Can aromatherapy help people combat depression?

We all wonder why after an injury or issue has healed and after several weeks of feeling pretty good, bang it flares up again, why? Last week I explained so factors influencing why this happens, now I want to explore the physiological aspects. The Physiological Law of Facilitation (the path of least resistance) The law explains why old injuries flare up under stress. When an impulse has passed once through a certain set of neurons in your brain to the exclusion of others, it will tend to take the same course on a future occasion, and each time it does, the resistance will become less. An analogy of this would be the image of rain on a dirt hill each time it rains the pathway becomes more entrenched, larger, and more intricate spreading out to nearby pathways.  So once a nerve learns a pain pattern it tends to repeat it even in the absence of the injury. So the effects of stress to your mind and body can be a trigger for this response to kick in. But wait, there is good news! The Law of Facilitation can be maneuvered to help a massage therapist make the benefits of their treatment last longer. You may be wandering how can this be?  In massage, patterns of imbalance which result from trauma, or from habitually stressful patterns like poor posture can be addressed.  So your body should adapt to changes taking place in the musculoskeletal system and create new pathways. The body likes sameness, which produces habitual patterns. When a pattern is established, it does not take as much stimulation to activate the response.

The first reaction when we are in pain is often to take a painkiller.  I know from experience in clinic, when that the painkiller stops working that is when our clients book a massage.  But would exerise help?  To me it is counter-intuitive to exercise when in pain so I was interested in a recent study that looked into this. A study of 176 people investigated if the standard Fustra20Neck&Back exercise programme (scroll to bottom for full details) for reducing pain and increasing fitenss of office workers with neck or lower back pain works.  All the participants sat for at least 6 hours a day at a desk and had experienced at least 2 episodes of moderate pain in the last month before the study started.  The study participants included both men and women between 30 - 50 years old.  Half were asigned to the exericse group and half to the control group.  The exercise group carried out the Fustra20Neck&Back exercise programme for 1 hour twice a week for 10 weeks. More than 90% of the particpants in the exercise group found that the intensity of the pain and fequency of the pain decreased significantly.  Improvements in neck & shoulder flexibility and quality of life were also recorded.  However there was no significant differences in lower back pain. Reference

Click below to see the strenght and core exercises.

I will start with a confession.  While I know the benefits of hydotherapy - basically you take a hot shower for 30 seconds then switch to freezing cold for 30 seconds, then go back to hot and repeat for 2 or 3 minutes - it has never appealed to me.  It may be fantastic for blood flow and good for your liver, but to me it seems brutal!  So in the past, I have only spent a few short minutes in a sauna and I have never been tempted to jump into the ice cold plunge pool afterwards - despite my finnish friends telling me how fantastic it is. So I was interested in the Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study which looked at if frequent use of a sauna has reduces the risk of high BP.  The study looked at 1,621 middle-aged men living in eastern Finland.  The study found that

• Going to the sauna 4 to 7 times per week reduces your risk of develping High BP by 46%.
• Going to the sauna 2 to 3 times per week reduces your risk of develpoing High BP by 24%.