Aromatherapy to enjoy life at home even more

During the past year, we have become confined to our homes, having to spend more time at home than ever. Consequently, we have started to decorate our homes in an attempt to improve our living spaces, but one thing that has remained potentially unexploited is the scent that we surround ourselves with. Now that we are working from home and spending most of our leisure time at home too, we have the freedom to choose any scents we wish to decorate our space with, particularly our working space where we spend the majority of our work week, without fear that our work colleagues might dislike or be allergic to them.   

The sense of smell is so impactful and can have such a great influence on how we feel, our mood, our wellbeing, it can influence our thoughts, stimulate our creative juices, make us feel relaxed, uplifted, invigorated, energised, bring back memories and give rise to all sorts of emotions. Yet, it is widely neglected. While we decorate our homes in an attempt to improve our living spaces, we tend to neglect choosing to bring in scents that would not only add the finishing touches to our surroundings, but, most importantly, would greatly shape how we feel, how we think and how we behave at home. Out of our 5 senses, the sense of smell is the one that is most sharply perceived by the brain. So, the current situation requiring us to stay at home is the perfect occasion to tap into and make the most of the opportunity to surround ourselves with our beloved scents and use them as our happiness toolkit especially for times when we feel trapped at home.

Fragrancing our spaces with beautiful scents can help us to appreciate our homes more and make the time spent  in lockdown feel more enjoyable. It can even increase our productivity, carry our thoughts onto a path of new ideas, goals and daydreams. It can bring positivity into our hearts and minds...a sense of indulgence while at home, an invite to relax, contemplate, recharge our minds and meditate.

 

That is actually how aromatherapy works: when you burn candles or wax melts that have been scented with essential oils, the molecules from the essential oils will start dissipating into the room. Once they get picked up by our smell receptors they send messages through our nervous system to our limbic system which is the part of the brain that controls our feelings, memories, emotions. This is how aromatherapy, by stimulating your limbic system, can influence our emotions, thoughts, feelings and memories.