Simultaneous Aromatherapy Massage with Rosemary Oil on Humans

Massage of essential oils is increasing being used for the improvement of the quality of life and for the relief of various symptoms in patients, but scientific evaluation of the effects of fragrances in humans is rather scarce. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of rosemary oil (Rosmarinus officinalis L., Labiatae) on human autonomic parameters and emotional responses in healthy subjects after transdermal absorption. Thirty five healthy volunteers participated in the experiments. Four autonomic parameters, i.e. blood pressure, breathing rate, pulse rate, skin temperature were recorded. Emotional responses were assessed by means of rating scales. Compared to placebo, rosemary oil caused significant increases of breathing rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure which indicate an increase of autonomic arousal. At the emotional level, subjects feel more attentive, more alert, more vigorous, and more cheerful than before the administration of the oil. This finding suggests an increase of arousal in terms of self-evaluation. In conclusion, our investigation demonstrates the stimulating effect of rosemary oil and provides evidence for its use in medicines for the relief of depression and stress in humans

Effects of Inhaled Rosemary Oil on Subjective Feelings and Activities of the Nervous System

Rosemary oil is one of the more famous essential oils widely used in aromatherapy. However, the effects of rosemary oil on the human body, in particular the nervous system, have not been sufficiently studied. This study investigates the effects of the inhalation of rosemary oil on test subjects’ feelings, as well as its effects on various physiological parameters of the nervous system. Twenty healthy volunteers participated in the experiment. All subjects underwent autonomic nervous system (ANS) recording. This consisted of measurements of skin temperature; heart rate; respiratory rate; blood pressure; evaluations of the subjects’ mood states; and electroencephalography (EEG) recordings in the pre-, during treatment, and post-rosemary inhalation periods as compared with control conditions. Our results showed significant increases in blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate after rosemary oil inhalation. After the inhalation treatments, subjects were found to have become more active and stated that they felt “fresher”. The analysis of EEGs showed a reduction in the power of alpha1 (8–10.99 Hz) and alpha2 (11–12.99 Hz) waves. Moreover, an increment in the beta wave (13–30 Hz) power was observed in the anterior region of the brain. These results confirm the stimulatory effects of rosemary oil and provide supporting evidence that brain wave activity, autonomic nervous system activity, as well as mood states are all affected by the inhalation of the rosemary oil

SmellControl: the study of sense of agency in smell

The Sense of Agency (SoA) is crucial in interaction with technology, it refers to the feeling of 'I did that' as opposed to 'the system did that' supporting a feeling of being in control. Research in human-computer interaction has recently studied agency in visual, auditory and haptic interfaces, however the role of smell on agency remains unknown. Our sense of smell is quite powerful to elicit emotions, memories and awareness of the environment, which has been exploited to enhance user experiences (e.g., in VR and driving scenarios). In light of increased interest in designing multimodal interfaces including smell and its close link with emotions, we investigated, for the first time, the effect of smell-induced emotions on the SoA. We conducted a study using the Intentional Binding (IB) paradigm used to measure SoA while participants were exposed to three scents with different valence (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral). Our results show that participants? SoA increased with a pleasant scent compared to neutral and unpleasant scents. We discuss how our results can inform the design of multimodal and future olfactory interfaces