Well, this is a disappointing bit of news, but I’m still a bit stubborn to totally accept is as “fact” since I think smelling certain things definitely helps me with my anxiety and many times can lift my mood and give me a peace of mind that cannot be gotten by anything else. 

Researchers at one of my home state’s colleges, Ohio State University, ran what they called one of the most rigorous tests on various arometherapy scents that have been known to help ease certain physical ailments of help keep peace of mind and anxiety at bay, lemon and lavendar and they could not find one physical response to these scents, not one they said. 

Lemon oil has been touted as being a mood booster, and even had been noted in predominant medical journals as a mood boosting element, however researchers at OSU said that when they ran tests of any type of brain activity changes, blood pressure, and other tests of physical changes in the body, they found no significant changes at all. 

Also, in somewhat of a placebo experiment, more than 50 percent of men and women showed the same or more responses internally to the “scent” of distilled water than they did to common arometherapy scents that we all know and love.  Is this bound to change the aromatherapy industry, in this day and age when scented candles, sachets and aroma dispensers are at an all time popularity high? 

No would be my answer.  We still think it does something for us, and if it makes us feel emotionally better, then that is what is going to keep us coming back and buying it.  It’s still pleasant to be around and makes us feel more at home, so I say there’s enough therapy in that.  Hey, you can’t quantify that type of pleasure, right? 

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 10:26 am and is filed under Natural and Herbal Treatments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.