Paleo Air and the Benefits of Modern Aromatherapy

Essential oils can provide a tremendous number of benefits to people through a variety of mechanisms. Obviously using the art and science of aromatherapy is one of the more common methods.

And, why do essential oils provide such tremendous wellness benefits? There are a number of theories and one that we subscribe to is that animals, including people, evolved in the presence of plants, and we breathed the secondary metabolites that plants released into the surrounding air, and have been doing so for millions of years.

So, in an effort to emulate the ancient environment, a newer concept called Forest Bathing or Forest Therapy has emerged. In this practice, people are encouraged to relax, or gently walk in a forest. When doing so, they take in all the sights and sounds of the forest, and of course, they breathe the forest atmosphere.

Please note that forests, filled with Pine and Fir trees, as well as hundreds of other species, are very different entities than the never-ending fields of lavender you see in essential oil company images. When you breathe in from a bottle of lavender, you are breathing in terpenes, and we think that this is wonderful. However, you are not getting the full bouquet of terpenes that are present in a forest. There are over 35,000 named terpenes, and only a very small selection is found in any one individual essential oil.

For this reason, we encourage you, when possible, to utilize blends of essential oils that combine the terpenes of a large number of different aromatic compounds. They react synergistically, vastly improving the end result!

Portable essential oil diffusers, also known as desktop diffusers you hold in your hand, in which around a dozen different essential oils are blended are a perfect way to experience this bouquet of terpenes, in what we call breathing Paleo Air®."