The average American household could hardly be described as a Mecca of peace and harmony. The typical American household is a beehive of activity. Family members all have schedules that are so busy that they border on frantic and often overlap which creates anything but peace and harmony.

In a ‘normal’ household, both parents hold at least one full time job each and the children are involved in a multitude of activities other than just attending school and getting their homework done. Mothers, fathers and kids are all stressed. This IS normal. It isn’t an unusual situation. It is a daily way of life.

Most families do what they can to reduce the stress that is so abundant in modern busy households. Schedules are made. Cleaning assignments are handed out. Chores are assigned. All of these measures are designed to help make the household run like a well-oiled and efficient machine but rather than that happening, the household most often runs like a banging, clanking machine in need of some serious repair.

Nerves get tense, tempers flare, and harsh words are spoken more and more often. So what can be done to help alleviate the situation? The answer in a word is aromatherapy.

Aromatherapy is gaining a wider and wider acceptance as a means to help provide emotional stability and calmness in public places as well as in private homes. Even giants of industry are beginning to recognize the value of aromatherapy in the work place and in public facilities. If aromatherapy can help to maintain peace and harmony in a busy train station, it can most certainly help to promote and restore peace and harmony in a busy household.

Only recently has any research at all been done to investigate the effects that aromas have on the brain. We are in the infancy of research to discover the ways in which essential oils can be absorbed into the skin through massage or warm baths and the effects they have on our physical bodies and our emotions and moods. They most certainly do have effects. The research will eventually catch up to what people have learned over the centuries.

Meanwhile, you can use aromatherapy in your own home to help keep family members calm and living in harmony even under stressful daily schedules. The calming anti-stress essential oils of Bergamot, Spikenard, Jasmine, Orange, Apple, Camphor and Comfrey can be added to the air in a home by placing cotton wool balls with a few drops of any in the air conditioner and heat vents of each room.

Calming essential oils can be used in every room of the house. A few drops of lavender or citrus can be added to carrier oil and used in nightly baths for every family member.

Candles that contain essential oils can be burned as needed during particularly stressful times to help the busy family members stay calm, focused and in harmony with one another.

Aromatherapy can help to restore peace and harmony to even very busy American households!