Biochemical Aromatherapy article - Aromatherapy Times

                                                          June 2005

 

 

With more and more people turning to Aromatherapy not just for a relaxing massage but as a form of treatment for their ailments, it is time for us Aromatherapists to understand scientifically how essential oils work within the body.

At the moment, the only thing that we know about oils are that they relax us or stimulate us or that they are good at relieving headaches and so on but do we know WHY they do this and how. 

I have decided to write over the next few issues a series of articles centering on how oils work within the body and why they heal us as they do. This will enable you to gain more insight into what oil you should use for a particular symptom and to know where within the body the oil is working.

 In conventional Aromatherapy courses we are taught the ways in which essential oils are carried into the body but there it stops. This article takes it a stage further to explain the effect on the brain by the oil and its effects on the entire body as a consequence. 

The first thing to know is that the moment that we smell an essential oil or have a drop placed on our bodies, biochemical changes occur within the brain. These changes elicit responses from other parts of the brain which then lead messages to be sent to all parts of the body. 

You can by choosing the correct oil, encourage the body to produce a particular brain chemical that will counteract a symptom or feeling. 

For example Frankincense works on the biochemicals for fear and panic and some of my clients have been known to stop a panic attack in mid flow just by smelling Frankincense straight from the bottle. This is because Frankincense works on the biochemicals that help block the flow of adrenalin and other substances which lead to people having a panic attack.

Smelling frankincense has the effect of increasing our Endorphins ( substances that make us feel good) and another chemical called phenylethylamine (a chemical which plays a critical role in the limbic system of the brain and known to give a feeling of bliss) and therefore counteracts the effects of the fear chemicals that are coursing through the body. 

This week though I am focussing on Lavender and how it works within the body. 

Lavender is usually, the one oil that, people who are not really into Aromatherapy in a big way, will have in their homes at any one time.Ask them why they have it, they will say a number of reasons, namely to ‘help me sleep’, ‘to help me relax’, ‘for headaches’ etc.

For Aromatherapists, we know that Lavender is balancing (why? And what does that mean?) and that it helps people to relax, unwind and let go. It aids in the healing of headaches and wounds and burns and it also helps to put us to sleep at night.

So for both of the above groups, there is not much difference between what they know about the action of Lavender and its abilities. The fact that one of the above groups is a qualified practitioner and the other not doesn’t matter, they both have the same limited knowledge of what Lavender does, which I feel is not good at all for us as practitioners.

The reason that Lavender helps us to sleep at night is because it has a direct action on the amino acid Tryptophan. Tryptophan is the precursor of serotonin and it is this chemical that floods the brain and with other chemicals helps us to sleep at night.Tryptophan is involved in the synthesis of B3, it’s a mood stabiliser, it helps against vascular migraine, is an anti-depressant, sleep enhancer, aids against restless leg syndrome amongst other things.

Can you see any parallels in the above symptoms and the ones that Lavender treats.

This could be one of the reasons that Lavender has such a wide acting range in healing.

 For some people though, Lavender does not help them sleep, but can irritate them. This maybe is, because the reason that they cannot sleep may not be due to Tryptophan but because other biochemicals are not being produced.

Roman Chamomile works on the biochemical melatonin, a hormone that is secreted by the pineal gland and which gives us our regulation of our bodies biological clock, promotes sleep and can inhibit reproductive matters amongst other things.

I have found that if people do not respond to Lavender, then they do to Roman chamomile (if no other factors exist like panic or fear etc) to help them to sleep. This is because Lavender works on the Hypothalamus and Roman chamomile the pineal gland and so they tackle sleep from different points and with different biochemicals.

What maybe needed is to help flood the brain with both serotonin and melatonin by giving them both Lavender and Chamomile to use before bed and if there is fear involved, then you can give them Frankincense as well to help block the adrenalin that maybe influencing it.

Lavender helps alleviate stress because it influences biochemicals such as Acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is at all nerve-muscle junctions as well as many other sites in the nervous system. It is involved in the control of sweat glands and heart beat and it transmits messages between neurons in the brain and spinal cord. It is involved in stress responses and Lavender encourages this transmitter to help bring the heartbeat back to normal and encourage the person to calm down.

 Lavender also influences Dopamine (the chemical involved in Parkinsons disease) and again Dopamine helps bring the heartbeat and blood pressure back to normal and is again involved in emotional responses.

