Common Scents.
My boyfriend and I love doing things together, but I have noticed we tend to approach them in quite different ways. He likes to break down and analyse what he is going to do first and then does it, whereas I like a quick overview and then go into the experience hands first.
This stood out for me in a recent conversation about essential oils! I have always loved smells and often let my nose lead me into an experience. When I cook, all ingredients must be sniffed at first and when I walk through a garden I can't pass a plant without running my hands through it and inhaling deeply (or in the case of the thorny rose, delicately shoving my shnoz into the bed of petals after a quick check for any winged competitors). After my experience I reflect and think about how it felt when I inhaled the scent. Was it fresh and uplifting and lemony? Was it warm and soothing like a cinnamon hug? Perhaps it smelled like earth after the rains have fallen, which is called petrichor and is a result of plant oils released into the air combined with the chemicals produced by bacteria in the soil in response to the rain.
A couple of weeks ago, we were watching a talk about the science behind cannabis (we were at a wellness festival and I must admit I was drawn in by the combination of science and plant medicine!). The speaker mentioned the reactions of the human body to smells, for example in response to alpha pinenes, the chemical found in Pine tree sap, which is energising, refreshing and antimicrobial. So when my boyfriend asked me to help him find some, I jumped at the opportunity to finally use the knowledge on aromatherapy I had learned in my teenage years when I was an aspiring physio. Who knew it would come into such perfect use more than a decade later, even if I had to dust it off upon extraction from the dusty archives of my mental library.
After redirecting off a vaping site where they were selling rather non-descript but supposedly legal scented oils with names like Sunset Sherbet and Banana Kush and indeed alpha-pinene terpenes (the chemical group name), we did a bit of research on the benefits of Pine oils and bought a high quality, organic Pine essential oil. The plan is to use it in the bath with magnesium salts, or in a diffuser and humidifier, or even for massage in a carrier oil.
None of this is the point of the story though. The point of the story is that buying essential oils is second nature to me, but that it was something new for my partner. Through the discussion I realised that I had spent years learning the basics of aromatherapy and educating myself on how they impact the human body. The benefits of plant compounds is ancient knowledge that goes back to the beginning of time. Animals know it, humans know it. The one website I found included examples of when and how in history plant compounds had been extracted and used by humans to support health, not just by ancient Eastern and African cultures but by Europeans and other Western civilisations more recently. For example, and this fact was clearly my favourite seeing as it was the first that jumped to mind!, in the 1600s the Dutch made an alcoholic tonic from Juniper berries which we now know as gin!! And anyone who has had even the slightest exposure to Jagermeister will agree that its description as a herbal elixir of 56 herb types will cure any ailment, or at least help you forget about it!!
Still not the point though. The point was: why did it take 32 years for one person to realise the uses of scents and another 14? In the discussion that followed, my boyfriend reflected how it was only after having a logical and cognitive verbal explanation that he realised how being around plants could be useful to influence mood and health. It was through someone else's words and reading up on it that it made sense to him and only then would give it a proper try. What stood out for me was that he approached it thoughts first whereas I had approached it senses first. The disconnection between your awareness and your senses can result in an ignorance about how your body experiences the world. For example, think about your favourite food. Really imagine it, visualise it in front of you, imagine the smell of it wafting into your nose. How does your body respond? What's happening in your mouth, in your stomach? Did you know that just thinking about food activates your salivary glands so that they start releasing more liquid? Or that your body starts releasing digestive juices to prepare for the food your sending it? To extend this concept, how does your body feel when you are happy? Or stressed? What parts of your body get tense or relax or feel pain? If you are aware of how your body senses and responds to your environment, you can learn so much more about yourself and take care of yourself so much better. When you put your hand on a hot plate, you don't think about whether it is burning you and whether you should take it away, your body pulls your hand away without thinking. Your body is very good at looking after itself.
But we are very bad at listening to it!
Our modern lifestyles incline us to live in our heads and to live our lives through the stories we make up using thoughts. As children we naturally use our 5 senses to learn about the world around us, why else would a child put a rough and earthy rock into their little mouths if not to feel the texture and taste?? But as we progress through school and word-based academics become the focus, we lose touch with the natural world around us and we are ridiculed for referring to our intuition and senses. This is especially intense in high-performing and competitive cities. Concrete jungles have replaced the forests and rivers, and the air and water is polluted and recycled. Now wonder we don't want to use our senses, who wants to have a heightened awareness of the dirty environment we live in?
Living close to nature and eating a balanced and whole foods diet that we have gone out and collected from the source gives our body the chance to tell us what we need. It is the most incredible thing for me, that when our bodies are in need of something, like a mineral or water, it is able to turn that need in the body into a thought in the brain. Once that thought is in our mind we go in search of it until the balance in our bodies is once again restored.
To live in this way requires us to be aware of what our physical body is saying. A grumbling stomach tells us we're hungry. A craving for crisps might be a need for salt. Tense, bunched shoulders might tell you you're feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders. A happy feeling as you run your hands through a bush of rosemary and inhale the scent may just be telling you that rosemary is good for you! By being more aware of our bodies and whipping out our 5 senses when we are trying something out will go a long way in enhancing the quality of life. I would go as far as to say it's common scents!
