Unlocking the Power of Aromatherapy with Amy Anthony of NYC Aromatica

Dr. Mark Leeds [00:00] Amy Anthony, welcome to the podcast.

Amy Anthony [00:03] Thank you, doctor. This is, it’s nice to meet you and a pleasure to be here.

Dr. Mark Leeds [00:07] Thank you. Nice to meet you. Thank you. So, yeah, let’s start out by talking about aromatherapy and essential oils, which I just read on your website that aromatherapy is not just about essential oils. So yeah, please tell us all about it.

Amy Anthony [00:24] It’s a loaded topic and one that even though I am an educator, I am a, for, I will be a student for the rest of my life, I have to say, just looking at the aromatic plants. And before I even get into my kind of elevator speech definition, aromatherapy, I think, is becoming more relatable to people because of a lot of research that’s being done. Dollars are being spent on terpene research. So that’s really exciting to understand because when you talk about terpenes, those are in aromatic plants. So aromatherapy is the therapeutic application of genuine and authentic essential oils. And we can apply and work with essential oils through mainly inhalation. So by our sense of smell, by topical application, essential oils can be beneficial for pain. And then there’s a very controversial internal use, which I don’t really practice. But I want to pause because there’s so much to talk about, even in what I just shared there. So I don’t know.

Dr. Mark Leeds [01:30] Okay. Yeah. You know, I just read an interesting article and I don’t know if this applies to what you’re doing, but it was an article about where they can somehow combine essential oils with metals to create these antibiotic surfaces that have long lasting antibiotic properties where the, like maybe with copper and, you know, where one substance has a long acting effect, but not fast acting. And then the other has a fast acting. And by putting them together, you know, it may make the safer naturally antibiotic surfaces.

Amy Anthony [02:03] Wow. I didn’t hear that, but that’s intriguing because essential oils have been studied for years by, you know, And they shine that way. Like I remember reading some good research on chickens and farmers giving essential oils and the herb. Always work with the herb, please, to enhance everyone’s life. Work with herbs, cook with them, eat them. Giving chickens like herbs like thyme and oregano. And I think some of the essential oils in their feed for antibiotic properties and the farmers, it was successful. They had healthy chickens.

Dr. Mark Leeds [02:47] Oh, that’s great. And I should have been more clear, like you said, antimicrobial, not being specific to bacteria, but also viruses, which is, of course, our main concern today with COVID and all these other flu virus and things like that.

Amy Anthony [03:01] Correct. And we have to be careful as aromatherapists, because when you work with oils, like I’m holding up lavender. I love you, lavender, but I don’t want to introduce you. I’m holding rose geranium and cardamom. You’ll find that these two oils, these two substances contain similar chemistry, but some like cardamom might have more of some and less components than the other. And it might have its own unique chemistry. So there’s this shared chemistry amongst the oils that can help them excel at certain things. So why I’m bringing this up is some oils excel at being antiviral. Some can be antifungal, like patchouli is known to be antifungal, tea tree. But I can’t go out and say that lavender is a great antifungal. So there’s nuance to this. That’s my point.

Dr. Mark Leeds [03:54] Okay. Yeah, I would imagine there’s a lot of nuance of what oils to combine, what ratios to combine them in. And I know nothing about it. But I was thinking about just the application for healthcare issues, you know, maybe particularly mental health. And that’s a major topic now, you know, treating things like addiction, PTSD, you know, various things that may be trauma-related, depression, anxiety, and then a big thing now is people who’ve been mistreated with psych drugs and are trying to get off of them and going through protracted withdrawal. That’s a major thing, especially the benzodiazepine withdrawal issue and protracted long-term withdrawal where there seems to be almost no solution to it, no way to make it better. And here you have something that I hadn’t thought about before. Maybe a lot of us hadn’t thought about the application of aromatherapy.