This is why Lavender is a hypotensive as its actions influence the neurotransmitters that help bring down blood pressure.

I have been told of a research programme involving Lavender and Parkinsons disease (where sufferers have low levels of Dopamine) with good results but as of yet I have not been able to find out where the research is being carried out.

A lot of these neurotransmitters are involved in the stress response and a lot of them help make us feel good, which is why, in a recent survey, so many people loved the smell of Lavender to any other oil. 

Lavender is known to be an oil that helps wounds to heal. This maybe due to its effect on serotonin, a neurotransmitter.

Serotonin levels increase after an injury where it is released at the site of bleeding to constrict small blood vessels and control blood loss. Lavender increases the amount of serotonin at the site of bleeding either administered topically onto the actual site of the blood loss or even by sniffing the oil.

This encourages the blood loss to slow and allows the wound to heal quicker.  

Experiments using other oils that have no effect on serotonin levels and other blood constricting chemicals showed no speed of healing within the wound and the wound took longer to clear up. 

One of the things that we need to remember is that we do not have to use oils in a massage to influence our body chemicals, but even sniffing the oil direct from the bottle is enough to produce the desired effect. 

I think that the reason why people feel that Lavender is ‘balancing’ is that when you are under the influence of chemicals that are making us feel fearful, stressed, or unhappy, we are in fact unbalanced. Lavenders actions on the neurotransmitters that help bring our blood pressure, heartbeat, emotional responses and our abilitiy to cope with stress back to normal, give us the space to breathe and recharge ourselves again, so we feel more balanced and able to cope with life again.

Lavenders’ balancing action can be explained by the fact that it has an action on the Hypothalamus. The Hypothalamus is if you like the company director of our bodies and the Pituitary the foreman. If you can influence the company director, then you can elicit great changes throughout the entire energy system. 

Some of the main biochemicals Lavender actually influences are:

Acetylcholine

Dopamine

Endorphins

Interferon (this helps fight infection – made by white blood cells. Stops many viruses from replicating within body cells. Lavender owes a lot of its antiviral action on influencing and increasing biochemicals such as interferon).

Serotonin

Anandamide (used by the brain as a central fine-tuner of electrical activity. Acts as a chemical messenger between the embryo and the uterus during implantation of the embryo in the uterine wall – affected by the stress response. Could be one of the reasons some women cannot get pregnant and because its linked to the stress response why some women have found that Lavender has helped them to conceive. Namely that Lavender encourages the neurotransmitters that make us relax and make us feel good and helps also by influencing anandamide).

Adrenalin

Enkephalins (increased secretion of these into the blood stream when stressed. Produced in the adrenal medulla where Lavender has a big influence). 

Lavender influences a wide range of neurotransmitters, too many to mention in the small confines of this article. But hopefully this small amount of information will aid you in actually knowing and understanding a bit better why Lavender does what it does.

You can learn more about each individual essential oil's psychological profile by buying Josie's book - 'The Psychological Aspects of Essential Oils' in the shop on this site.

 

Biochemical Aromatherapy - 2006 - Aromatherapy Times

In the case of Frankincense, I have observed that it works on old past fear whether it comes from the past life or present life situations. I have written a book on my own psychological observations which forms part of this course.

Most cases of panic or fear do not come from the present time though a trigger (from the 'now') that they have seen or heard may have set it off, so to the person it seems that the fear has just arose.

In all cases of fear that I have worked with it always transpires that we need to either go back to a past life or to an earlier age to define the fear and set it free. This is what I feel Frankincense does.

Frankincense is an oil that works on the threadsoul, a place in our subtle bodies that shamans use to travel back to our past lives and issues when they heal people. Some people do indeed feel a sense of flying as they are experiencing the act of travelling through their threadsoul to go back to past lives to release a fear that was laid down in that time, exactly the same as a shaman does.

They are in fact feeling the flying that shamans experience. Frankincense helps us to do this for ourselves without going into an hypnotic trance or take drugs to produce the effect.

In fact Frankincense works so much on the biochemicals that calm us down that it in fact puts us into a hypnotic trance like state that enables us to access old closed areas.

I have noticed that when people use Frankincense to access old fear, one biochemical stands out most and that is 2-phenylethylamine/ PEA. This neuro-hormone plays a critical role in the limbic system and is known to give a feeling of bliss. 60% of depressed patients have a PEA deficit and anti-depressants increase concentrations of this in the brain.

