Essential Oils 101
Share
Introduction to Essential Oils
Welcome to the exciting and fulfilling world of an Essential Oils! Even if
you’ve never officially studied essential oils, you’ve already experienced the natural,
volatile and aromatic qualities of different plants. Think of the last time you peeled
an orange, or walked through a rose garden. Do you remember the natural aromas
that filled the air?
You could enjoy these distinct smells thanks to the essential oils present in the
plant.
And with over 3,000 different types of aromatic compounds, there’s no doubt that
But essential oils are so much more than beautiful fragrances. They are necessary
for the plant’s health, and they impart their healing properties to humans, too. In
fact, they can be used for a variety of emotional and physical conditions.
There’s so much to learn in the field of essential oils, and this chapter beginas to
lays a foundation that you can return to again and again as you embark on this
aromatic journey.
We’ll start with this jam-packed module, where you’ll discover the basic vocabulary,
history, various uses, and numerous benefits of essential oils.
Lesson 1 gives you the “big picture” on how essential oils can dramatically increase
wellness and promote healthy function throughout the entire human body. You’ll
discover important information about essential oils, including:
● Origin – We know that essential oils didn’t just turn up in little bottles! Discover
how essential oils were developed over the course of thousands of years.
● Benefits – Learn how essential oils relax, soothe and help the body to heal itself,
all due to the chemical biocompatibility that essential oils share with the human
body.
● Function – It’s great when something works, but it’s even better when you
understand how and why something works, right? Here, we’ll cover the different
applications of oils and how they affect the body’s systems.
● Purity and Concentration – Essential oils are not simply fragrant oils. Discover
how essences are extracted from plants in order to obtain pure oils that are
therapeutic and promote healing.
● A Brief History – What do the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Greeks all have
in common with you and me? Essential oils! Here you’ll learn how various
cultures utilized these powerful substances.
● Modern Use – Finally, we discuss the advances made in the field of essential
oils after the 17th century. We’ll also look at influential writers, whose literature
continues to impact the study and application of essential oils today.
As you can see, we’ve got a lot to cover! So, keep reading to learn what essential oils
are, where they came from, and how they can support health and wellness.3
Lesson 1: What Are Essential Oils and
How Do They Work?
To use essential oils with precision and effectiveness, you need to know what they are,
what they’re made from, and how they can be used properly.
Essential oils are highly concentrated, plant-based extracts taken from a wide variety of
plant sources, such as flowers, trees, shrubs, grasses, fruits, and roots. These oils
support the health of the plant. In fact, they’re essential to the plant’s survival. For
example, they protect plants from predatory insects, viruses and bacteria. They also
help to provide oxygen and nutrition on a cellular level.
Essential oils, which provide various benefits to plants, also benefit the human body.
So, while you can extract essences from any given plant, essential oils are only those
oils that offer specific healing properties to the human body. And for this reason, they’ve
been used as an alternative medicine for various conditions, and to promote general
health and wellbeing throughout history.
How Essential Oils Benefit the Human Body
Plant cells and human cells have a lot in common. The essential oil, which benefits the
original plant source, also benefits the human body. So, even though the essential oil is
taken from the plant and works within the human body (instead of the plant), it still has
the same function.
Essential oils can transport valuable nutrients to the cells, increase oxygen intake, and
digest toxic waste in the blood. This is because the three primary elements – carbon,
hydrogen and oxygen – are common to both human beings and plants. This similarity
produces three, wonderful benefits:
● Biocompatibility – There are many plant-based, healing methods. But since
essential oils share such similar chemistry with the human body, they’re one of
the most compatible remedies we can use. Essential oils are lipid-soluble and
this allows the plant’s living tissues to absorb them. Because human cells also
have a protein structure similar to plants, we can also absorb these lipid-soluble
essential oils, too.
● Self-Healing Properties – Essential oils support self-healing activities by
facilitating normal function and increasing nutrient absorption, both in plants and
people. Certain oils contain antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal properties
which help the body fight infection. Other oils support emotional and hormonal4
© Essential Oil Academy. All rights reserved.
EssentialOilAcademy.com 1217 Cape Coral Pkwy., #159, Cape Coral, FL 33904
balance.
● Calming and Centering Benefits – Many essential oils are commonly used to
relax you and lower stress levels, to improve focus, and to support memory and
overall mental health and wellness.
Extraction and Potency
Do you know just how concentrated an essential oil is? In some cases, one drop of oil is
the result of one whole plant. This means that a very small amount of essential oil packs
quite a punch! Because of their highly concentrated nature, essential oils can be more
powerful than other medicinal plant modalities, like dry herbs.
How do we obtain these volatile and aromatic compounds from plants? Here are six of
the main ways to extract essential oils:
1. Cold pressing
2. Steam distillation
3. Resin tapping
4. Expression
5. Absolute oil extraction
6. Solvent extraction
How Do Essential Oils Work?
Essential oils offer therapeutic relief to the entire human body. We can introduce them,
and their healing properties, to the human body in these three ways:
● Topically – Because essential oils are lipid-soluble, they can be applied topically
and absorbed through the skin’s fatty layers. Essential oils can create a rapid
effect throughout the body via topical application.
● Internally – Oils can be ingested either alone, as part of mixture, or with water.
However, it’s generally more difficult for the body to absorb the healing properties
of essential oils within the digestive system.
● Aromatically – Essential oils can stimulate the brain and nerve function when
inhaled.
Now that you’re familiar with the three ways that the body absorbs essential oils, let’s
look at how essential oils can influence the body:5
● Increasing Oxygen Within the Body – Shortly after you apply or inhale
essential oils, your oxygen levels go up. When your cells have more oxygen, it’s
harder for parasites, fungal infections as well as bacterial and viral pathogens to
survive and spread.
● Stimulating the Brain – Olfactory nerves pass the healing compounds of
essential oils on to the brain. Certain oils can influence the hypothalamus, as well
as the pituitary gland, both of which play a big role in hormone production.
● Balancing the Nervous System – When you apply essential oils to the skin’s
surface, they rapidly penetrate the epidermal layer and come into contact with
countless nerve endings. This engagement helps to restore balance to the entire
nervous system.
As you can see, essential oils can promote healing and restoration throughout the
body rapidly and safely.
Main Learning Points of Lesson 1:
What Are Essential Oils and How Do They Work?
Lesson 1 explains the nature, use, and benefits of essential oils. Here are the key
points you should remember:
● Essential oils are the highly concentrated, pure, and therapeutic extracts from
specific plants and botanicals.
● Oils provide a number of healing, nutritive, and protective functions to the plants
from which they are extracted.
● Essential oils share chemistry with the human body – especially the three
fundamental components, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. This makes them
compatible with human biochemistry.
● Essential oils are extremely potent and a little bit of oil goes a long way.
● Specific oils affect different systems in the body - nervous, endocrine, circulatory,
and more.
● Application can be topical, internal, or inhalation.
● Essential oils can help to increase oxygen levels in both the blood and cells.