Benefits of Aromatherapy Essential Oils: PACER Integrative Behavioral Health

Foreign. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation of PACER Integrated Behavioral Health. Today we are talking about the benefits of essential oils and aromatherapy. As always, I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. There is a large body of research that confirms that there are measurable physiological effects of essential oils in humans through a variety of parameters, including blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, your alpha and beta brain waves, which pertains more to sleep, your corticosteroid levels, your cortisol levels, and anti and pro inflammatory cytokines. So your inflammation. We do know through these research studies that essential oils do have a benefit. Not everybody is is down with essential oils, and I get that, but it is an option and there it has been shown to be clinically effective. It's not just quote all in your head. Chemicals in essential oils called turpines are detected by the pituitary. Receptors that are in your nose relay to your hypothalamus, remember hypothalamic, pituitary, adrenal axis. So when you inhale essential oils, you are activating that pituitary gland. It communicates with the hypothalamus and the hypothalamus decides from that point what to do to influence the endocrine system, the adrenal glands, thyroid glands and the gonads in order to regulate hormones and neurotransmitters. So when you smell something that is calming, that down regulates the HPA axis and it increases your calming neurotransmitters, so to speak. When you inhale essential oils that are designed to enhance excitement and energy, then it's going to have potentially the opposite effect. Most people use essential oils for relaxation and concentration and pain management. So a lot of times that is down regulating that HPA axis, which we've talked about in, like I said yesterday, I think we talk about it just about in every single class that the HPA axis is your stress response system. And when it is activated too much, too long, too intensely, it can start causing ripple effects throughout the body that are no good, including reduced libido, mood issues, inflammation, pain. There's, there's a lot of stuff. So it's good to know that there are things that you can do, complimentary interventions that you can potentially add to your repertoire in order to address some of these issues and start feeling better without necessarily having to take oral medications. I'm going to go through the benefits of a bunch of these things and then we're going to talk about how to use them. So pain and inflammation is one of the things that we know. There's statistic statistical and experimental evidence that shows that certain neurotransmitters are activated by certain essential oils. And in the case of pain and inflammation, remember, glutamate is our main excitatory neurotransmitter and it's the one that's excreted intensely when the HPA axis is activated under a lot of stress. When we're under stress and chronic stress, it can lead to systemic inflammation. So we want to address inflammation partly by tapping down that glutamate a little bit and increasing serotonin and marjoram, lavender, sandalwood, eucalyptus, chamomile, rosemary, peppermint, ginger, and a whole bunch of others have been associated with helping with that and know this link for others. There were 31 different essential oils that they studied and I didn't figure you wanted me to just sit here and go on a litany of essential oils. The research is out there and I will be sharing these research studies links to them in the Discord server. So those of you who are members can go over there and access those. They are the way YouTube's set up. I'm not able to upload PDFs to the community area, so that's the only way I can figure out how to do it. But sleep is another reason some people use essential oils. If you remember back to when you had children or maybe when you were younger and your caregivers used shampoo that had lavender and chamomile in it, well, lavender and chamomile have been shown to improve relaxation and improve sleep in a lot of people. Not everybody likes lavender and chamomile. Okay, so what other options do we have out there? Valerian is another sedating essential oil and it has a very strong, earthy tone. But you may like it. And there are a lot of essential oils I'm not even mentioning today, like patchouli, for example, but go online if there's a particular essential oil you like, go online and research what that essential oil is purported to help with. And if you want to go even further and try to find actual experimental research, then go to PubMed and look that up. But a lot of people don't really care to go quite that deep. So for sleep, valerian can help. Lavender and chamomile, as I said, interestingly enough, catnip. Now we know that catnip can make our cats go bonkers. It's a stimulant for cats. But catnip itself is actually a sedative A and has a calming effect in humans. So if you've got cats, catnip may not be the thing to do because they'll be bouncing off the walls while you're trying to sleep. But it can be very calming for, for humans. The other one that I found really interesting, and I didn't find the study until this morning when I was putting the finishing touches on this one, is tangerine. Now, typically we think of our citrus essential oils as being energizing and increasing focus. But they found that with essential oil of tangerine, it actually reduced the amount of time it took people to get to sleep and helped them get into a deeper sleep faster. Which I thought that study was really fascinating. Would never have thought of tangerine as a sleep enhancer, but it is what it is. Sometimes we want to use essential oils for their antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral properties. And there's, you know, obviously a lot of thought about antivirals during flu season. Cinnamon, which most of us like the smell of cinnamon, eucalyptus, rosemary and tea tree oil. Sorry, I spelled tea incorrectly. Are all very helpful in because they have antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral properties. And we're going to talk about how you might be able to use those in a beneficial sort of way to, you