It seems to induce a torpor or trance like state in people which seems to be conducive to accessing parts of themselves that they have closed off.

True not all people experience panic, but can feel anxiety, numbness, worry etc as these are all on the fear spectrum. It does not seem to matter, Frankincense still works on them all in the same way.

What I have researched is not definitive but it is intended to make people more aware of other ways of looking at oils.  

Frankincense works on the biochemicals for fear and panic and some of my clients have been known to stop a panic attack in mid flow just by smelling Frankincense straight from the bottle. This is because Frankincense works on the biochemicals that help block the flow of adrenalin and other substances which lead to people having a panic attack.

Smelling frankincense has the effect of increasing our Endorphins ( substances that make us feel good) and another chemical called phenylethylamine (a chemical which plays a critical role in the limbic system of the brain and known to give a feeling of bliss) and therefore counteracts the effects of the fear chemicals that are coursing through the body. 

Below are some of the biochemicals released during a stress response:

Beta Endorphins: released by the brain during stress, beta-endorphins act as a narcotic to protect from pain—"feel-good" chemicals for "fight-flight" so we won't feel it. But if we use up all the Beta Endorphins in "virtual" battles, there won't be any available for real ones. If we're under a lot of stress, we won't have a reserve to draw from, so that the chronic release not only reduces the ability to deal with pain, it actually increases the possibility of migraines and backache, etc.     

Prostaglandins: released during an inflammatory response. But if there's chronic stress, they become less able to help as anti-inflammatories.

Serotonin: Key to coherence and cellular communication. It puts every cell in the body on the same communication pattern. It takes about 60 days to rest from a high-stress event, so if there is too much or long-term stress, the communication runs dry and cells can't communicate. 70% is in the bowel, so Prozac and other anti-depressants can lead to constipation.

2-phenylethylamine/ PEA. This neuro-hormone plays a critical role in the limbic system and is known to give a feeling of bliss. 60% of depressed patients have a PEA deficit and anti-depressants increase concentrations of this in the brain.

Adrenal Glands: the "fight-flight" or "conserve & withdraw" impulse. Chronic stress can lead to a "freeze in the lights" response by stimulating the adrenals. One hormone excreted by the adrenals is cortisol.

Cortisol is released when ACTH is released from the anterior pituitary. ACTH acts upon the adrenal cortex

If overused, then its not available to fight allergies and other conditions.

They use cortisol in autoimmune shots, but some people believe that they give a lifetime supply in one shot which impacts throughout all the entire body and can set help to set up an autoimmune condition because the underlying cause has not been resolved.

Too much cortisol damages the brain, especially the hippocampus.

The release of epinephrine/norepinephrine helps to fight enemies and allergens also. But the chronic and repeated release of these damages the immune system and reduces one's ability to fight infection and cancer. Chronic elevated levels of these hormones impact other organs and body systems as well.
The conventional view is that if a threat to well-being is perceived – the hypothalmus is activated releasing adenocorticotropic releasing hormone which is carried to the anterior pituitary facilitating the release of adenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). ACTH acts upon the adrenal cortex releasing cortisol and other steroids which help mitigate against the release of ACTH which is connected with feelings of fear. Stimulation of the hypothalmus also affects the sympathetic nerve system and in turn the adrenal medulla, releasing epinephrine and norepinephrine, which produce a chain of further reactions.
Thyroid is stimulated by these hormones and releases its own, speeding up metabolism and helps to burn fuel and provide energy. But chronic stimulation leads to deficiency that contributes to fatigue, depression, hair loss and weight gain.

ANS. Autonomic Nervous System (parasympathetic calms & sympathetic speeds us up): the driver for alkaline/ash minerals—if not balanced, we burn up key minerals. Affects heart rate, endocrine, metabolism, etc. In stress cycle, it's like pushing the gas and brake simultaneously, but will use a lot of resources and go nowhere.

Liver: Affects cholesterol, arteriosclerosis, pleurisy. Our blood sugar levels in battle—stress—l go all thick, because we don't want to bleed to death and our blood sugar levels increase to provide more energy. If this response is constantly activated without a ‘battle’ ensuing because of stress, then problems can occur with our blood, arteries and cause conditions that affect the blood sugar levels.

Pancreas: sugar imbalance contributes to hypoglycemia, pancreatic exhaustion.  

Below are some of the other organs and systems that are affected by stress, though bear in mind that all of the body will be affected in one way or another by the effects of stress. 

