have tried any of the standard products for quiting, like patches, gum and inhalers then you must be quite skeptical of any quit smoking product. The truth is that all of these products are merely aides for you. Unless you decide, in your heart of hearts, that you have to or want to quit then you won’t quit. You may feel that smoking is too expensive but you still want to spend all your social time in a pub that is smoky.

I know that is hard. Why give up socializing with your friends just to give up smoking. Maybe the option is to give up your friends for a few weeks, while you are going through the worst of the withdrawal. This will also give you the free time to explore other social activities that don’t involve cigarettes.

Really, what I mean is, if you don’t commit to giving up you won’t. No matter what type of new method comes along it won’t work unless you are committed. And this applies to aromatherapy quit smoking products too.

In fact, if you are not committed to quiting smoking, I can guarantee that aromatherapy will not work for you. This is because aromatherapy quit smoking products do not try to ease you nicotine withdrawal symptoms. At best they try to disguise the symptoms.

So how do they work ?

Aromatherapy quit smoking products are designed to help you smell better and to calm down the people you are living with.  Also, the theory is, if you can’t smell cigarette smoke, your cravings will lessen.  This does help some smokers not to smoke.  Some are only tempted to smoke when they smell their usual brand being lit up, but are fine any other time.  Since cigarette smoke is really hard to shift, it is next to impossible to eliminate cigarette smoke when you are first trying to quit.  That is when sticking an aromatherapy quit smoking product like an inhaler will help you best. This will block all smell of your smoking addiction and this is hoped to make a difference to your craving.   

Aromatherapy quit smoking products aim to change your mood through the association of smells. They put smoking out of your mind for a temporary moment. This can stop you thinking about smoking and help you to focus on something else. Again, if you are planning to quit you have to have something that you can replace the smoking with. Aromatherapy is not a replacement but merely a product that can keep you on the straight and narrow, so to speak.

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