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I live an alternative lifestyle. It’s nothing radical or rebellious. I’m a work at home mom, over forty with a toddler. At this point in my life I expected to have a bustling career and grown kids either out of the house or about ready to leave the nest, but life doesn’t always turn out the way we’re told it should – stuff happens; stressful situations pop up everyday, either caused by us or ‘for’ us.

How do I ‘treat’ these situations and still care for my mind and body without loosing it? There’s where the other component of my alternative lifestyle comes in – aromatherapy. Aromatherapy, or ‘treating with scents’, is huge and growing in the area of alternative medicines, and is used in hospitals and homes to treat anything from labor pains to cardiac rehab. Although used in other countries for centuries, aromatherapy is making its way into the everyday lives of people around the US. People like myself, potentially stressed out work at home moms.

If you’re new to the idea of using aromatherapy to help reduce the stress in your life, then start with something simple such as a lavender bath or other lavender essential oil product. Here is a simple and wonderful recipe that you can try at home in your bath before bed.

Lavender Calming Bath Crystals

1 cup Epsom salts
10 drops Lavender essential oil
1 drop food coloring
Shake all ingredients in a Ziploc bag until coated. Store in a bottle or bag.

Another wonderful way to use aromatherapy to relieve stress is to apply a lovely lavender scented body lotion to your sore aching muscles. Apply this easy to mix lavender lotion after your bath, or if you’re lucky enough to have a partner who is willing, request a relaxing massage before bed. The calming scent of lavender works for fussy babies, why not stressed moms? Here is a simple recipe for a lavender lotion that you’ll love.

Lovely Lavender Lotion

1 oz. glycerin
2 tsp. oil of lavender
Put ingredients in a clean glass bottle and shake well. Refrigerate.

When life makes you crazy, remember, you have the power to create a calming oasis in your own home. Take a few minutes for yourself and relax. As mothers, we tend to forget that we must nurture ourselves before we can nurture our children to the best of our abilities. What better place to start than in our bath with beautiful scents, sounds and soft candlelight? Our lifestyles need not take over our lives.

First of all, what are essential oils?  The oil itself is obtained by extracting the “essence” out of a plant.  This extraction could be from various parts of that plant, the leaves, flower, bark, fruit rind or the fruit itself.  The oil will be highly concentrated and extracted using the process of distillation.  With these oils in hand, an aromatherapist would then use them to help patients attain a better state of physical and mental well being.

Oils can be used by themselves or blended together with a variety of other oils.  Generally, combinations are used to create a more desirable effect than could be obtained when just using a single oil.

So, how does aromatherapy work?  With our sense of smell, or olfaction.  When we inhale a scent our olfactory nerves are stimulated.  This process creates an impulse that’s to the emotional centers of our brains.  This part of our brain is called the limbic system and is linked to areas of the brain that control such things as your memories, breathing and blood circulation.  To illustrate this process, have you ever breathed in a scent and automatically had a memory related to that scent triggered?  This part of the brain is also connected to you endocrine glands, and they regulate your body’s hormone levels.  Understanding what scents impact what parts of the brain, and how they sooth or stimulate them is the basis of aromatherapy.

How can you take advantage of aromatherapy yourself?  Well, you could check out your local spas and see what kind of services they offer.  You can also buy an aromatherapy kit to use at home.  However, the most common way people take advantage of aromatherapy is to buy bath products with essential oils and find out what works best for you.