A nne Marie Martineau of Florence enjoys making aromatherapy remedies for her friends. She keeps a small refrigerator in her bedroom with dozens of vials of essential oils that she mixes in different combinations.
She especially likes making inhalers. She buys the blanks, which are small plastic tubes, each with a hole at one end and an opening to seal in an oil-drenched wick. To use one, you simply hold it up to your nose and breath in.
The effects, she says, can soothe everything from sinus pain to depression given the right mixture.
Aromatherapy is not just about smell. But a lot of it is.
The essential oils, explains Martineau, are derived from plant material like stems, roots, bark, leaves and flowers usually through steam distillation or friction compression.
Some have a direct effect on muscles and membranes. Others have psychological benefits, in large part because of the way smell can affect the brain.
Martineau, who works for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health and has been a human services administrator in Western Massachusetts for more than 30 years, says she has been interested in alternative medicine all of her life, though she does not use it in her job.
“I am fascinated by healing and non-medical ways you can approach the person,” she said.
Martineau became especially intrigued by aromatherapy when she was managing the psychiatric unit at Cooley Dickinson Hospital and there was a workshop for a group of clients.
“I would smell these smells coming out of this room and I would say, ‘What the heck is going on there?’ ” Martineau recalled.
On one level, working with essential oils and sampling the various smells “is just fun,” she said. People would get together and “during the hour they were smelling and comparing what they liked. It got them focused off their personal problems.”
But her interest in aromatherapy grew, leading her to take a year-long training with Kathy Duffy, the licensed practical nurse who was leading the groups at Cooley Dickinson.
Under Duffy’s tutelage Martineau studied 33 essential oils and wrote a research project on rosemary, an oil she is particularly fond of because of its stimulating properties.
“It will help you wake up and it invigorates you,” she said. “I love the combination of rosemary and lemon together. When I smell them I feel happy.”
Duffy has been a nurse since 1965 and an herbalist since 1980. She owns the Herbarium in Chicopee where seasoned practitioners as well as newcomers can come to learn about and purchase supplies for aromatherapy and other herbal healing remedies.
She is trainer for R.J. Buckle Associates, an organization started by British practitioner and author of Clinical Aromatherapy: Essential Oils in Practice Jane Buckle who advocates for and writes about evidence-based techniques for using aromatherapy as a complement to mainstream Western medicine.
But practicing aromatherapy has become a hobby of sorts for Martineau as she offers her knowledge to friends and family and at workshops she conducts. She has held sessions at places like the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community in Greenfield, the Holyoke schools and the Amherst Senior Center.
When someone comes to her seeking a remedy, she’ll take basic information about what the individual wants to address and then consult one of her reference books to come up with the appropriate ingredients. Then, she takes a plastic pipette to draw up the oils to deposit enough drops on an inhaler wick to soak it.
When Martineau visited the Amherst Senior Center this past summer she brought along a sampling of oils including eucalyptus, tea tree, spike lavender and rosemary, ingredients she used recently to make an inhaler to help ward of colds.
“Tea tree is very well known to have antiseptic qualities to it,” she said. “So I have this inhaler and it helps both with its anti viral properties and anti bacterial properties.”
She carries the inhaler with her when she is “around people who are sneezy,” she said, and uses it liberally to coat the mucus membranes where an infection could take hold.
“If you know anything about how germs enter the body, they enter through the nasal passages,” she said.
A friend who is a night watchman wanted something to help him stay awake while at work. He didn’t want to drink coffee in fear that it would keep him from sleeping at the end of his shift.
“I made him a very strong inhaler with peppermint oil so if he would get sleepy he would stick it up his nose and get a couple good scents and that would perk him up,” she said. “It would be like whoa, that’s a strong hit of peppermint.”
Rosemary is also a stimulant, said Martineau. She has seen studies from Japan showing that an upper body rubdown with rosemary can have a therapeutic effect in combating depression.
Citrus smells can also elevate one’s mood. “Who doesn’t like the smell of pink grapefruit?” she said. “We have this natural uplifting response to pink grapefruit which can be related to a feeling memory.”
As part of her training, Martineau learned about how to use aromas to aid in memory.
“If you are trying to remember something and if you pair what you are doing and studying with an unusual scent you are more likely when presented with that scent to manage to bring up that material.”
For instance, if you are learning algebra and you keep an inhaler at hand with a smell, such as strong basil that is not part of your usual experience, your brain can associate the material you are learning with that smell.
“If you are using the smell of coffee or orange or something common” it won’t work, she said.
The effect of smell on behavior is exemplified by the fact that we are instinctively repulsed by things that are rotting. We are put on alert by the smell of something burning. “These are survival mechanisms that are bred into us,” Martineau said.
“Smell is very connected to the brain and how it triggers things.” It can have a powerful effect on mood, she said.
The use of smell is all around us, she points out. Perfume makers work endlessly to figure out new formulas to appeal to our emotions. She recently dropped her car off to be cleaned. When she got it back there was a fragrant piece of cardboard in it that gave off a scent called “new car smell.” It’s a small example, she said, but the power of suggestion can go a long way to influence real feelings.”•
Eric Goldscheider is a freelance writer who lives in Amherst.
