Description
Supporting your Psychoneuroimmunology System (PNI) with Nature’s Essential Oils is a must read for the serious student of essential oils. The PNI system is probably the most complicated system in the body. Science has shown that your emotional brain, limbic brain, endocrine system, and nervous system are all tied with your immune system in a vast communication system. Every cell is talking to each other! So how do essential oils support such a vast system of communication? By supporting nature—your natural terrain. Oils can elicit the “feel good” response that in turn may enhance the immune system. But they can actually do a lot more. They can help fight pathogens and decrease inflammation by simply making the environment inhospitable for microbes. Smith explores the anatomy and physiology of the immune system and discusses the interplay with the emotional brain. Then the supporting role of essential oils is examined as they help nature. In the second chapter she describes the innate and acquired immune systems along with autoimmune responses. In the third chapter the role of aromatherapy is described with specific ways the oils can aid the immune system—antimicrobials, restorative/enhancing, stress relieving, anti-inflammatory, auto-immune, detoxifying, expectorant, and appetite stimulating. To complete her description of the PNI system and how essential oils can help, she discusses immunoglobulins and how various oil compounds can reduce, increase, or modulate immune responses. The book is helpfully footnoted and the references alone represent a wealth of research.