Heart: Increased out-of- balance blood supply contributes to increased heart rate and high blood pressure. Stress in circulation creates imbalance in oxygenation & cholesterol which creates risk for embolism, heart attack, or stroke.

Kidneys & Bladder: bodily fluid imbalance. They have to work harder to clear the body from toxins and waste jettisoned through stress. They can become overloaded.

Detox Pathways congested lymphatics; excess load jettisoned through bowel/bladder.

Hypothalamus-Pineal-Pituitary: master glands for hormones.

Sex Hormones: impacts sex drive, generally lowers.


Stomach & Intestines: Shutdown of entire digestive tract, constipation/diarrhea, IBS.

Skin: itching in same spot (related to meridians), sweats more, clamminess—can create a chronic condition.

Spleen: blood filter.

Spinal Chord-Ganglion: nerve transmission.

Senses-Awareness-Instincts: Normal stress response heightens awareness and stimulates the senses. Chronic stress response creates burn out, inefficiency and loss of senses.

Thymus: immune system response lowered. 

You can learn more about each individual essential oil's psychological profile by buying Josie' book - The Pychological Aspects of Essential Oils in the shop on this site.

 

  

Biochemical aromatherapy and stress – another approach

                                      May 2007 

Stress as defined in the Chambers 20^th Century Dictionary is a hardship or a system of forces applied to the body leading to pressure from emotional, physical or mental influences: the insistent assigning of weight or importance. 

Stress could also be defined as that what ever we see, hear smell, taste or think has a direct effect on our brain and consequently to the rest of the body. The brain responds negatively or positively to every stimulus that we experience in life. 

Stress can be as small as stubbing your toe on a door or as large as suffering abuse. The brain will respond by sending biochemicals that help our body withstand the onslaught that we are doing to it. The brain is constantly trying to balance the chemical functions of the body.

It is trying to make sure that enough oxygen is absorbed by the body so that biochemical processes fundamental to life can carry on.

The brains first preoccupation no matter what type of stress you are going through is to keep the main organs functioning so that you have a better chance of surviving whatever it is you are up against. The brain does not have a list of criteria that it uses to distinguish between different crisis so that it can adjust to the degree of stress accordingly. It behaves the same way whether you are facing someone with a gun or whether you have seen a spider in the bath.

Your brain will produce the same response and this response is unique to each individual. The symptoms may seem the same from one person to the next but there will be different biochemical changes that will occur that gets them to that particular state.

 Our bodies in the modern world are under much more pressure and strain then our ancestors were a hundred years ago. Our brains now are having to respond constantly to stimuli all the time. This could be negotiating traffic to breathing in polluted air to the constant negative thought patterns that we feed ourselves with day after day (how do I look? Am I satisfied with my body? Am I proud of my achievements in life? Am I happy? Why isn’t anything going right in my life? Why don’t I have any money?Why am I alone? these are some of the examples of our internal stress that we put upon ourselves) to eating refined food that does not nourish our bodies.

 Our brains are constantly having to respond, making biochemical changes within our body to keep our bodies functioning smoothly in the face of this onslaught.

We can be stressed even when we do not consciously feel stressed. For example when we leave for work in the morning without eating breakfast. You may consciously not mind eating breakfast, in fact, you probably never eat breakfast, but your body has to therefore end up trying to obtain energy from wherever it can, in able to get you to walk down the street, get on the bus, spend hours at work till you eat something at lunch. If that lunch comprises only a white bread sandwich, a chocolate bar and a can of coke, you can begin to see where the deficit is beginning to build up within your body. You come home tired from work at the end of the day, you might be frustrated at not being able to get problems solved and then you begin to feel stressed and blame it on work. All the time your brain works quietly in the background responding to every thought and stimulus and eventually the body becomes deluged and begins to be dis-eased with itself.

So you do not have to suffer major stress for your body not to be stressed, in fact just living produces stress.

When the body feels stressed, hormonal changes occur within the hypothalamus and Pituitary which send chemical signals or messages to organs such as the adrenals, kidneys, liver, stomach etc who all react in one way or the other to this barrage of chemical stimuli.

This could mean not processing a certain food like in the case of an allergen or it might mean that you feel the need to urinate all the time or it might mean having heartburn. Whatever the symptom, it has arose out of stress that the body is experiencing . 

Stress doesn’t go away if not dealt with adequately either. Cells have a capacity to remember stress in the form of chemical imprints. This means that given the right trigger, the person can develop symptoms sometimes years after the original stress was going on.