Amy Anthony [04:48] Yeah, it’s potent. It’s powerful. I took a workshop from a psychiatrist, psychologist, I believe it was, and he worked with essential oils in Europe with his clients. So essential oils excel at connecting and working across the whole person, the mind, body, spirit, soul. And they have their antimicrobial nature. They’re very anti-inflammatory. A lot of them are wound healing, promoting, and that’s for topical application. Great. Let’s set that aside. The essential oils, because they’re oily, they’re lipid loving. They are tiny, tiny volatile lipid loving molecules that have an affinity for us, right? All of our membranes are lipid loving. So we inhale these, They can go into the olfactory tract. So we have scent recognition that could work with memory. So if I work or you’re working with a client who has good memories of orange, if you could bring them to orange when they’re feeling anxiety, that can help them, right? Just by that memory recall, which is incredibly powerful. That’s used a lot in hospice care for that, for memory and emotions and things like that. And then we could take this to another level with olfaction aromatherapy, meaning I diffuse it in the air. I smell from the bottle. I use an inhaler stick. I put a drop on a cotton pad. This could be super easy. By the way, I have on my website, I just put it up a short-ish video on how to smell an oil, by the way. So you smell and then you are getting it into your mucosa in your nose and you’re getting it in the nerve tract, you could say. And a lot of the oil components can penetrate the blood brain barrier and be found in cerebral spinal fluid. And also when you’re inhaling, you’re getting things into the lungs, into the bloodstream. So you have like lavender oil can be detected within 20 minutes in the bloodstream. So, and there’s research, there’s a product I could follow up with you for your notes. It’s sold in Europe. It’s sold here. Lavender is accepted to be like an anti-anxiety quote drug to help with anxiety I have to follow up with that it just came in my radar like last week and it’s been around for a while but I there’s a lot there’s a lot to this and it’s understudied because I don’t think people the funding’s not there you know

Dr. Mark Leeds [07:15] Yeah oh I can imagine is there are there specific applications and dealing with treatment side effects. Like if someone is taking a medication they really need to take, but it has intolerable side effects and maybe they have anything from nausea to constipation to headaches.

Amy Anthony [07:33] Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, even, cause this is the great thing is the plants are for everybody. The oils are for everybody. And one of the classics that’s used or worked with, I like that term more, worked with in cancer care is for nausea. I’ve worked with women who are pregnant with pregnancy, ginger, ginger oil, ginger essential oil. So true story for me. And yes, this is applicable. If you have nausea, that is from like, that’s a nerve response, right? So smelling ginger oil within a few minutes can help quench that response. And I do this when I go to eat and I might have had too much on like fiber heavy food and I’m gassy and bloated, I’ll come home, smell oil, ginger from the bottle, two to three minutes, definitely within five minutes, I feel like 100% better. And that’s just one thing, like fennel is amazing to smell for like digestion. So as a tip for you and your listeners, a lot of the things that we cook with, you could work with in aromatherapy by smelling only in quotes, because that’s powerful. Cardamom, black pepper, ginger, fennel. These are very digestive herbs and they help with that, the smooth muscle tissue in that sense. So that was just talking about digestion and that those are included in constipation, by the way, you could do like an abdominal massage. So you’ll need to get guidelines on how to work with oils. You know, there’s websites find an aromatherapist. We could talk about that. I have resources. You could get an abdominal massage. You make one with oils and you could put it diluted on your stomach, you know, and then you have the olfaction plus the penetration through the skin to help.

Dr. Mark Leeds [09:29] Okay. Okay. That’s great. So the oils will actually penetrate into the skin, like topically.

Amy Anthony [09:34] Oh yeah. Like, one example I often share with students is because these are so tiny and lipid loving, when you think about like a nicotine patch or a transdermal drug delivery, that’s what’s happening. It’s like passive diffusion where the oils, they want to go into our skin because of their lipid nature. And then that goes into the capillaries. So it’s incredibly powerful. And I don’t want to sound like, this is like crazy and like overstate it. But I work with the oils on a daily basis. You know, it’s pretty intense. And that’s the thing is smelling is enough. So if you find yourself, I want to share an oil that’s great for like anger. If you’re having an irritable anger moment and you just need to help settling down, vetiver, Vetiveria zizanioides. It’s also a different Latin name. Vetiver is worked with in post-traumatic stress disorder a lot. I’ve had students tell me, I’ve taught people from doctors to nurses, to psycho, psychiatrists, et cetera, for aromatherapy certification. Smelling vetiver oil for like three to five minutes can help you calm down and get grounded. It’s a root oil. It’s from a grass, from the root of the grass. And it’s, that’s its signature is just calming and holding you and soothing you and cooling you down like mentally. It’s really powerful.

Dr. Mark Leeds [11:07] Oh, wow. Oh, that’s, that’s incredible. Is there, say for somebody who’s in early recovery and addiction, are there oils or scents known to help with suppressing or helping people to get past cravings?

