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Aromatherapy is an alternative health methodology founded on a more
holistic approach to coping with health problems and complaints. It is
a completely natural, non-invasive treatment that treats the person as
a whole as opposed to treating a disease or illness in isolation. On
the whole, Western medicine tends to isolate a patient's problem areas
and health concerns and treats them alone. Whereas Eastern medicine,
which is considered alternative medicine in the West, tends to use a
more holistic approach. That is, it views the body as an integrated
system so that when there is a medical problem in one area, the
practitioner of alternative medicine determines the best way to return
to proper whole-body function.
Aromatherapy combines both art and science by utilizing naturally
occuring aromatic plant extracts to promote mind, body, and spiritual
health. Essential oils and essences used in aromatherapy seek to
harmonize and rebalance the body while enhancing the body's own healing
process so to promote the body's self-regulating, maintaining, and
healing capabilities. Aromatherapy also seeks to bring relief on
emotional as well as physical levels.
Aromatherapy has provided relief and beneficial results for a vast
array of conditions. These include treatment of skincare complaints
such as dermatitis, acne, eczema, psoriasis, cellulite, varicose veins
and stretch marks, among others. Aromatherapy can also provide
emotional benefits to combat depression, hysteria, irritability, panic
attacks, difficulty with concentration, insomnia and moodiness.
Additionally, aromatherapy has been utilized successfully to treat
burns, bruises, sprains and strains, asthma, bronchitis, flu, muscular
aches and pains, skin inflammation, and digestive problems such as
constipation.
Aromatherapy utilizes essential oils and essences to promote health. In
fact it is an art which must be learned properly to be used
successfully. If one is seeking aromatherapy treatments, it is
essential that one is dealing with a qualified aromatherapy
practitioner because using essential oils is a precise and learned
science. Further, if used incorrectly, essential oils can do more harm
than good. They tend to be highly concentrated extracts which are
harvested by distilling a variety of plant materials including, but not
limited to, flowers, leaves, fruit peel, wood, and grasses. An
essential oil can be distilled a number of ways, most commonly by
either using water or steam or by mechanically processing it,
particularly in the case of citrus rinds, or by dry distillation of
natural materials. Following the distillation process, the essential
oil is then physically separated from the water. Essential oils
generally do not feel greasy and many of them do not leave an oily
residue. These oils penetrate the skin very easily and get absorbed
into the bloodstream where they will then be reabsorbed at different
rates by different organs throughout the body.
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