GenInv – Health and Wellness

Back in the 1990s, the UK experienced a very quiet cultural revolution. To all intents and purposes started by a then-famous high street chain, the revolution spread an awareness of “alternative” products to every home in Britain. Where once people wouldn’t dream of self medicating, or trying to treat their various stresses and strains by any other means than a visit to the doctor, suddenly they were presented with the idea that aromatherapy products, health supplements and the like c

ould significantly improve their quality of life. No pills, no prescriptions, just better living.

20 years on, the nation has embraced aromatherapy and holistic living to such an extent that it’s difficult to remember that they were once seen as deeply suspicious. In large part, of course, it was the medical profession that was responsible for that suspicion – and why blame it? In the eyes of the doctors, aromatherapy and its “alternative” cousins were simply hocus-pocus, unfounded and un

proven ways of treating nebulous ailments like stress and anxiety. They damned aromatherapy products not so much with faint praise as with utter blankness, almost refusing to acknowledge their existence.

What the medical profession then failed to realise, and what it reluctantly admits now, is that aromatherapy had been practised for hundreds of years before any of us had even heard (for example) of penicillin. The beneficial effects of simple inhalation alone had been known to pre-scientific

medicine centuries ago – effects that modern medicine, of course, hijacked in its own “treatments” for things like panic attacks (remember all that “breathe into a paper bag” behaviour? Direct descendant of an ancient medical emphasis on breathing control). Aromatherapy products obviously tap directly into this age old recognition – that breathing, as the key process for any human or animal, is a logical place to start when trying to cure stress related ailments.

Breathing is something everyone does. Without it, people die. Stress and nervous tension register frequently in the breathing before they affect any other part of the human organism. A corollary of that recognition: if one can control one’s breathing, one can control one’s stress and its related illnesses. What aromatherapy, and aromatherapy products do (and have always done, for that matter) is to highlight the breathing process (thereby slowing it down and bringing it under control) – and to augment it with preparations proven to encourage particular states of mind or even physical relaxation.

The importance of physical relaxation in managing stress is of course well known – as is the importance of muscular rest in maintaining a healthy body. Healthy bodies are less susceptible to common ailments like colds and strains of ‘flu: bodies that rest well regenerate better, repair better and are less likely to develop pains, sprains and postural defects. Aromatherapy products can promote muscle relaxation by diffusing certain herbs (lavender is common, and famous for its relaxing properties) in the air breathed by the patient. When one thinks about it like that, the gap between holistic medicine and certain “proper” medical practices seems to shorten. What, after all, is anaesthetic if not an extreme form of aromatherapy?

The revolution is complete – aromatherapy products are widely accepted as excellent ways to manage the stress and tension that abounds in the modern world. Perhaps, one day, they’ll even be segued into the practice of general medicine.