Amy Anthony [11:21] Yeah. So part of this too is because the oils are there, but we need to take that responsibility, have that tool with us. So maybe I’m going to share some oils and that you’ll go buy the oil and have it with you. So you don’t forget about it because you’ll need to work with this as needed daily, right. To help you get across this bridge, right. You’re in this transition. So hands down the citrus oils if you and like sweetness is important in life and that’s something we often crave and we need right even when you think about sodas sugars fruits and that’s worked with a lot right for even quitting smoking so smelling find a citrus that aligns with you go to like your local health food store and maybe they’ll have samples and you can smell grapefruit lemon but I think grapefruit would be very kind lemon would be very nice cravings black pepper there was one study I think overstated how black pepper was helpful black pepper essential oil and helping people reduce cravings and the severity of them but I’d say just start with the citruses because they’re accessible they’re kind of like sunshine in a bottle and they’re food like and they do increase digestion a lot of people when they smell the oil they’ll start to salivate

Dr. Mark Leeds [12:42] Oh wow

Amy Anthony [12:44] The citrus oils

Dr. Mark Leeds [12:45] Okay yeah and that’s I mean the thing that’s interesting is just how I mean scent is like it seems like the most direct access to the brain and the thing most associated with powerful memories and triggering powerful like old memories you know things we might have forgotten so I can imagine it’s like a very powerful therapy you know just having getting direct access to the olfactory nerves

Amy Anthony [13:12] Yeah it is and like as a as an aromatherapist you’d work with somebody on this level of you talk let’s say someone comes to me and we’re talking about I’m having cravings I want to work through this and I’ll present like eight oils to them or ten and we’ll kind of go through them to make a blend of three to five of those oils. And let’s say they have a great memory of something and we’ll be like, Oh, well, let’s pick, let’s include that one in your blend because that’s positive. Right. Cause if you’re feeling down or like you have this gap or you’re like, Oh my God, I don’t know what to do. I feel like, you know, going and having a drink or a cigarette or whatever, like you can resonate with that oil on that memory level. Also remembering all this other stuff is happening because the essential oil components work with our neuroendocrine system. They’re working with synapses in the brain. A lot of research is out there on them working with dopamine and serotonin. They’re not like that, but they’re acting like with these receptors. It’s wild.

Dr. Mark Leeds [14:16] Yeah. And that sounds so much better than a drug that causes an artificial accumulation of neurotransmitters or increased production, or even taking supplements, you know, that contain neurotransmitter like substances. I mean, what you’re talking about is everything of working with what’s already in the brain, you know, the brain doing what it’s supposed to do with what it already has, you know, just being stimulated by, by the scent. I mean, that sounds like a really great idea.

Amy Anthony [14:46] Yeah, I like that. And you’re, you’re bringing up something I like to share with people when I was studying herbalism with Jim McDonald. He’s a herbalist up in Michigan. A lot of, I think, good herbalists say this. The plants tell the body to do stuff. And I love that kind of unscientific way of putting it because you’re just kicking the body into action with molecules it recognizes. And when you’re smelling the essential oil, you’re still getting little bits into your bloodstream and you need to metabolize that stuff, you know, so it’s real. And it’s like our body recognizes these components because they come there, they start in the same pathway. The, you put me on this, I put myself in the spot and then I kind of lose my train of thought the it’s the terpene pathway. It’ll come to me, but we recognize these things. These are precursors to things we make as well in our body, these terpenes so it’s pretty fun stuff

Dr. Mark Leeds [15:47] Oh if I yeah I was trying to avoid also googling stuff but let me just look it up terpene

Amy Anthony [15:53] No it’s okay it’s not a big deal

Dr. Mark Leeds [15:57] Terpene pathway the canonical terpene biosynthetic pathway uses a single enzyme I think I’m

Amy Anthony [16:05] It’s pretty deep it’s pretty deep I didn’t think I’d bring up the, there’s two pathways that we talk about in essential oils. It’s not, I could follow up with you and your show notes, you know.

Dr. Mark Leeds [16:16] Okay. Yeah. That sounds great. Yeah. This gets really involved in some giant chemical names and diagrams.

Amy Anthony [16:27] Oh, the mevalonic pathway, it’s something like that, but we’ll, I’ll follow up.

