I have a confession to make: I procrastinate.  I’m not talking just five minutes here with a magazine or ten minutes there looking out the window.  I’m talking big time. In the mornings, particularly the rainy cold ones, I’m a sluggish starter. And that’s a euphemism. Much as I love writing, I need hours of prodding before the creative juices begin to flow.

            A string of displacement activities, or three drops of coriander oil. Are you prepared to give aromatherapy a chance to deflect your mental block?

            Don’t be misled by the word “aromatherapy” and its connotation with decadence and New Age Nonsense.  A properly combined formula can venture beyond your disbelief and wake up your particular muse.

            If you’re still reading, I can see the smirk.  How can all that mumbo-jumbo influence creative writing?  Well, it cannot give you a talent you don’t possess, of course, though it can certainly encourage a talent that has an off-day. 

            If you’re feeling tired or drowsy, rub a drop of rosemary oil behind your ear or on the inside of your wrist. Coriander or bergamot oil can conquer that empty feeling we all experience from time to time when faced with a blank screen or an immaculate sheet of paper. 

Black pepper, peppermint and eucalyptus are known as mood-uplifting oils, ideal for those days when the SAEs come back with a form rejection letter.

            On the other side of the spectrum, if you’re so excited by the prospect of your book’s forthcoming publication that you cannot settle down and make the changes requested by the editor, you may well need a few drops of camomile, frankincense or rose to be able to work efficiently.

            Sometimes creativity may be stifled by melancholy, which can turn into despair as we encounter more and more thoughts along the lines of the rhetoric “will I ever be able to write again”. Mimosa, jasmine, lavender or mandarin oils are all good anti-depressants. 

            For writers, aromatherapy may also be a well of ideas in itself.  Ever since I started researching the topic, my fiction teems with witches and enchanted forests of magical flowers.  I write poetry about voodoo dolls and love potions.  And of course, one of my murder mysteries, “Murder @ Work” (a shameless plug here), features a murder by essential oil.

            You still want to know how to use the oils? You can rub them into your chest and feet, or run a bath with a few essential drops. You can burn them in a clay or pewter burner, a la Flower Power, or shake out a few drops onto your handkerchief. And if you feel like treating yourself, an hour of aromatherapy massage at a reputable parlour is well worth the money.

            For best results, always buy the purest and most natural essential oils To use them for a massage or bath, mix three to five essence drops in twenty millilitres of sweet almond oil (or similar pure ‘base’ oil like jojoba oil). To inhale the fragrance, measure out two to five drops of onto a tissue or into a bowl of steaming water.

            You can mix up to three different oils at a time to enhance your creativity.  It’s best to stick to recipes unless you know what you’re doing, because some oils may clash and become ineffective.

            A word of caution, however. No one should embark on aromatic self-treatment without gaining some basic knowledge first. Certain oils influence the blood pressure drastically (sage, peppermint), so you should study the side effects carefully. Pregnant women should avoid aromatherapy altogether: only three oils are considered safe and even they are best administered by an expert.

            In time, your mind learns to respond to certain fragrances – not unlike the dog in Pavlov’s experiment. Every time I smell peppermint, I know it’s article-writing time. Rose oil turns my pen to romantic poetry. And when my head spins with ideas at night, but my body feels too tired to jot anything down, three drops of marjoram turn the unwritten words into well-deserved dreams.

Side Bar: The History Of

You see, aromatherapy does have a history. 

Its roots stretch to the most ancient healing practices of humankind. The earliest people probably watched animals to learn which plants heal. But ancient Greeks discovered by trial and error that the fragrance of certain flowers was stimulating and refreshing, while that of others induced a feeling of calm. 

All this was confirmed by unbelieving Thomases in the 1960s by statistical experiments. Now it’s your turn.