What happens when we are “stressed.”

The brain is constantly trying to protect the body and optimise its functions. Anything that happens results from whatever signals get received and how they are interpreted.

When the brain perceives stimuli as a stress signal, it reacts in several ways to ensure the body is best adapted to face that threat. One of these reactions is the shallowness of breath to increase the heart rate and provides the muscles with the energy to “fight or flight “.

When stress is needed

This is a normal reaction; our survival may depend on it. Consider how quick you react without thinking if you suddenly find yourself in the path of a fast-moving car. Before you can even “think” about it, you are primarily likely jumping out of harm’s way! That is an appropriate stress response to an event perceived as a stress trigger. The stress response is meant to be a short-term quick call to action activated to protect the body. It should switch off and resume normal bodily functions shortly after that threat is deemed safe. You are crossing the road; you see a rushing car, and you jump out of harm’s way. Your heart will race a bit until you calm down, and then continue.

When stress becomes a problem

However, that is not what anyone talks about when saying they are “stressed”; they are likely referring to a prolonged chronic state of alertness that has not been switched off. In other words, your brain is still “seeing” a threat and sending out signals to the rest of the organs in your body to be on alert. This goes on for much longer than it should and adversely affects all kinds of things in your body. Stress can have a direct effect on your gut, your brain, your sleeping patterns and even pain and immune systems. Stress re-prioritises how your body reacts. If that response is out of proportion to the actual threat, stress becomes a significant issue that needs to be addressed.

Traditional healers would have observed the calming and relaxing properties of ylang ylang in their formulations and passed it down as a remedy for certain conditions. Knowing the science behind these claims and proof of vague terms such as “soothing” or “relaxing” adds credibility to the intuitive part of aromatherapy. It also opens up more investigative avenues for essential oils that might not have been tested yet, if we know that they share specific chemical components that have gone through experiments.