Balanced Hormones and Aromatherapy

What comes to mind when you hear the word hormone(s).

Do you think of sayings like “my hormones are out of whack” or “I’m feeling so hormonal today”? While these things are all true, our hormones are so much more complicated than all that.

So, what are hormones anyway?

Hormones are chemical messengers that use your bloodstream to travel throughout your body to your tissues and organs. Did you know that your body houses 50 different types of hormones? They control any number of functions including metabolism, reproduction, growth, mood, and sexual health. 

For today’s topic though, we are going to discuss hormones and how they relate to women and our sexual health. This means from the time we start our period (think PMS), to perimenopause, to menopause and post menopause.

Aromatherapy can be instrumental to keep us comfortable through all these phases of our long and happy, hormonal lives!

Our bodies are these beautiful, intricate “machines” and all through our body we have these little things called hormone receptors. Some of our hormone receptors have names like oxytocin, progesterone, estrogen, aromatase, prolactin and so many more!!

To simplify things, I’ll try and explain it this way. When we are in menopause for instance, our estrogen receptors sit empty, we are no longer secreting this hormone as it’s no longer needed for ovulation or having babies.

Once these receptors are empty this is where and why we start to experience things like hot flashes, hair loss, weight gain and bone density loss.

What if I told you that essential oils have chemical compounds that can mimic these hormones and park themselves in these receptors. It’s true :) While essential oils can never replace these valuable hormones, they can fool the body into thinking it’s getting exactly what it needs to be comfortable! Hurray!!

We can calm things like bloating, headaches, cramps, pain, hot flashes, mood swings, sweats, sleep cycles etc. Essential oils cannot stop the craving for chocolate and comfort food, but who would want too really … We’ve earned it!

Here are a few of the chemical constituents that make up the yummy smelling essential oils that can be used to bind to the hormone receptors, and the essential oils they can be found in.

Many of these names won’t mean much to anyone but a clinical aromatherapist, but I feel it’s important for you to at least understand why essential oils work instead of just taking my word for it. This is not the extensive list, but hopefully it will give you a place to start experimenting for yourself.

Bisabolol – can be found in essentials oils of German Chamomile and to a lesser extent in Balsam Copaiba.

Germacrene – can be found in Clary Sage, Melissa, Yarrow and Ylang ylang.

Pinocarvone – can be found in Ho leaf, Lavandin, Sage.

Eudesmol – can be found in Vetiver, and Cypress.

There are many ways to get these precious components into our blood streams and start reaping the rewards. I have no one favorite way as each method works differently but can be used however it’s most convenient for our lives.

Diffusion – this is where we place essential oils into a nebulizer and allow the aromatic molecules to fill the air around us and we can breathe them in

Aromatherapy Roll-ons – This is when we take our essential oils, dilute them with a carrier oil and put them directly onto the skin allowing the molecules to circulate in our bloodstream by absorption.

Creams, Lotion and Balms – again this is how we can get the essentials oils into our bodies allowing the molecules to find our receptors.

I hope you’ll explore this avenue of Aromatherapy, and experiment until you find out exactly what works for you and at what stage of the monthly cycle you are experiencing.