Aromatherapy May Soften Memory of Pain

The pleasant scent of essential oils may not dull the body’s physical response to pain, but it may make a person’s memory of the pain less bitter, a small study suggests.

Researchers found that inhaling lavender or rosemary oils did not change pain tolerance or hormonal and nervous system responses to pain among 26 adults who sat through three uncomfortable situations — such as having heat applied to the forearm or a blood pressure cuff tightened around the arm.But when participants were asked to rate their pain afterward, the lavender aromatherapy did seem to tone down the recollected experience. Men recalled the pain as less intense when they had inhaled the lavender oil, while women described it as less “unpleasant,” the researchers report in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.Why the therapy affected only participants’ recollection of pain is unclear, but it may be related to the effect of aroma on emotion, according to study author Dr. Roger B. Fillingim of the University of Florida College of Dentistry in Gainesville.There is evidence, he told Reuters Health, that emotion exerts “considerable influence” over pain recall — with greater distress during a painful experience making a person more likely to remember the pain as severe.In particular, research on animals and humans has suggested that lavender oil has sedating effects. In one study, patients who received foot massages with lavender oil had lower heart rates than those who received lavender-free massages, suggesting that the oil had a physiological impact.To see whether aromatherapy could have a role in managing pain, Fillingim and his colleagues had healthy men and women go through three moderately painful procedures after each of three aromatherapy sessions: one with lavender oil, one with rosemary oil — which research suggests acts as a stimulant — and one using a “control” treatment of distilled water.During the procedures, participants identified the moment when they first felt pain and when the pain had become intolerable. Their physical responses were also gauged, through measurements of heart rate, blood pressure and the stress hormone cortisol.Fillingim’s team found that the oils generally did not alter pain tolerance, nor did they show physiological effects. The one exception was that lavender oil seemed to increase heat tolerance above that associated with rosemary oil, but not plain water.Lavender showed an advantage over water only when it came to participants’ memory of their pain.That doesn’t mean lavender aromatherapy is useless in medical care, however. Fillingim said that even if the oil does not change a person’s actual experience, it may reduce “negative recollections” of a painful procedure. And that might keep people from skipping trips to the doctor or dentist.(SOURCE: Psychosomatic Medicine: Reuters Health News: Amy Norton: August 2004.)