know, maybe make it your environment more sterile. If you want to think about it that way effectively. What can we use essential oils for that can help our mood? Well, with anger, anxiety and stress. All of those are related to HPA axis activation. All of those are related to high levels of glutamate, high levels of cortisol, low levels of certain types of serotonin. Bergamot has been found to be very helpful with anger, anxiety and stress. And it, it's a kind of a citrusy, but it is a very mild citrusy sort of smell. Lavender, rose and rose geranium have also been found to help reduce cortisol levels and HPA axis activation. The one caveat to be aware of is some of these, particularly rose geranium and lavender, have been associated with increases in estrogen levels in both males and females. Now, it may be inconsequential increases in estrogen levels, but if you are already experiencing issues with estrogen dominance, then you may want to choose essential oils that aren't known to increase estrogen levels when we're talking about addressing depression. An essential oil called agarwood inhibits the HPA axis hyperactivity, so it helps tamp down that HPA axis, reduces Norepinephrine and glutamate and allows the calming serotonin to increase. That can be helpful for people who have anxiety or stress related depression. They just are feeling anxious so much of the time that they begin to feel hopeless and helpless or their HPA axis has been activated for too long and they've developed some symptoms of hypocortisolism. And in order to allow that HPA axis to rest and the body to recover and rebalance, inhibiting the HPA axis may actually be helpful. Lavender, basil and pepper have also been found. And jasmine have also been found to be helpful with depression. Lavender keeps coming up and a lot of people swear by it, they love it. Again, that is one that is known to increase estrogen levels. So if you inhale lavender and you're like, yeah, this doesn't really do it for me, that's cool. Look for something else. If you know that you are hypersensitive to estrogen, lavender may not be the best choice for you. That's going to be a personal decision you've got to make. There were a couple of studies that looked at the essential oil of basil and found that it increased serotonin and decreased cortisol levels. So essential oil of basil can be super beneficial. And when I talk about pepper, what I'm talking about actually is essential oil of black pepper. Black pepper has a lot of health benefits that are associated with it, but it's also been shown to help increase feelings of positivity, increase serotonin levels and help with depression. And jasmine is supposed to be energizing, but not in a way that makes you anxious, in a way that increases your serotonin and your dopamine levels. And when we talk about how to use it, we'll talk about figuring out which essential oils work best for you. And the last one, under affective benefits of essential oils is energy and motivation. And in this, when we're talking about energy and motivation, really what we're talking about a lot of time is increasing dopamine levels. And dopamine can be increased with a variety of different essential oils. But citrus and bergamot are tend to be the ones that are more frequently identified as being useful. When I say citrus, I'm just kind of lumping them together. You might prefer grapefruit, orange or lemon, whichever you, you happen to prefer, whichever helps you feel more energized. But citrus is known to be an energizer, increase motivation, increase energy, as well as in many cases, suppress appetite. So I thought that was an Extra benefit. Bergamot is in that citrusy area, but it has a much more calming profile. It's not quite as in your face, energetic, cognitively. There have been studies that have shown that essential oils can help us with attention and concentration. Cedarwood, sandalwood, frankincense, all three of those tend to have a very earthy, woody sort of smell to them. If you, if you don't like that, that's cool. Peppermint. Most people like peppermint. That is good for attention and concentration. Rosemary I prefer, personally, I prefer rosemary to peppermint. It's a little bit milder in terms of being energizing and uplifting. Lemon balm is another one that a lot of people swear by. I personally can't stand the smell of it, but that can be helpful for attention if it works for you as well as essential oil of sage. Environmentally, how can essential oils benefit you? Well, you know, we talked earlier about how they can be antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral, so that's a bonus. But really, you want to use essential oils just to help yourself create a more relaxing and pleasing environment. So you're going to pick those essential oils that you find to be most pleasant, whether it's lavender, valerian, patchouli, anything that you find pleasing interpersonally. Here comes another neurotransmitter we haven't talked about yet today, and that's oxytocin, our bonding hormone. And they found that lavender, neroli, jasmine, Roman, chamomile, clary, sage and sandalwood all increase circulating oxytocin levels. Oxytocin helps us with bonding, it helps us with pro social behaviors, and it helps us with feelings of connection and desire to be around others, which is, you know, kind of cool. If you're having one of those times where you feel kind of lonely, kind of isolated, or you're having difficulty wanting to be around people, these might help kind of bridge that gap a little bit. So how do we use essential oils? There are a lot of ways, and I guess I'm going to go backwards with this. There are some essential oil companies that will promote using essential oils orally. Now, essential oils are extremely highly, mega, intensely. Powerful, potent chemicals that you're using. So taking them orally can be a little bit dangerous, especially if you're taking any other medications or you have any health conditions. You also don't know with these essential oils, even the ones that are supposed to be therapeutic grade or medical grade, you don't know the exact density of the essential Oil in what you're getting, it's not regulated by the fda. It's not regulated by anybody. So depending on the brand you're using and even the lot that you're getting from