Dr. Mark Leeds [16:31] Okay. Yeah. That sounds good. One, one thing that comes to mind is that, you know, the big thing that everyone’s talking about now, and this is also plant-based, are all these psychedelic therapies and, you know, everything from there’s Ibogaine, Ayahuasca, what’s the other, the psilocybin, and these things are being studied and there’s a push to make them legal and use them in real therapy. And I was thinking like, well, maybe what you’re doing could go with that. You know, someone’s in a psilocybin experience, you know, with a guide and maybe they could benefit also from essential oils and aromatherapy.

Amy Anthony [17:05] Yeah. I mean, yes, a resounding yes, because you could use it like you’re saying in conjunction with, because if that person is in this incredibly receptive state, cause that’s where you are, you’re in this liminal space during these ceremonies, right? If you introduced some herbs, some aromatic herbs into that to create a memory imprint. And if you’re in this good liminal space, and then you can have an essential oil or blend made for you to bring you back to that place, that’s a powerful tool for when you’re not in that therapy room. And I know I’ve heard great things like you can have one or two sessions and be like, I’m changed, right? This is intense stuff. But I just want to share something with you. I read, I think this was in a book by Peter Holmes or an article written probably over 20 years ago, that in South America, during some of these like ayahuasca ceremonies, that your medicine person would have an aromatic like basil that they would introduce to the person, to the client when they’re having a bad experience to help bring them out of that experience. That I thought I mean that’s powerful yeah and we’re talking basil we’re talking like a type of basil that grows in the rain forest yeah

Dr. Mark Leeds [18:29] When you mentioned thyme what’s that I can’t think of the name of it and I was just listening to it in the car the other day there’s a Simon and Garfunkel song where they keep repeating those herbs over are you going to Scarborough Fair parsley sage

Amy Anthony [18:44] Rosemary and thyme Scarborough Fair is the song and then the herbs are parsley sage rosemary and thyme

Dr. Mark Leeds [18:52] Oh wow and do those have any special meaning

Amy Anthony [18:56] They do I mean parsley is parsley seed we’d work with which is incredibly potent almost too harsh for the liver that would be left for medical doctors to work with. And a lot of folks in Europe, like in France, might be working with that as a medical doctor internally. Rosemary has a crapload of research on it. And it’s historically known for like Ophelia and Shakespeare saying that rosemary is for remembrance. There’s a lot of evidence showing how it helps sharpen the brain, help you focus. So for your listeners like if you find you’re feeling a little foggy or cloudy you’re maybe you’re studying for something you can have rosemary with you put a couple drops in a cotton pad maybe you diffuse it in your your study your room wherever you are and the chemistry is very helpful for aiding with memory retention and brightness. And please cook with the herb, like eat the heck out of it because it has other really beneficial parts of it. That’s the thing about aromatherapy is it’s just not the oils. It’s loving the entire plant and like making a tea, like thyme tea from the leaves has thymol in it. You’ll see that in Listerine, right? That’s potent stuff. It’s great when you have a respiratory cold to drink the tea, you know, maybe with some ginger and honey to really get that chemistry into you to help kill stuff.

Dr. Mark Leeds [20:34] Yeah. Yeah. That’s also, so you could actually make, you know, instead of getting a tea bag from the store, you can actually take these things yourself and make a tea.

Amy Anthony [20:44] Yeah. Go to your grocery store, pick up some fresh thyme. Again, to be really clear, I’m not advocating you take essential oil and put it in tea. No, but we’re taking the whole plant you know the leaves that the twin the sprigs yes this is the fun part is like loving those plants you know and having them they’re very supportive of our immune system

Dr. Mark Leeds [21:09] Oh wow well that’s and that’s something else that comes to mind of I get the sense that you’re not in favor of burning things like incense and I’ve I was just reading a thing that burning candles might be toxic, that all candles have toxic chemicals when you burn them. So what do you think about that? And you’d mentioned diffusion and that’s not burning though, right?