Therefore you do not only as therapists work on recent stress but a lot of it is stress that was laid down in the past whose chemical imprint or beat constantly interferes with our normal biochemical programming.

 How many people have you treated who come in for treatment who say things like ‘I’ve never been the same since I had my baby’ or ‘the operation ‘ etc.The other problem of stress is that people will often blame other things for the reason that they are not well instead of the real reasons.

For example on a simple level, you have just missed a bus and the next one isn’t for 20 minutes which in turn will mean that you will be late for a meeting. At the point of you realising that you have missed the bus your brain will have flooded your body with biochemicals that will either get you to feel angry, mad, sad, tearful depending on how you deal with stress.

The bus comes along, you get to the meeting and everything goes well for the rest of the day. By seven o’clock that night you have started to develop heartburn and possibly wind. The first thing you think is that it was something that you ate. You think this instead of realising that when your body was stressed earlier in the day, your body understimulated the biochemicals to your digestive system and so it created a deficit so that when you ate later on, the digestive system was unable to cope and created the symptoms that you are experiencing now.

Dealing with stress is so subtle sometimes that we don’t even know that we are stressed and that our brain was responding to that stress. It could be having to walk across a room with everyone looking at you, the moment was fleeting but the stress caused during that walk was enough for your brain to respond and weaken your body in a way that is unique to you. 

I believe that any biochemical imbalances reflect through a persons entire energy system.

If we think a negative thought pattern this interferes with the biochemical activity of the brain. I believe that in turn our brain through our biochemicals transmits these imbalanced signals to our chakras which in turn sends messages or signals to our subtle bodies and to our higher self. So the imbalance affects our entire energy system. 

Essential oils enable us to help change these negative imprints so that we can change the way we deal or behave to stress and so help us to heal.

Every time we put essential oils on our skin or sniff them, our brain immediately responds by emitting biochemical messengers which encourages particular effects on the body.

These could be as simple as feeling more relaxed to changing complex biochemical messages which in turn help the body clear up conditions such as eczema or depression for example. 

Essential oils are one of the ways that we can influence our biochemical patterns positively and help our bodies to function properly.

Psychologically essential oils are wonderful tools to use to alleviate stress from negative emotions or negative thought patterns that we keep manifesting. 

Obviously when we look at stress from this angle, all essential oils will change the biochemical activity of our brain and therefore will change symptoms, although each biochemical affects a different part of the brain. 

Stress is laid down in the cells in the weakest part of your body (so as not to weaken another part) and if not actively worked on just lies there and festers.

Subsequently other experiences or thought patterns you think of and get stressed about get laid down there till the area reaches breaking point and you either develop a bad back or gall stones or Cancer for example. 

Therefore understanding when we are stressed and dealing with it at the time goes a long way to health, also working on stress that was laid down earlier or at childhood is critical for overall health as well. 

So understanding what is going on in a persons’brain when facing a particular stress and what biochemicals they are either depressing or stimulating when faced with this stress leads us to heal more effectively. It gives us another tool to use in helping us to heal as effectively as we can.

Once this biochemical mix is corrected, by working on the psychological issues involved the person can face this particular stress again without it affecting them like it used to before. This is especially helpful when dealing with phobias where just the sight of a spider for example will send the person to emit the same biochemcial pattern again and again. Breaking them out of this pattern gives them a freedom they had hitherto not known. 

Before one can utilise essential oils in this way, firstly we need to know parts of the brain, what they represent and the oils that influence them. Below I have outlined psychological patterns associated with the different parts of the brain in order to give you clues as to where a particular stress might lay within an individual and the biochemicals and oils that you could use to help them. 

PITUITARY:                   Relates to the qualities of control, surrender, balance, harmony, truth and nerve. Helps to correct and balance conditions of want, desire, indifference, apathy, listnessness and inertia.

Aphrodesiac:     The Pituitary receives its orders from the Hypothalamus and therefore is the organ associated with taking higher authority. It works with polarity with the     body for if the organ started to work for its own benefit instead of the body’s,             then the body falls into disfunction. The Pituitary understands its role in life and accepts it has control and trusts that its needs will be met by the body as a whole.       The Pituitary needs surrender to function.  It gives excitement, generates energy and envelops everything with aphrodesiac qualities.

Endorphins:  Clary Sage, Jasmine, Patchouli, Ylang Ylang are some of the oils that produce the ‘endorphin’effect and influence this organ.