that brand, the amount of essential oils, the, the dilution rate may differ. So orally, only under supervision from a medical professional. I know some people do take them orally, but I would, if I were going to do them orally, I would want to make sure I was being supervised by somebody who has extensive medical training in, in using them. You also can use them again with your pets as well. But. And I know that's not on here, but with animals, they are even more sensitive to the high concentration of essential oils than we are, especially cats. So it's really important to talk to your vet about how you might want to use them. And definitely never, never, never give animals essential oils to ingest or put it on their skin unless you've got veterinary clearance. Because some of the essential oils, for example, with cats can actually be deadly. That being said, you know, putting a drop or two on their collar in some instances may be helpful. And we'll talk about that a little bit more in a minute, I guess. Massage and personal care products. So massage oils, shampoos, conditioners, those sorts of things. If you're diluting the essential oils and putting them on topically, a lot of times that can be really beneficial because, you know, if you're using it as conditioner, when your hair moves around, you're going to get a little whiff of it. So that can be invigorating periodically throughout the day. You want to make sure that, number one, you do an allergy test because you can have allergic reactions and sensitivities to them. You don't want to put it in your conditioner, put it on your head, and then realize that you're super sensitive and your hair starts falling out. That would be megabad. So as with anything, just like when you color your hair or anything else, you want to do a patch test first and then make sure that you're following recipes that you can find anywhere online that tell you how to dilute them. You don't need much. Like 15 drops is really all you need in, you know, a fair amount of hair conditioner, for example, because the essential oils are so incredibly concentrated. You know, remember, you don't need a whole lot. You don't need to, you know, overdo it. And overdoing it is no more beneficial than using the right amount, especially if you're relying on Inhaling it because you're the sensors in your nose, the receptors in your nose can pick up very faint smells. The receptors in your nose that are triggered by essential oils are the same ones that are triggered by pheromones. And typically we don't smell someone else's pheromones, you know, and notice it. So your essential oils don't need to be super duper intense. Now to inhalation, this is probably the safest way to use it. This gets it to the pituitary and into the hypothalamus so it can start impacting, you know, our systems. You can put it in a bottle. Here's a little bottle. You want to use one of the brown glass bottles. Essential oils can melt plastic, and brown is good because most of them are sensitive to light. So you can get these little bottles from essential oil shops and, you know, you can get the little tiny ones that you can just easily put in your purse. When you have that, if you're having a moment, you can just take the, take the lid off, take a whiff and put the lid back on and put it back in your, in your desk or wherever you can. Also, if you don't want to carry around one of these, you can put it on a cotton ball. Put that cotton ball in a little Ziploc baggie or a little container and put it, you know, in your, in your bag or wherever you want to have it. So it's available to you if there's something noxious that you're smelling, you know, or you just need a little energy, a little focus or a little hit of dopamine. Diffusers, you can get them on online, you can get them at your big box stores, and I'm sure you can get them from the specialty shops that you put in water, as well as some essential oils, and it diffuses it throughout the room. A lot of emergency rooms, especially overseas, not so much in the US Use essential oils and diffusers, especially in the waiting room in emergency departments, because they have shown repeatedly that that helps reduce people's anxiety and tension levels while they're waiting. It's important, especially if you're using it in a public area, to make sure you don't overdo it. When my kids were in martial arts, the grandmaster used to have a diffuser in the lobby, which was great because, you know, the kids in the, in the class would get super stinky, but most of the time it was way too intense. It was like, make your eyes water intense. And that is overwhelming to most people. So again, it's not a matter of overdoing it. You want to do just enough Fragrance rings are helpful if you still use the old fashioned incandescent bulbs. They have these little rings that you set on top of the bulb and you put the essential oil in the ring. As the bulb heats up, it heats up the ring. As the, the essential oils in the ring heat up, it makes the molecules move around more quickly and disperse. Essential oils can be put in candles, but I think they probably lose a fair amount of their effectiveness relatively quickly. So you probably want to aim for smaller candles, not the ones that you have around for two years or whatever. Cleaning products. You can add essential oils to your cleaning products to give it a little extra boost. I also order, I personally order D limonene as an oil, as a cleaner and I use that when I'm cleaning my house. It's not an essential oil when I order it. It's a degreaser that you can get. It's actually an industrial strength degreaser, but it is the main constituent in your, a lot of your citrus oils. So that can be another way to use it. And it works really well as a degreaser. Let me tell you what, you can also make a spritz. You can just get a regular old spray bottle from somewhere and put water in it. Put a couple of drops of, and I mean just drops, not, you don't want much of either hair conditioner or if you want to dish soap in it because that will help the essential oil blend into the water a little bit. Because we know that oil and water doesn't mix. You still need to shake it before you spray it, but it does help it stay a little bit, a little bit more blended. And then just whenever you want