Amy Anthony [21:31] Correct. Correct. So candles, by the way, I’ve made, I love them. I used to teach workshops at the New York Botanical Gardens on making candles, but particularly beeswax candles. So no fragrance oils, no paraffin wax, no lead wicks. So candles are gorgeous, but I advocate unscented, clean burning wax and beeswax. It’s precious, right? We’re taking their bees homes or their spent combs and we’re using their wax. So the Yankee candle is not a, sorry, Yankee candle. I don’t bash brands so I don’t like that I just did that but scented candles with fragrance oils are not healthy for us to breathe in they’re not good burning things if you have a genuine gorgeous incense made of like tree saps and resins and botanicals and you’re working with that mindfully please use that but just don’t go and buy the cheap bad incense that you don’t know what’s in it. Yeah. Cause like, right. You’re, you’re breathing that stuff in. Diffusion is, and I don’t have my diffusers with me in this room, but you can have like, the ultrasonic diffusers that have water in them, which I don’t love because you add water to them. Those are really common to find because water breeds bacteria, but you can easily go to like Bed Bath & Beyond and buy one of those, etc. There is also nebulizing diffusers and fan-driven diffusers that aromatherapists would work with to really permeate the air with oils that you’ll then breathe in. And you would do this on timed sessions. This is not something you would constantly breathe in. So I think I answered your question.

Dr. Mark Leeds [23:23] Yeah. So diffusion is getting something into the air and then then there’s infusion that’s like a tea thing right and infuse yes yeah okay so then one one thing and I don’t want to say it early on but a lot of the words you’re using just remind me of people that talk about cannabis and medical cannabis and you know just just the way that people take it and someone was trying to explain to me though they were explaining to me the way that medical cannabis works of ratios of CBD. And I think they might’ve said terpenes, like terpene ratios. And it quickly went over my head of like, I can’t imagine keeping track of all this stuff and how all the different ways of how it might be, it might make someone too anxious or it might help them to sleep or to focus better. So what do you think about all that with cannabis?

Amy Anthony [24:17] That is something I’ve chosen not to participate in or research I’m a very contrarian person so with saying that I think this is all overhyped I think a lot of people are looking to sell bad product and make a quick easy shyster buck but terpenes are important and I wasn’t sure if I should go here and you open the door so I will so those terpenes are what I mentioned before this is what are the in the essential oils so you’ll see like beta-caryophyllene is a terpene and that can be found in several gorgeous essential oils that is a great anti-inflammatory component for like the mind and the skin for easing pain it’s found a lot in copaiba oil I’ve been studying sweet fern here it’s a native plant that has beta-caryophyllene in it at a pretty high percentage also there’s an alpha-humulene as well but there’s a lot to keep track of but I think a lot of two things the dollars are there to do the research to look at the terpenes to be like hey guys this stuff’s real it’s working yay but then there’s people that are pushing I just think bad product trying to ride the wave yeah so I just say be careful and ask your providers like who you’re buying this from, like, where’d you get it from? Does it have a lot number? How can I trace where this came from? To really be that educated consumer.

Dr. Mark Leeds [25:49] Yeah. And that’s why I was talking about specifically medical cannabis, where these dispensaries are supposed to have a trace it from where it’s grown from that, you know, like they say, the seed to the sale, it’s supposed to be tracked all the way through. And I would imagine that might be, you know, except other than people who have their own herb gardens behind their house, that you might want to think about that of the source of even essential oils or herbs, you know, where you get them from.

Amy Anthony [26:17] Yeah. Yeah. Cause there’s always, I hate to say this, but there’s always someone that’s going to do something really mean and bad and dishonest. And then you’re the one that’s the brunt end of it. So yeah, just getting to know your suppliers. So like on that end to go to essential oils, I live and breathe this stuff every day. So I might know a couple artisanal distillers. I do distill my own botanicals. So it’s like, I’m interested in that, but the average person just wants to go buy the oil because they heard that grapefruits could be helpful, you know? So it’s a fine line. There’s no right answer.

Dr. Mark Leeds [26:58] Yeah. Now, when you talked about growing, well, I don’t know if you mentioned it, but […] do you do you have a garden in your home or nearby your home

Amy Anthony [27:17] No thanks for asking so yes and no I live in new york city for most of the time and I was a member of a community garden which I backed out of during covid I also spend time on long island and my husband and I we have a piece a little piece of paradise out there where I do have gardens and I call those that those are my babies that’s where my heart is so I’m intimate I figure I’ve loved plants since I was a kid and that’s how I could live in an urban environment is to have access to nature and like go outside I go on walks and look at trees a lot but I just need to share this with you because this is important as my message to your listeners as an aromatherapist. Essential oils are portable. They’re incredibly concentrated. So all you really need is one drop of oil on a cotton pad and smelling it. You will get, you will see something happen. I realized, but didn’t know it at the time that I started to study aromatherapy because I was lacking my connection with nature and when we are stuck in a hospital in an office building in an urban environment in a suburban environment and we are disconnected from plants when we can smell an essential oil that gives us what that connection it gives us that connection to nature in a way and that’s an important message I have about my journey as an aromatherapist it’s a bit off topic but it’s powerful

