Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Job stress? Try smelling lemons or lavender

Today medical experts at the Toronto Star report that aromatherapy massages are more effective at reducing anxiety and stress than plain ones.  They also recommend you buy lemons, grapefruit, and peppermint tea at the grocery store, then stop at the drugstore for lavender lotion or spray, since scientific tests confirm the benefits of all these fragrant items.  Apparently, lemons work as a relaxant (you could slice one into your bath water, perhaps), while peppermint can help you complete a must-do job when you can't focus by triggering alertness.  Grapefruit's scent curbs hunger, and peppermint enhances the effect, so regularly eating half a grapefruit followed by peppermint tea or gum will help shrink your appetite.  But the fact that really blew me away was that hospitals give anxious patients a whiff of lavender before sliding them into a narrow MRI tube, because it increases the percentage who get through the claustrophobic experience by a third.  Wonder what would happen if employers spritzed their most stressful work areas with lavender . . .  .
http://www.healthzone.ca/health/dietfitness/diet/article/1040238--you-docs-the-6-things-that-make-you-gain-weight