AROMATHERAPY

Essential oils are a major component in the European system of medicine known as phytotherapy and are used extensively there in every aspect of patient care. In Britain and the United States many of the packaged air-freshners used in hospitals have essential oils as their active ingredient, but because we are so bombarded with long-scientific-sounding names, this fact is often disguised. Read the labels and you will see what I mean.

As antibiotic and anti-viral air-freshners the essential oils obviously have a positive role to play in any hospital but they are also used to kill pain, help the patient sleep and enhance the effect of sedative drugs, thus allowing lower doses to be used. At the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, many pof the Alzheimer's patients treated with essential oils have become more alert and the general noisiness of patients with dementia has been lessened as they feel calmer.

The geriatric ward at St Stephens Hospital, London, has been using essential oils in diffusers. In a ward in another hospital in Oxford , patients were given a choice of conventional drugs or essential oils for pain relief and to help them sleep, and invariably they chose the essential oils. 

What is so interesting about this is that here we have a situation in which the patients are the best judge of the effectiveness of the treatments on offer - only they know how much pain they are suffering and how well they sleep - and they are opting for essential oils.

As a side benefit, the aroma of the oils makes the whole environment smell wonderful, surely a great improvement on the usual hospital smell!

Here are some anti-viral essential oils which will not only help keep everyone 'as well as can be expected', as the saying goes, but also uplift the spirit in their own special, suble way. Simply spray in a clean or new plant-spray or put a few drops on a bowl of boiling water:

ANTI VIRAL OILS FOR THE HOSPITAL WARD
Oregano-Tea tree-Niaouli-Cypress-Inula odorata-Cinnamon-Red thyme.

If you are not a patient but on night duty and need something to keep you alert but relaxed, put one of the following  on boiling water in a bowl and allow the molecules to waft around. Not only will it help you in your office but it will soothe the patients in the ward too.

Geranium - helps emotionally - Lavender-clears the air, anti-bacterial, etc.

A mixture of geranium, lavender and bergamot will alleviate anxiety and depression, while a mixture of lavender and grapefruit will keep the staff on their toes, even-tempered and relaxed as well as benefiting everyone with its refreshing, uplifting and stimulating aroma.

Reference:The Fragrant Pharmacy: Valerie A. Worwood.

You can contact us at any time via E-mail.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Factory

The factory environment can be debilitating for a miscellany of reasons. Injury, dust, dirt and grease are obvious hazards to health but there are also the hidden effects of radiation and electrical activity and the vibrational energies produced by the presence of crystals. Working with chemicals is dangerous because even if the short-term effects are known and deemed harmless, the long-term effects are rarely known.

In addition, it is the combinations of chemicals that so often prove dangerous, and even if a chemical has been given safety clearance, its effect in conjunction with the 100,000 possible others has not. Monotony and boredom create their own problems, as does the pressure of being in the same areas as many other people.

Adequate ventilation and dust-extraction systems are vital in the modern factory and everyone should be vigilant to ensure that they are being properly maintained to work efficiently. This is most especially the case when working with asbestos or one of the new hard metals - cobalt and titanium, for example.

Every factory floor should be cleaned with industrial vacuum cleaners rather than brushes, and throughout the day rather than just once, at the end of the shift. Make sure your health and safety union representative knows which chemicals are dangerous and which are not -

People working with wood preservatives, for example should avoid those that contain lindane (a nerve posion) TBT or PCP (Pentachlorophenol). Get as much information as you can from the organisation listed in the appendix about the chemicals and metals you work with. 

It is known that better protected working conditions should be provided for many categories of workers, but those in the precision tool, aero-plane and weapon industries should take special note if they don't want to become one of those who suffer from the latest industrial hazard, hard metal disease.  

• Most factory floors are too big to utilize the usual room methods when using essential oils but even if the size of your working space seems daunting, the essential oils can be applied to the corner of a tissue or handkerchief put in your pocket so that the corner hangs out and allows the aroma to clear your own body space. What you need on the factory floor is something to help you relax but at the same time enhance concentration. 
• This isn't a contradiction. Think how impossible it is to concentrate when you are uptight - it is relaxation which facilitates concentration. (This relaxed and concentrated state is rather like driving a car along a familiar road, and it is at this time that we often get our flashes of inspiration.)
• Lavender and grapefruit are excellent oils on the factory floor for this reason. They can be used singly, with slightly different effects, or in an equal mix. Geranium makes a good addition. All these oils increase blood circulation and oxygen supply and calm nerves.
• If you work in an oily, greasy environment the best oil to use is cedarwood, which breaks these molecules down and clears the air. If noise and pollution is the problem, cypress is the best remedy because it seems to work as a shock-absorber, calming down the nervous system. The noise ceases to jar and you come to ignore it.

 The Home

Being a housewife is a major occupational hazard. Apart from the fact that most accidents happen in the home, housewives are particularly prone to falling into the tranquilliser syndrome which is a major hazard in it self. This is a complex subject involving assumptions made by the medical profession as well as stress.

It is interesting for example, that women are twice as likely as men to be diagnosed as depressed. The sheer repetition and infinite nature of housework - immortalized in the expression 'a woman's work is never done' - is indeed wearing, and all those who have experienced child care will agree that it is undoubtedly the hardest work they have ever done.  

Appropriate oils for use around the home can be found throughout this blog. There are those for accidents in the home 'Your Basic Care Kit', oils that make the household task altogether more pleasant in 'Fragrant Care for Your Home', ways for making meal time a more interesting experience in 'Cooking with Essential Oils' and the stress sections in this blog.

Reference: The Fragrant Pharmacy: Valerie A Worwood