Photo: cinnamonvogue

What does your sense of smell tell you? Think of the last time you walked by a bakers and smelled fresh bread, or a coffee shop that had just been roasting beans.  What thoughts and memories did those smells evoke? Maybe you remembered Grandma’s kitchen or the fun you had making choc chip cookies with your mum on a winter’s day.

Scents and smells affect our mood and our well being.  We fill our house with scents not just to cover unpleasant odours, but to make us feel good.  So how do we choose the scents we buy? I do it by sniffing the various scents available until I find one that evokes a feeling of pleasure and calm.  All of us want to feel that our homes or our cars are places we want to be in.  We want to feel comfortable, safe, relaxed, happy.

Essential oils are the better option for our sense of smell.  If used in moderation they don’t over-power our senses the way artificial scents do.  The best oils for dealing with stress and anxiety are:

• lavender, chamomile, bergamot, neroli, jasmine, clary sage, rose, frankincense, cedarwood and sandalwood.

An easy way to life the spirits is to add 2-3 drops of any of the above oils to a bowl of hot water or a spritzer, or add to a small amount of carrier oil (such as almond or jojoba) and massage gently into the temples.

At Work Stress Relief

Most workplaces have now declared themselves scent free, which makes it more difficult to relieve stress with essential oils at work.  However, if you put a few drops of your favourite oil onto a tissue, a handkerchief or a cotton ball and keep it in a plastic bag, you can take it with you anywhere without annoying other people.  When you feel stressed or anxious just take the tissue out and take a few deep sniffs.  The deep breathing alone helps you calm down and relax, coupled with the oil your day should go a lot smoother.

A word of caution: it is very easy to overpower the senses and make some of the problems your trying to alleviate considerably worse. So, as a rule of them with anything to do with using essential oils, play safe and start with only 1 or 2 drops of oil at a time, until you find the right level of scent for you. You could even combine some of the oils to make your own uplifting scent.