I was also impressed by the studies out of Germany on Silexan, which is a lavender extract taken orally. The clinical trials took it head-to-head with lorazepam, which is a benzodiazepine like Valium. It held up remarkably well, with similar levels of anxiety relief. So the effects are not limited to olfactory use.<p>I’m a psychiatrist, and I have prescribed it a few times for patients that I treat. There’s a version of it available in the US called CalmAid that is identified as the same isolate in Silexan.<p>International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice. 2013. 10.3109/13651501.2013.813555<p>Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology. 2017. 10.1097/jcp.0000000000000615<p>Frontiers in Pharmacology. 2017. 10.3389/fphar.2017.00280<p>Edit: added info on an RCT, a meta-analysis, and some work on the mechanism of action
I was in the psych ward a little while back and had an absolute <i>breakdown</i> while I was there. They had security put me in the observation room behind the nurse's station, which is just like a room with thick glass on three sides and curtains on the outside and a mattress on the floor. I was losing my shit. When I finally calmed down around 2 AM, a nurse came in with a little bottle of lavender essential oil. She asked if she could put it on my pillow. I had the best sleep of my time spent on the ward, and started using it when I was discharged. I had wonderful dreams, I was calm in the morning, I was comforted, I felt safe.
My wife had a very stressful and painful delivery with our first. During her 3 day recovery at Kasier, our nurses provided a lavender treatment (oil on a cotton ball) to help reduce her stress and calm her heart-rate. Our nurses had provided us with a patient information sheet that Kaiser had prepared specifically for this situation.<p>The key here is this was a very targeted and prescribed treatment performed by trained professional staff with a lavender oil product intended for use in a hospital. Not some huckster MLM agent that selling good knows what.
When i was working on a project in Tunisia, i saw lots of the locals walking around in the morning with little sprigs of rosemary (which grows everywhere there) and taking sniffs of it as they commuted.<p>When I asked about it, they mentioned it was like a morning coffee, they felt it woke them up, and "got their brain firing".<p>I gave it a go, and (n=1) it definitely felt like a pick me up. I grow rosemary in my garden now, and every morning as I am getting ready for work I will grab a bit and smell away.
Curious if it could be related to the hormone disruption properties of lavender.<p><a href="https://www.endocrine.org/news-room/2018/chemicals-in-lavender-and-tea-tree-oil-appear-to-be-hormone-disruptors" rel="nofollow">https://www.endocrine.org/news-room/2018/chemicals-in-lavend...</a>
I can tell you that cutting lavender, bowing with a blade under a flaming sun, isn't soothing at all :) Ditto throwing tons of lavender with a fork in the distillation tank next to the blazing fire :)
Soothing? I have a disgust of all things lavender, and I don't appreciate being subjected to the aroma when colleagues use lavender products. I wonder if there's a connection between my visceral reaction and my general lack of ability to relax.
Dr. Angie Lillehei from Minnesota also studied lavender and sleep in her 2014 study: <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26133206" rel="nofollow">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26133206</a><p>She now sells sleep patches: <a href="https://www.noctilessence.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.noctilessence.com/</a>