to, you can spritz it. I have one next to my bed that I spritz on my pillow before I go to sleep at night just to, you know, get that fresh application of an essential oil. There are a lot more ways you can probably think of to use it. You're only limited by your own imagination, but there it can be beneficial. Now how do you choose, how do you choose the essential oils? I wish I could say there was a super scientific method, but there's not. What I have found works best with the rescue animals that I've worked with for the past 20 years, as well as with my children and myself, is a little bit of education. Figure out kind of what ballpark you want to be in. If you want to increase attention, then you Know, looking at citrusies, if you want to help with anxiety, then looking more towards the valerian, the lavender, the chamomile, that gives you an idea of, you know, a family or a group of essential oils that you can choose from. And then I strongly suggest going somewhere where you can actually smell them. You know, ordering them offline can be dicey sometimes, but smell them. And when you take the lid off, if you smell it and you're like, oh no, then obviously your brain's telling you that's not something you need right now. But if you smell it and it's pleasant or, you know, at least not something you think is acrid, then, you know, that might be one to add to your maybe try list. I found for me, there are times where, for example, patchouli has a very strong smell to it. There are times when I absolutely adore it and there are times when I don't. My we have a couple of rescue donkeys and when we first got them, they hated having their halter put on. And they hated even more when the farrier would come and they would get very anxious and very stressed out. And I did the same thing with them. I brought several of my essential oils down to the paddock and I let them smell it. And the ones they didn't like, they turned their head from and you know, okay, don't like that one. But we would get to one that or more that they liked and they would pay more attention to it. They wouldn't turn away, they would keep coming back and smelling it. And for Flo Jo, for example, she preferred valerian. One of our dogs has really bad thunderstorm anxiety and valerian works really well for him too. I put a couple drops on his collar, not on his skin, never on his skin. And it does seem to help him not shake nearly as much. He still gets a little anxious, but he's more likely to dive under the bed or something now instead of walk around and cry and shake and pee on himself. So, you know, I think that's an improvement. So there are a lot of ways to use it. I will be uploading a lot of documents to the member section on the Discord server so you can take a look at some of the really fascinating research out there about essential oils. I could obviously do a two or three hour class just on talking about essential oils and neurotransmitters. Do remember that essential oils can be helpful physically with pain and inflammation, can help you get to sleep more quickly, can also help give you energy and wake you up it can, they can be antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral. Tea tree oil, for example, is really helpful with dandruff. So that's one of those interesting personal care products. If you get a shampoo that has tea tree oil in it, that is a natural remedy for dandruff. Affectively we know it can affect our moods and help with anxiety, anger, stress, depression, cortisol levels. It can help with attention and concentration even for people with adhd. Environmentally it helps us create a pleasant environment. And interpersonally or relationally there are essential oils that actually do increase that bonding hormone, oxytocin. So, you know, may not hurt to try it if any of these areas are things that you are particularly interested in. Ylang, Ylang is another one that is very popular for a lot of people. It's an extremely sweet smelling essential oil. I find it overpowering over powerful sweet. But some people absolutely love it. So that is excellent. And spearmint is another one that is good. Any of your mints actually are good for increasing attention, concentration and a little bit of energy. Now they have found, you know, while we're on it, peppermint and spearmint can also be good if they're added to rubs, balms, whatever you want to call it for sore muscles because like icy hot, they provide that feeling of cooling and bringing blood to the area to help it relax a little bit. Sheila suggests putting it on a necklace or a bracelet where you can sniff it as needed. So that can be super helpful. They do also have necklaces out there. I left mine at home today that you can actually have a couple of drops of essential oil in it, has a little vial on it and you can, you know, smell that as needed. Some of them are designed specifically for essential oils. Others are designed to have other, to have ashes put in them, you know, if after you have a pet pass on or something. But they, they do have that reservoir in it. So there are different things that you can use in order to make sure that you've got your essential oil with you in a relatively innocuous fashion. Any other suggestions? That was a great suggestion. I hadn't thought about putting it in a necklace. Alrighty everybody. Well, thank you as always for being here with me and spending this 30 minutes of your day. I really appreciate you and the time that you have spent. I appreciate the interaction, you know, I really love to talk about things that will help us improve our health and mental health so we can live a longer, happier, more peaceful life. Until tomorrow have be safe, be calm, be healthy. And we will be talking about, interestingly enough, de escalation techniques and identifying signs of impending mental illness tomorrow. And this is really geared for the non clinician so you can notice things and you can, you know, interact more effectively when your kids are melting down, when your coworker's having a bad day, or, for example, if you're a first responder, when you're interacting with somebody who is distressed, hey, even customer service, you know, that is a really challenging job. So some of those, some of the things we talk about tomorrow may be helpful there. Have a great day.