If you've ever purchased a scented candle, scented body lotion, bath oil to help you relax, you may have been practicing a version of aromatherapy, or literally, therapy using smells. is more than just using pleasant scents to set a practitioners believe it can improve health.

Aromatherapy uses essential oils with specific properties physical symptoms. The essential oils are extracted from herbs, and trees and are massaged into the skin, inhaled, with teas, or scented in a room. Aromatherapy is used to relieve reduce tension, and fatigue, as well as care for skin. Since pain, and fatigue are such common PMS symptoms, it's no some women use aromatherapy as a PMS treatment.

While there's little evidence that aromatherapy can alleviate symptoms, there is some research to support that certain essential have restorative properties. For example, research at the University of Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom suggests that geranium essential oil reduces anxiety, while other scientific research it has a mild sedative effect.

However, conventional medicine believes that any therapeutic value from aromatherapy from the users' strong beliefs that it works, rather than anything in the essential oils themselves. Many times, aromatherapy is used in conjunction with other alternative therapies, such and reflexology.

Essential oils are believed to have different properties:

• Lavender: Antispasmodic, antidepressant, anti-inflammatory; antiviral and antibacterial, sedative

• Chamomile: Anti-inflammatory, antiallergenic, digestive, relaxant, antidepressant

• Clary sage: Anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, sedative

• Marjoram: Antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic

• Rosemary: Stimulates circulation, pain reliever, decongestant

• Tea tree: Antifungal, antiyeast, antibacterial

• Cypress: Astringent, stimulates circulation, antiseptic

• Peppermint: Digestive, antiseptic, decongestant, stimulant

• Eucalyptus: Decongestant, antiviral, antibacterial, stimulant

• Bergamot: Antidepressant, antiparasitic, anti-inflammatory

• Geranium: Antiseptic, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, diuretic

• Rose: Antibacterial, antidepressant, antiseptic, antispasmodic, astringent, diuretic, sedative

PMS Blends

If you want to try aromatherapy to treat PMS, you can massage the oils into your skin (especially the abdomen), inhale them (using a diffuser), or put them in the bath.

PMS recipes generally include clary sage, geranium, and lavender; clary sage, chamomile, and rose; or rosewood, rose, peppermint, and ylang. Put one to four drops of each essential oil the mixture. For example, one PMS blend might have three drops clary sage, four drops lavender, and three drops geranium.

If you want to create a massage mixture, add the essential oils to a carrier oil such as almond, apricot, grape seed, or jojoba oil (roughly twelve drops to one ounce of oil); in the bath, add eight to ten drops of essential oil and soak for fifteen minutes. If you want to inhale it, put the combined mixture into a diffuser.