 HYPOTHALAMUS:        Relates to the qualities of acceptance, release, flexibility, suppleness and  Responsibility.  Helps to correct and balance conditions of inadequacy, defeatism, fear, despondency, mood swings self-hatred and anxiety.

Regulating: The Hypothalamus is the emotional centre of our brain and is where we    transform our emotional responses into physical responses. It regulates and balances our whole system. It controls the Pituitary and the Adrenal glands, the automatic functioning of the heart, lungs, digestive and circulatory systems and appetite, body  temperature and blood sugar levels.                              

It gives us honesty and acceptance of ourselves at a fundamental level. It allows us to release and let go, be flexible with ourselves and to take responsibility for           ourselves. The Hypothalamus needs self-love to function.

Various Bio- chemicals Particularly neuropeptides: Bergamot, Frankincense, Geranium and Rosewood are some of the oils that influence this organ.

 THALAMUS:               Relates to the qualities of love, resilience, soul, personality, self-knowing and the’will to live’. Helps to correct and balance conditions of self-hatred, a desire to die, uncertainty, feeling ‘sick at heart’, isolation and alienation.

Euphoric:   The Thalamus is linked to our sense of identity and because of its link to our heart,it is also the seat of our ‘fire’, our ‘passion’ and our love of life. It controls our immune and lymph systems and establishes our mode of health. It establishes our desire to live and gives us our strength to face difficulties in life and to resist influence or external invasion.  When we feel confident, loved and in control, it is very hard for us to be ill, but when we loose our positive frame of mind and feel low and unloved,        illness sets in.   The Thymus needs tolerance to function.

Enkephalins:  Clary Sage, Jasmine, Grapefruit and Rose are all oils that influence this organ.

 AMYGDALA/HIPPOCAMPUS:  Relates to the qualities of permission, compassion, sympathy, positivity, excitement, change, influence, liberation, learning and self will.   Helps to correct and balance conditions of denial, moroseness, irritability,  invasion, fear, anxiety, where people want to ‘fly’ instead of facing reality and old negative patterns of our past, poor memory, difficulty in concentration and                              mental fatigue.

Stimulant/memory:      The Amygdala/Hippocampus are our links to our ‘past’ and ‘future’. This is where  we store our memory of past events. Smell plays an important part here and it filters the memory of a particular smell to other areas of the brain so that it is  acted upon. It is the activity centre of our memory, whereby we log, define and  act upon stimuli that excites our link to past events and memory. If the stimuli brings us in contact with painful or fearful memories, then we depress the Amygdala which allows us to bury the pain of the memory somewhat. If the stimuli brings us in contact with pleasant memories or experiences, then the warmth of this is allowed to fill our whole system. When people work on ‘past life’ and NLP ‘time line’, they ostensibly are working here and in the Limbic part of the brain.The Amygdala/Hippocampus needs courage and compassion to function.

Various Bio-chemicals are involved here: Black Pepper, Peppermint, Rosemary and Lemon are all oils that influence this area.

 

 RAPHE NUCLEUS:   Relates to the qualities of stillness, serenity, sympathy, balancing, belonging,  joy and happiness. Helps to correct and balance conditions of anger, obsession, mania, irritability,  depression, victimisation, loneliness, helplessness, hypertension and insomnia.

Sedative: The Raphe Nucleus part of our brain calms our emotions and allows us to approach  life calmly. Negative, hot emotions are filtered out here and our sense of balance is restored. Therefore the Raphe Nucleus is our ‘conscience’ if you like, our mode of reasoning after the ‘fire’ or heat of a debate. It tempers over activity of any one  emotion and tries to bring the body back into balance. It’s job is to adjust over- energy and under-energy within the system.  Fears of being excited, passionate etc result in forced suppression of the Thalamus and a constant pressure on the Raphe Nucleus to keep sedating the individual. Fears of confronting the stillness of our being, of being calm and of our ‘dark’ side result in the suppression of the Raphe Nucleus and of the body being flooded with  ‘euphoric, happy’ chemicals which make the person ‘busy’ but ultimately wears them out. The Raphe Nucleus needs trust and assurance to function.    

 Neurotransmitters: particularly Serotonin:  Roman Chamomile, Lavender, Wild and Sweet Marjoram and Orange all influence this area.

