The sweet smell of success

the SWeet Smell of SECURITY and success

elizabeth ashley shares how using scent can make your clients feel at ease and add to your profits…

MOST holistic therapists understand that they need to put their clients at ease and create an ambience in their practice rooms that fosters a sense of safety and relaxation. That’s why so few practice rooms are painted in red or neon shades and why we use warm blankets and heated couches.

Now, thanks to COVID-19, the sumptuous furnishings have been stripped out and visors and masks take their place making it impossible to forget that danger is never too far away. So, how do we ensure our clients feel safe, but also nurtured and cosseted in these challenging times?

I thought I would share some tricks of the aromatic trade to help bring a renewed sense of security and wellness to your surroundings. Essential oils tap into places of the mind you never even knew existed and bring about a glorious sense of pampered calm.

Aromatherapy 101

Let’s start at the basics. In its classical sense, aromatherapy uses concentrated plant essences to bring about changes in the emotional, mental and physical bodies. Over time, the term has become somewhat debased to encompass any use of essential oils. Strictly speaking, using them topically is the domain of essential oil therapy. Aromatherapy is the use of smell alone. With that in mind, one could use chocolate, coffee or flowers in the absence of oils as long as one recognises the medicine derives from the individual’s response to smells.

Aromatherapy and the mind

The mind has a unique relationship with fragrance. Molecules enter the body via two routes– up the nose and to a lesser degree in the air we breathe in through the mouth. These go to different places. The latter heads to the lungs to be defused through the capillaries supplying the lungs and the tiny constituents find their way along the circulatory system, touching all the places that need them (every oil touches a different place) and then they head on up, through the blood to the brain.

By the time these reach the head, loads of work has already been done by those messengers that were inhaled nasally. They, almost instantaneously, reached the olfactory bulb at the back of the nose. This tiny space, approximately the size of a 5p piece, is laden with around 100,000 receptors, each sensing and processing information about the smells it receives. These send information via olfactory neurons to an extremely ancient and primitive part of the brain called the limbic system.

The limbic system also processes thoughts, memories, cognition, pain, hunger, and learning. When the limbic system responds to smell, it triggers myriad psychological processes.

Whilst we can catalogue fragrances by their effects (for example relaxing oils are rose, clary sage, lavender, camomile and Sandalwood), a person’s cognition and memories, in particular, will have a bearing on how they receive them.

So, let’s put that into context for a moment. Consider Lynda is a 48-year-old menopausal woman who is looking forward to her massage. She is greeted by your lovely carved wood diffuser which has lavender softly evaporating. The fragrance is imperceptibly light, but something about it has her on edge. Perhaps it was the fact her abusive grandmother always wore the fragrance? Not going to relax, is she?

Consider that many of the blends we use in practice are ready mixed. A blend will usually be a combination of three or more oils. Each of those oils is a synergy in its own right, it is made up of roughly a hundred different constituents. In lavender, one of the most effective constituents is linalool, also found in other oils such as sweet

basil. Does it smell like lavender? Nope, and yet the mind recognises that molecule of something that brings danger near.

Remember that the olfactory bulb has those 100,000 receptors, each detecting and sending messages? Now, let’s add to that the knowledge that the average nose can discern three million fragrances. It becomes extremely complex.

Rewind then for a second. Imagine then that Lynda’s grandmother was her safest place in the world. She misses her laugh, her smile, and her great big cuddles…what will that lavender do then? It’s a deliciously plump and nurturing place to lay her head. In this case, lavender becomes wonderful.

Now we start to enter the realms of coaxing the psyche to give up its secrets because, it’s very unlikely Lynda can articulate why that scent of lavender does what it does.

It’s useful to recognise the key areas of the limbic system that essential oil constituents touch. The amygdala controls fear and what we perceive as dangerous. It’s what controls the stress and why smell is one of the main ways we detect danger. We might smell smoke for example.

Scents also often commune with the hypothalamus. This is the agent which decides, based on information the amygdala gives it, whether stress responses should fire.

creating bespoke diffuser blends for clients

The clever therapist finds ways to tap into this individuality, by offering the client a scenting strip of an oil and asking, “How does that make you feel?” Take time over it. Let them explore where they feel the plant affecting their body. Offer a second and then a third, and work with them to create their own blend.

It’s cosseting and incredibly special to discover a blend you have designed yourself. It invokes a profound sense of relaxation that nothing else can achieve. It speaks to a part of the mind that has no form and yet yearns to communicate all day long.

Diffusers are wonderful, but if you can live with an open flame, I would also recommend an evaporator instead. They are subtler and do not need the same safety considerations. Only diffuse for a maximum of 2 hours before taking a half an hour break. Evaporators are gentle enough to forget these restrictions.

The client’s own blend is a gorgeous treat for them to take home at the end of the treatment and is a great add on extra for your turnover. If you are not a qualified therapist, ensure you don’t suggest any oils for topical use. n

SOME SUGGESTIONS OF OILS ARE

Uplifting: bergamot, lemon, orange, lemongrass, and melissa

Nurturing: Cedarwood, jasmine and patchouli

If you do feel anxious putting the oils together, why not using my Tongue in The Trees Essential Oil Oracle Cards, designed to bypass the conscious mind and speak directly to the subconscious worries, urges and desires. You can find details of those on my website at

www.thesecrethealer/cards

i

ELIZABETH ASHLEY is the

author of The Secret Healer

series of aromatherapy manuals, and the

UK Director for the National Association of

Holistic Aromatherapists. You can find out

more about her books and courses at

www.thesecrethealer.co.uk.