Dr. Mark Leeds [28:53] When you mentioned community garden I was recently I was in brooklyn and I was just kind of wandering around the streets near a hotel and I walked by one of those a little gated area at the street corner and it was just left open and I walked in and it was somebody’s community garden there were signs up explaining you know what it was and how you can contribute so that was pretty interesting that they have these little lots where there might normally be a building but not but somebody making a garden

Amy Anthony [29:18] Yeah it’s a really important part of the community here and it was starting about the 1980s but you’re bringing up something important that if you’re a community garden in New York City you must have open hours for the community to access that space

Dr. Mark Leeds [29:36] Yeah yeah this one that it was early in the morning and the gate was just left open there wasn’t anybody there and you know I just kind of wandered around looked at everything and left and it was pretty interesting so yeah I also when you mentioned you know people being stuck in hospitals I remember driving along the highway towards the brooklyn bridge and could see one of this huge nyu research building and as we quickly drove by I noticed everybody’s office has a plant on the window so and I thought in a way it’s kind of sad you know they’re all stuck in the city and the closest they can come to nature is a little plant up against their window but on the other hand every at least everyone has a plant in their window.

Amy Anthony [30:16] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, we know we need it. So like working with the essential oils is one way. So I have grapefruit in my hand right now. It’s someone that I mentioned earlier to help with the cravings and bring brightness to your life. So you can think about smelling the oil. And when you can go get a grapefruit and eat it, you know, with lunch, the best of both worlds, you know?

Dr. Mark Leeds [30:39] Oh yeah. Yeah. And there’s good, I don’t normally like grapefruit, but I know there’s some that are really good, like some kind of sweet ones. So now how do they get oil from all these different things? I wouldn’t think that every plant and fruit has oil.

Amy Anthony [30:53] Correct. That’s a really good question. So it’s kind of, we touched upon a bit of this before, but let’s bring it together. Essential oils come from aromatic plants. And we just know that like with vetiver that I mentioned afford that the oil is in the roots that we want. So we take the specific plant material, take hundreds of pounds, depending on the plant material, it could take a ton of rose petals to get a pound of oil because rose lends itself to dissolving in water or like giving itself to water. So the plant parts components are put into a big still. Just think of an industrial size still or a small copper still like you’re distilling old-fashioned alcohol. So you subject this plant material to heat, steam, pressure. And when you hit this right pressure point, you start to have the steam bring over these incredibly light, lipid-loving molecules. So yes, it’s aromatic, but you have to have this terpene component. The terpenes are the backbones of essential oils, and they are not soluble in water. And the distillation process is inherent to creating essential oils. CO2 extraction is new. It’s something that’s important, but that’s another topic. But the essential oils, you just get the volatile aromatic components. So I mentioned the terpene. That’s really important. Terpene units or terpene class, I should call it. We distill them because I want to bring this up because you could say tomato has a smell, but that’s different chemistry. Like we’re not looking at the terpenes, okay. Or, lily, you might say has a great aroma, but we can’t get an essential oil from that because it won’t stand withstand the distillation process. And again, it’s not rich in those terpenes.

Dr. Mark Leeds [33:01] One last thing I don’t want to keep you too long, but I was thinking when, you know, you have all these oils that you’re taking out and there’s people that, you know, people like to be individuals and express themselves and wear different clothing and, you know, different jewelry and stuff. And I was thinking a person express themselves through scents, like other than just plain old cologne and perfume and stuff, is there a way to use these as a self-expression to kind of walk around and maybe have the scent of different oils on you?