 

LOCUS CERULEUS: Relates to the qualities of alliance, partnership, fraternity and association.  Helps to correct and balance conditions of sabotage, immune deficiency, Boredom, lethargy, kidney and lung problems, lymph problems, isolation,    Alienation, seperation, egoism, powerlessness, eczema, cancer and obesity. 

Invigorating:    The Locus Ceruleus is associated with our relationship to ourself, our world and  our position in the greater whole. It is the place that controls our fear to abandoning ourselves to ourself and others. Its main function is to make sure   that all aspects of the body is working together for the greater good of the whole. It gives us the energy to work together in a symbiotic relationship and through this our body is protected. Once we see ourselves as different and isolated from everyone else, then we start using our body as a shield from behind which we survey the world. We suppress the Locus Ceruleus and we become immobile, lumpen and inactive.                                       The Locus Ceruleus gives us the drive to live and exist in this world and to work for the greater good of our bodies instead of against them. The Locus Ceruleus needs co-operation to function.

Hormones particularly Noradrenalin: Cardamon, Lemongrass, Juniper and Rosemary are all oils that influence this area.

Knowing the biochemical activity of each essential oil gives you, the therapist a more defined understanding of its actions within the energy body of a person and the reasons it has the properties it has.

Below I will concentrate on one oil that has an effect directly on the stress of fear so that an understanding of its use can be more easily seen. 

Frankincense- boswellia carterii the gum resin of an arabian shrub has an interesting biochemical profile.

It’s vibrational energy works the best within the Etheric and Causal bodies and the Threadsoul and it resonates with the Solar Plexus Chakra to calm fears and phobias, so that we can grow emotionally and spiritually. 

Frankincense is the oil to use where issues from past lives are still affecting the person in this life, rendering them immobile, unable to move, think or see into the future.Frankincense helps us release our past, forgive our past mistakes and encourages inner strength and resolve which are needed for renewal and rebirth. When working with people who are working on stress from their past whether it be from a past life or this one, the brain exhibits an imbalance in the trafficking chemicals which help messages run smoothly from synapse to synapse and from one part of the body to another.

Calmodulin a modulator protein is one biochemical that comes up time and again when dealing with past life stress.

This is a calcium binding protein found within cells and many different biochemical processes are thought to be regulated by calmodulin. It has a regulatory effect on contraction and relaxation of smooth muscles, involved with gene regulation, protein synthesis, inflammation, short term memory, immune response, viral penetration and the cell cycle implicating it in AIDS, Alzheimers, certain cancers and other diseases too numerous to mention.

Frankincense works directly on this protein helping to correct the flow of this chemical from source and to help calmodulin interact with its various target enzymes (something I am convinced goes wrong when people swallow and hold onto fear and stress for a long time). Calmodulin influences the thread soul and is one of the main biochemicals that is produced in huge quantities when shamans go through the process of astral travel. It seems to be able to aid and facilitate their ability to do this. Burning frankincense helps increase levels of calmodulin and its target enzymes and therfore aids, the process of meditating, ‘out of body’ travel and other practices.

What is interesting is that true healers produce huge quantities of calmodulin and anandamide when healing. Anandamide is used by the brain as a central fine tuner of electrical activity. There is obviously a huge link here and frankincense is able to aid healers by helping to increase concentrations of these in the brain and body. 

Frankincense works well where the feelings are of fear, unease and uncertainty. It changes the frequency of these within the energy system to feelings of hope and excitement. It allows people to confront their fears and to realise that this is not as frightening as to be unable to confront them. It does this by working on the glucocorticoids. These biochemicals give us our resistence to stress ( there are three of them: cortisol, corticosterone and cortisone – these make sure that enough energy is available throughout the stress, anti-inflammatory, conversion of non-carbohydrates into energy).

Frankincense also influences adrenalin output. Frankincense helps bring down the rate at which we produce adrenalin in our body. It helps by influencing biochemicals which calm our breathing and heart rate and help us deal with the situation without ‘fighting or flighting’. Many people stop a panic attack in mid flow just by sniffing Frankincense straight from the bottle.

Frankincense’ main action is on the hypothalamus and through this its influence extends to the adrenals(glucocorticoids, adrenalin amongst others), the thyroid (thyrotropin releasing hormone, calcitonin), the automatic functioning of the heart, digestive and excretory systems and appetite. 

Frankincense I have observed works on old past fear whether it comes from the past life or present life situations.

Most cases of panic or fear do not come from the present time though a trigger (from the 'now') that they have seen or heard may have set it off, so to the person it seems that the fear has just arose.

