Benefits of aromatherapy with lavender essential oil at different stages of woman's life

Abstract

Throughout their lives, women are affected by symptoms arising from the most diverse reproductive stages they live, starting from youth and extending to older ages, often presenting symptoms that incapacitate them to exercise their activities, affecting their autonomy and also their social visibility. Aromatherapy is a practice that uses the inhalation of essential oils - volatile concentrates extracted from vegetables - in order to improve physical and mental health and also well-being of the user. This work will address the use of aromatherapy with Lavender essential oil as an Integrative and Complementary treatment in relief of symptoms experienced by these women. Therefore, the aim of this study was to demonstrate if the practice of aromatherapy with Lavender essential oil could bring benefi ts to the women’s physical and mental health. Thus, a narrative bibliographic review of the last 10 years was performed, with articles in Portuguese and English languages obtained from the US National Library of Medicine - National Institute of Health (Pubmed) and Google® Scholar databases. Some informations was also obtained from websites of national, international, public and private institutions. All articles selected within the proposed inclusion criteria demonstrated positive results by use of lavender aromatherapy at least one of the symptoms tested in clinical trials, showing that this therapy is able to mitigate symptoms experienced by women.