Amy Anthony [33:27] Of course. And I love that a lot of the questions you’re asking just help bring out the and nature of aromatherapy of working with oils because we’re working with scent recall. We’re working with memory recall and forming new memories. We’re speaking about mental clarity and brightness. We’re touching on emotions. We touched on the antimicrobial nature. So there’s just so much. And within that years ago, So perfumery was not separate because people only worked with genuine, authentic plant botanical material. Now it’s all about synthetics and perfumers are chemists now. But yes, the cool thing, one of the best things that could be done is like, let’s say you’re a client of mine. The next time you visit New York, we have a session and you’re like, hey, I’m working with like mental agitation. I need some clarity. And we decide that we’ll make you a topical application, maybe an aftershave. And then guess what? It’s an and. So we will come up with something that’s skin loving that to suit you. Plus it’ll have components of this smells amazing. And then you get to wear that during the day. And I have to share this with you because this is personal. I’ve worked with myself for things work to manage my anger response. Like, again, I have construction happening below me in New York and the commercial space below me. I get angry. I can’t control it. I will apply an essential oil blend once a day. And my anger, the edge is taken off. And all I do is like once or twice a day, I’ll have like a rollerball applicator and apply it on my jawline. And that’s all you need. So it becomes a perfume. It becomes something that works with the mind. It becomes something that someone when I go to stores, they’re like, you smell good. I’m like, thank you. Yes, I do. Yeah. You know, I’m not kidding. So yes.

Dr. Mark Leeds [35:28] Yeah. I mean, this whole topic, I mean, this whole field is incredible. It’s something that I think a lot of people haven’t thought about. And to me, it almost sounds like, like real magic, like a practical magic. It’s not, it’s not actually magic. I mean, you’re not doing anything supernatural, but it’s real and it almost seems magical yeah

Amy Anthony [35:46] And it’s so deceptively it’s once you understand the concentrated nature like why a bottle of something costs what it does and how much plant material takes in the lipid nature once you understand this stuff it just becomes this beautiful artful thing to turn to work with mood emotions and it’s not a panacea it’s not the end all it doesn’t replace some things but it is it’s a gorgeous way to introduce I don’t know freshness and creativity and joy to your life

Dr. Mark Leeds [36:20] Yeah it’s almost like the greatest adjunct therapy like you know it sounds like it just goes along with everything else like it doesn’t you know oh go ahead

Amy Anthony [36:30] Yes I’m like yes yes like that’s what I love teaching aromatherapy certification is because you’ll have doctors come in that want to learn about it. Nurses, psychiatrists, like hypnotherapists. It’s the perfect tool in your toolkit because not everyone will resonate with this, right? You might be working with a client or patient. They’re like, not for me, but it is a great adjunct. You’re so spot on.

Dr. Mark Leeds [37:01] I yeah I can’t even imagine like what it wouldn’t be good who wouldn’t want to have some kind of aromatherapy I mean I can imagine like I actually strangely have a negative association with lavender and just from a bad memory that was associated with it but that’s just one thing you know and there’s a million other things out there

Amy Anthony [37:20] Exactly but I want to share this with you and your listeners because if you seek out an aromatherapist to work with that aromatherapist should not be pushing product on you. They shouldn’t be saying, well, it’s going to work anyway. No, there’s nothing therapeutic about that. So if you tell me you’re like not into the lavender, guess what? I’m going to find other oils that might be very similar because again, their chemistry could be similar ish. So I would listen to you and your needs and not try to push stuff on you. And that’s, that’s what an aroma, a professional aromatherapist would do.

Dr. Mark Leeds [37:58] Yeah that’s that’s great you know when people watch the oscars everybody wants to see who’s going to be the win the lead actor actress award at the end but some of the best actors the most interesting ones are the supporting actors and actresses and here you have like the greatest supporting actress in the world you know just it’s incredible it’s fun yeah yeah I mean, just everything. […] And that was another thing I wanted to bring up. I didn’t know this about ketamine therapy, that it actually, it’s not, people are not doing it necessarily to get a psychedelic experience. It’s not about insight. And it’s about the actual direct effect of the drug on the brain. And brain growth and managing things like glutamate and GABA. I think it modulates GABA, enhances glutamate production, enhances calcium, some kind of calcium communication between neurons. And the interesting thing is the growth of dendrites, dendritic growth of the connections of one neuron to many neurons and communication in the brain. So you have all these things. And I was wondering, is there any studies, Are there studies or evidence that aromas can do similar things of brain growth, brain healing?

Amy Anthony [39:25] I wish I had more time and access to scientific studies. I’d like to think there is, especially because of cannabis, that there’s more research. I’d like to think the answer is yes, but I do not have an answer to that. But when I have seen research, I know that essential oils do work with GABA. I know they work with glutamate because I have read some papers. Yeah. But about nerve regeneration and growth, I’d like to think the answer is yes, but I don’t know.

