Aromatherapy

Lavender oil inhalation significantly lowers anxiety, elevates mood, improves sleep quality, reduces daytime sleepiness, and reduces post-surgical pain. Sniffing rosemary oil increases cognitive function and memory by approximately 8% by elevating acetylcholine levels. Eucalyptus oil has the most potent effect on respiratory centers, reducing coughing, improving COPD, and decreasing mucus. Peppermint oil inhalation increases sustained attention, reaction time, and respiratory efficiency, and reduces tension headaches. Frankincense oil inhalation decreases neuroinflammation, improves memory scores, and decreases anxiety. Most supermarket lavender products are fragrance products that cannot reproduce the clinical trial results. Aromatherapy is described as producing more modest results than oral ingestion of active compounds. Smelling lavender can mildly relax mood through olfactory connections to emotional brain centers. Aromatherapy benefits require only inhalation of vapor, not ingestion, and may be prolonged through sustained ambient exposure. Lavender fragrance products vary in active compound concentration and may be diluted, rancid, or not genuine lavender.