Aroma Therapy on the Road – Global Outings™

Sometimes travel can be, um, what’s the word? Ah yes: stressful.

Aroma Travelers

Aroma therapy is one way to help us deal with the excitement (read: unplanned interruptions) of life on the road. If you’re a: · Business traveler – you can light a travel candle to provide a little bit of ambiance in your cookie-cutter hotel room. · Holiday traveler – you can pop in a few sticks of incense to help ease you into relaxation on your vacation. · Professional traveler – you can opt for a tiny (teeny tiny) vial of scented oil to rub on your wrists. While a candle and / or incense and / or scented oil may seem like just one more thing to pack, the reality is that you can get a whole lot of bang for your packing buck. I believe aroma therapy really can provide healing and health-giving properties and it’s simple enough to inhale a bit of peppermint oil during a particularly hairy time.

Makes scents!

Here’re a few of the most popular scents and their therapeutic value:

• · Ginger: Increases motivation and wills inner strength. Helpful to relieve lower back pain and muscular pain.
• · Jasmine: Known as an aphrodisiac. Calms nervous anxiety, restlessness and depression. Used to treat irritated and dry skin.
• · Lavender: Harmonizing effect on the nervous system and helpful for restful sleep. With antiseptic properties, used with skin preparations and insect bites.
• · Sandalwood: Provides a soothing and relaxing effect. Particularly helpful for the relief of headaches.
• · Nutmeg: To help with general fatigue, it has a warming property that can aid muscular aches and pains.
• · Lemongrass: The scent is uplifting and energizing. It is useful for clearing you mind. Also used as an astringents and to cleanse skin.

OK, so I wrote this while staying at Puri Mas resort on the Indonesian island of Lombok. It has a health spa attached and offers daily “flower” messages for your feet, volcanic rock messages, and pineapple exfoliation. And while I’m sorely tempted to indulge in a big way, I think my take-way will be a teeny tiny vial of scented oil. Just in case my next 26-hour bus ride is, um, “adventurous.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 8th, 2011 and is filed under What to Pack.