In all cases of fear always transpires that we need to either go back to a past life or to an earlier age to define the fear and set it free. This is what I feel Frankincense does. Frankincense is an oil that works on the threadsoul, a place in our subtle bodies that shamans use to travel back to our past lives and issues when they heal people. Some people do indeed feel a sense of flying as they are experiencing the act of travelling through their threadsoul to go back to past lives to release a fear that was laid down in that time, exactly the same as a shaman does.

They are in fact feeling the flying that shamans’ experience. Frankincense helps us to do this for ourselves without going into an hypnotic trance or take drugs to produce the effect. 

In fact Frankincense works so much on the biochemicals that calm us down that it in fact puts us into a hypnotic trance like state that enables us to access old closed areas.

I have noticed that when people use Frankincense to access old fear, one biochemical stands out most and that is 2-phenylethylamine/ PEA. This neuro-hormone plays a critical role in the limbic system and is known to give a feeling of bliss. 60% of depressed patients have a PEA deficit and anti-depressants increase concentrations of this in the brain.

It seems to induce a torpor or trance like state in people which seems to be conducive to accessing parts of themselves that they have closed off. 

Once this has happened, once the past or the fears have been shed, a ripple effect occurs throughout the entire energy system; it is as if the person is free and the fears that had been weighing the energy system down have gone, and a ‘springback’ has occurred whereby the subtle bodies spring back like an elastic band and the energy system is no longer under any stress. The feelings of freedom, relief and lightness that occur when this has happened are immense and people generally become hooked on Frankincense because of this.One of the actions of Frankincense in the physical body is on the skin. Skin is the area where people place past-life issues and old, buried fears from any life. People with skin problems work well with Frankincense in helping them to let go of past issues – it helps them to understand that skin problems are deep, longstanding issues which need to be sorted out first. 

This is because Frankincense works on the biochemicals - cathepsin C, collagen and some of the complement proteins which affect the skin.

Cathepsin C is found in skin and bone cells and activates several of the chemicals controlling local immune and inflammatory responses and is involved in eczema, gingivitis and other conditions where the skin becomes thick, warty and tough.

Collagen types I, II, III and V are present in bone, skin, tendons, cartilage etc and influence the health of these structures. Frankincense is unusual in that it influences all types of collagen as well as elastin (together with fribrillin forms strong elastic fibres that are found in among other places within the skin) so its action on the skin is phenomenal.

The complement proteins are part of the non-specific immune response and frankincense influences complement factor B, D and I.

People subconciously have placed these deep seated issues on the outside in order to keep reminding them that this issue has not been worked out and is not going away on its own and how they do this, is by controlling on a deep unconcious level the biochemicals that affect the skin.

Every day the person is forced to confront and see these deep hidden issues because their skin is not performing the way it should.

This is why I feel that a more deeper knowledge of the biochemicals that each oil influences can help heal quicker. This is because as in the case of fears and phobias, we become ‘stuck’ in one way of dealing with a particular fear because our biochemicals will not allow us to behave in any other way. If I see a spider and I am petrified of them, then no amount of talking will get me to pick that spider up because I have trained my brain to respond in a particular way every time I see a spider. If we can influence those biochemicals which enable us to be able to change a fixed behaviour, then we free ourselves and our energy up. If we use oils that constantly stop the fear response while we are looking at a spider, we effectively retrain our brain to respond differently to the given stimulus and we are able to move on.

Frankincense works both on the skin itself (it’s a cytophylactic oil – it helps promote the growth of healthy skin cells and softens hard skin by influencing the above biochemicals) and deep within the person, getting them to face up to and confront subconsciously their past and to let it go. In doing this, it allows people to become reflective and meditative. It calms the breathing and the heart rate, which allows the person to expand and grow. This is why so many people use it for meditation and prayer practises, and by using Frankincense in meditation they can confront their ghosts, their past and cleanse themselves of it, after which they experience the freedom of reawakening.  

Contraindications 

None as yet known., though be careful with people suffering narcosis or any other mental delusional condition. Frankincense does help these people enormously but they have created these delusions and these mental health problems because they cannot face the fear of facing their deeper inner most issues and have covered them up with mental illness. Unlocking these narcosis and deep rooted fears takes subtle healing and experienced therapists who have worked with mental health patients before.

You can learn more about each individual essential oil's psychological profile by buying Josie's book - '