How do Essential Work?

Of all the senses smell is the most powerful. Our sense of smell is estimated to be 10,000 times more acute than our other four senses. Once aromas are registered through the nerve endings in our nose, scent travels faster to the brain than both sight and sound. The mind has the power through smell to remind us of wonderful memories locked in the recesses of our brain.  Almost every nerve in the body must travel through the spinal cord to the brain except for the sinuses which go directly to the brain. Aromas can trigger emotional and even physical responses and allow vivid memory recall of people, time, and places. Think of a time a smell has reminded you of something and you had a positive emotional response. Maybe your favourite place, a treasured memory or even a childhood memory. This is because the sense of smell is linked to some of the oldest and deepest parts of the brain, called the Limbic system.

The physical structures of smell found in the nose and brain are together called the Olfactory system. The sense of smell is a lively sense, its effect is not constant but immediate and then it fades. 

Essential oils molecules are volatile meaning that they become gases and spread quickly. We can then inhale them with the air we breathe which is the first step to detecting their aroma.

When these active molecules connect with hair like cilia in our nose, the olfactory cells produce a nerve impulse which reaches the Limbic System in our brain. The Limbic system is one of the most primitive parts of the brain concerned with survival instincts and emotions. Scientists believe that the activity of the nerve signals passing through this region of the brain, cause mood change by altering our brain chemistry.

The nerve impulse eventually passes beyond the Limbic system to the Olfactory cortex, located towards the back of the brain. Here, the aroma will finally be recognised but by this time the brain and body will already have emotionally responded to it. 

The limbic system is a set of structures in the brain that controls emotion, memories, and arousal. It contains regions that detect fear, control bodily functions, and perceive sensory information (among other things). There are several important structures within the limbic system: the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, hypothalamus, basal ganglia, and cingulate gyrus. All the components of the limbic system work together to regulate some of the brain's most important processes.

It regulates autonomic or endocrine function in response to emotional stimuli and also is involved in reinforcing behaviour. The processes of the limbic system control our physical and emotional responses to environmental stimuli. This system categorizes the experience of an emotion as a pleasant or unpleasant mental state.