October 03

The Sweet Scents of Sleep
Being overstressed and overburdened by day-to-day tasks makes many people too tense to easily relax at night. That’s one reason why natural methods like aromatherapy have become so popular in the quest for a good night’s sleep.

By Glenda Olsen

   Getting enough sleep? Even if you think are, you may not be. Research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine finds that people who build up a long-term sleep debt are often not even aware that lack of shuteye is decreasing their thinking powers (Sleep 3/03).
   The Pennsylvania sleep scientists found that people who were chronically short of sleep reported they were “only slightly sleepy” even though standard psychological testing showed that their functional abilities were woozy enough to be just this side of sleep walking.
   “Routine nightly sleep for fewer than six hours results in cognitive performance deficits, even if we feel we have adapted to it,” says Hans P.A. Van Dongen, PhD, Assistant Professor of Sleep and Chronobiology at the Department of Psychiatry. “[Our study]," he adds, “demonstrates the importance of sleep as a necessity for health and well-being. Even relatively moderate sleep restriction, if it is sustained night after night, can seriously impair our neurobiological functioning.”
   In the study, Dr. Dongen and his colleagues also found that continually getting little sleep, like only sleeping four to six hours a night, puts you at greater risk of automobile accidents and other mishaps.
   The amount of sleep we all need remains controversial, but the University of Pennsylvania team believes you need at least eight hours and fifteen minutes to stay mentally sharp.

Sleep and Immunity
   While your immune system never rests in its assigned role of protecting you against disease, you’d better rest if you want your immune cells to be able to do their job better. Research at the University Lavla in Quebec shows that insomniacs are not only frequently stressed out emotionally from tossing and turning all night, their immune systems are stressed out, too.
   When scientists looked at the immune response of 17 individuals who routinely had trouble going to sleep and compared them with 19 sound sleepers, they found that the tossers and turners had fewer immune cells than the people who slept better.
   The researchers took blood from both groups of people and found that poor sleepers had a paucity of white blood cells known as CD3, CD4 and CD8 cells.
   As for people who occasionally have trouble falling asleep, these scientists believe that while one missed night’s sleep may alter your immune response, it probably goes back to normal once you slip back into your normal sleep pattern.

Sniffing to Sleep
   Traditionally, many cultures have used the scents of aromatherapy to promote sleep. While, today, many people turn to sleeping pills and other medications when they have trouble falling asleep, the gentle currents of essential oils possess many advantages over using drugs to induce sleepiness.
   As Natalia Dudareva, PhD, professor at Purdue’s Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, notes, plants—even before essential oils are produced from them—make beneficial scents.
   She believes that plants should be bred for their aromatherapy benefits and that someday we will be able to merely sniff flowers to improve our health (and sleep). “What if you could make yourself feel better simply by putting a vase of enhanced flowers on your desk?” Dr. Dudareva asks. “That would be better than taking a pill!”
   Other experts agree with her that the brief passage of scents through the air and past the olfactory nerves in your nose can produce gentle, but profound, benefits.
“Unlike chemical drugs, essential oils do not, as far as we know, remain in the body. They are excreted...[and] expulsion takes three to six hours in a normal healthy body,” says Valerie Ann Worwood in The Complete Book of Essential Oils & Aromatherapy (New World Library).
   People who work with aromatherapies point out that the fact these scents produce health benefits are due to the rich collection of natural chemicals contained in the essential oils.
   “Essential oils are volatile oily substances; they are highly concentrated vegetal extracts that contain hormones, vitamins, antibiotics and antiseptics [from plants],” says Marcel Lavabre in The Aromatherapy Workbook (Healings Art Press).
   “Many plants produce essential oils, which are contained in tiny droplets between cells and play an important role in the biochemistry of the plants. They are also responsible for the fragrance of the plants,” he adds.

Lavender Lullaby
   According to Lavabre, lavender, an essence that is very helpful for lulling the sleepless into dreamland, was a favorite scent used by the ancient Romans in their baths: “…Lavender emanates a noble, mellow peacefulness…it tones and soothes the nervous system and is beneficial for the respiratory system.”
   Per Worwood’s instructions, you can place one to nine drops of lavender into a bowl of water that has just been boiled, close your doors and windows and allow about five minutes for the aroma to spread throughout the room.
   Or lavender (as well as other essential oils) can be spread with an atomizing diffuser, says Lavabre. “The nebulizer acts as an expansion chamber where the drops of oil are broken into a very thin mist. This mist, consisting of tiny, ionized droplets of essential oils, remains suspended for several hours, revitalizing the air with the antiseptic and deodorant properties of the essential oils.”
   Besides lavender, other essential oils that can help dispel sleeplessness include chamomile, marjoram, neroli and tangerine.
   A word of caution: Never apply essential oils directly to your skin. Undiluted they are too harsh. But a few drops added to a bath work just fine.
   Aromatherapy is as gentle and benign as its very name makes it sound.
   Lavabre puts it well: “This is a world without words, a world of images, that you explore from the tip of your nose to the center of your brain—a world of subtle surprise and silent ecstasy.”

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