Want to read up more? Sources:
https://www.livescience.com/37648-good-smells-rain-petrichor.html
https://ayurvedicoils.com/tag/health-benefits-of-a-pinene
This stood out for me in a recent conversation about essential oils! I have always loved smells and often let my nose lead me into an experience. When I cook, all ingredients must be sniffed at first and when I walk through a garden I can't pass a plant without running my hands through it and inhaling deeply (or in the case of the thorny rose, delicately shoving my shnoz into the bed of petals after a quick check for any winged competitors). After my experience I reflect and think about how it felt when I inhaled the scent. Was it fresh and uplifting and lemony? Was it warm and soothing like a cinnamon hug? Perhaps it smelled like earth after the rains have fallen, which is called petrichor and is a result of plant oils released into the air combined with the chemicals produced by bacteria in the soil in response to the rain.
A couple of weeks ago, we were watching a talk about the science behind cannabis (we were at a wellness festival and I must admit I was drawn in by the combination of science and plant medicine!). The speaker mentioned the reactions of the human body to smells, for example in response to alpha pinenes, the chemical found in Pine tree sap, which is energising, refreshing and antimicrobial. So when my boyfriend asked me to help him find some, I jumped at the opportunity to finally use the knowledge on aromatherapy I had learned in my teenage years when I was an aspiring physio. Who knew it would come into such perfect use more than a decade later, even if I had to dust it off upon extraction from the dusty archives of my mental library.
After redirecting off a vaping site where they were selling rather non-descript but supposedly legal scented oils with names like Sunset Sherbet and Banana Kush and indeed alpha-pinene terpenes (the chemical group name), we did a bit of research on the benefits of Pine oils and bought a high quality, organic Pine essential oil. The plan is to use it in the bath with magnesium salts, or in a diffuser and humidifier, or even for massage in a carrier oil.
None of this is the point of the story though. The point of the story is that buying essential oils is second nature to me, but that it was something new for my partner. Through the discussion I realised that I had spent years learning the basics of aromatherapy and educating myself on how they impact the human body. The benefits of plant compounds is ancient knowledge that goes back to the beginning of time. Animals know it, humans know it. The one website I found included examples of when and how in history plant compounds had been extracted and used by humans to support health, not just by ancient Eastern and African cultures but by Europeans and other Western civilisations more recently. For example, and this fact was clearly my favourite seeing as it was the first that jumped to mind!, in the 1600s the Dutch made an alcoholic tonic from Juniper berries which we now know as gin!! And anyone who has had even the slightest exposure to Jagermeister will agree that its description as a herbal elixir of 56 herb types will cure any ailment, or at least help you forget about it!!
Still not the point though. The point was: why did it take 32 years for one person to realise the uses of scents and another 14? In the discussion that followed, my boyfriend reflected how it was only after having a logical and cognitive verbal explanation that he realised how being around plants could be useful to influence mood and health. It was through someone else's words and reading up on it that it made sense to him and only then would give it a proper try. What stood out for me was that he approached it thoughts first whereas I had approached it senses first. The disconnection between your awareness and your senses can result in an ignorance about how your body experiences the world. For example, think about your favourite food. Really imagine it, visualise it in front of you, imagine the smell of it wafting into your nose. How does your body respond? What's happening in your mouth, in your stomach? Did you know that just thinking about food activates your salivary glands so that they start releasing more liquid? Or that your body starts releasing digestive juices to prepare for the food your sending it? To extend this concept, how does your body feel when you are happy? Or stressed? What parts of your body get tense or relax or feel pain? If you are aware of how your body senses and responds to your environment, you can learn so much more about yourself and take care of yourself so much better. When you put your hand on a hot plate, you don't think about whether it is burning you and whether you should take it away, your body pulls your hand away without thinking. Your body is very good at looking after itself.
But we are very bad at listening to it!
Our modern lifestyles incline us to live in our heads and to live our lives through the stories we make up using thoughts. As children we naturally use our 5 senses to learn about the world around us, why else would a child put a rough and earthy rock into their little mouths if not to feel the texture and taste?? But as we progress through school and word-based academics become the focus, we lose touch with the natural world around us and we are ridiculed for referring to our intuition and senses. This is especially intense in high-performing and competitive cities. Concrete jungles have replaced the forests and rivers, and the air and water is polluted and recycled. Now wonder we don't want to use our senses, who wants to have a heightened awareness of the dirty environment we live in?
Living close to nature and eating a balanced and whole foods diet that we have gone out and collected from the source gives our body the chance to tell us what we need. It is the most incredible thing for me, that when our bodies are in need of something, like a mineral or water, it is able to turn that need in the body into a thought in the brain. Once that thought is in our mind we go in search of it until the balance in our bodies is once again restored.
To live in this way requires us to be aware of what our physical body is saying. A grumbling stomach tells us we're hungry. A craving for crisps might be a need for salt. Tense, bunched shoulders might tell you you're feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders. A happy feeling as you run your hands through a bush of rosemary and inhale the scent may just be telling you that rosemary is good for you! By being more aware of our bodies and whipping out our 5 senses when we are trying something out will go a long way in enhancing the quality of life. I would go as far as to say it's common scents!
Want to read up more? Sources:
https://www.livescience.com/37648-good-smells-rain-petrichor.html
https://ayurvedicoils.com/tag/health-benefits-of-a-pinene
Comments
Post a Comment