Dr. Mark Leeds [39:58] And that balance of the balance of glutamate and GABA are apparently critical to recovering from benzodiazepine, protracted withdrawal. And there’s people that suffer with even for years, you know, even three years or more of severe withdrawal symptoms. And, you know, they come and go, they get better, they get worse. And some of these people feel hopeless and even suicidal that they’re just never going to come out of it and you know this is just something I hadn’t even thought to recommend to people and you know it could be like that one key for one person to where nothing else worked

Amy Anthony [40:36] Yeah that’s that’s a great way because like we were saying before like essential oils might be beneficial for some people and not for others. But like with any therapy, if you don’t try it, you don’t know. So with essential oils, you could, there’s a media action. Like you could be sitting with me. I’ll present some oils to you after we talk through things and then we’ll see what happens. And then you’d work with something. I found it takes like three days where you’re like, oh, I feel a little different. It’s not earth shattering. It’s like with working with pain with essential oils, the edge is taken off. It’s like modulating a lot of essential oil, good aromatherapy literature will talk about the modulating nature of the oils. So yeah, it’s like that three day period. So it’s like any herbal remedy, like you’ll work with something for seven days, 14 days, be like, let’s see what’s happening. And no one’s nothing crazy is happening. If something’s weird, you just stop. Right. Yeah. So yeah this is exciting

Dr. Mark Leeds [41:42] Oh yeah yeah […] but I would imagine like you know during treatments you know what about even during surgery like just regular surgery has anybody tried that you know in addition to general anesthesia oh wait I guess you can’t smell because yeah well maybe you could smell well

Amy Anthony [42:17] That’s the thing is it’s the molecules are getting into the body so even with anosmia the molecules go in your body and will affect things so you might have your receptors distorted or destroyed about scent perception and recognition but the mucosal tract is there. It’s you’re getting it in the blood. It’s still going to work.

Dr. Mark Leeds [42:41] So even if a person like say has like a loss of smell from COVID, they can still benefit.

Amy Anthony [42:49] Yes. Because this is the thing it’s more than about the sense of smell. It’s the arrow, the aromatic molecules in their, their lip, their lipid loving nature. Like that they’re so tiny. You could go down into, I forgot how many mass atomic units these can be. They’re so small. You might recall I was sharing earlier that some molecules, I don’t know which one’s particular, can bypass the blood-brain barrier. I mean, not many things can do that because so many drugs are water-soluble or they’re just too big molecularly. Yeah. I mean, we’re talking at like 10 carbons, 15 carbons per molecule here, which is pretty small.

Dr. Mark Leeds [43:33] Yeah. Yeah. Another therapy I would imagine this would work well with would be and we had we’ve had a couple of experts on this binaural beats sound therapy, you know, where people and there’s different kinds of sound therapy. The binaural beats are where they have these different tones in each ear of a headphone and they create like this hallucination of a beat frequency where not really hallucination, but like the beat frequency doesn’t exist outside of the brain because you have like one frequency in one ear and a slightly different one in the other ear. If you played them on a speaker you’d have the physical effect of a beat frequency but here it’s actually you’re hearing it in your brain and yeah you can you can cause the brain to become to kind of go along with that frequency and induce delta wave frequencies deep sleep or theta you know meditative and you know that and they have these mind machines where they combine the headphones and flashing lights in the eyes and electrical stimulators in the ears but you know and then it turns out that really the headphones or the sound is all you need and in fact that it actually works for a lot of people is what they call isochronic beats which is just the same thing played in an open on a speaker you know without even putting on headphones which is the way I like to do it you know I like to I actually just mixed a track of like I took ocean waves a crackling fireplace sound and a binaural beat program that goes down into a theta range B. And I just play it on this little speaker by the bed […]

Amy Anthony [45:03] Oh, I love that.

Dr. Mark Leeds [45:05] Yeah. I just imagine that therapy combined with some, you know, aromatherapy would be really good.

Amy Anthony [45:11] Yeah. Could you just open the door to something that I found with my, I’ve been professionally working with oils since 2015. So over that time I’ve had some horror stories shared with me people will have diffusers running all night long which is not good it’s not needed you don’t need to breathe all that in especially if it’s a nebulizing diffuser but to combine what you were just talking about with the bio say it again binaural binaural let’s say you diffused essential oils as you’re getting ready for bed for like five minutes in your room area and you were diffusing like a blend of roman chamomile lavender and vetiver you won’t smell the lavender as much and that’s in the air then your diffuser shut off and you’re getting in the mood and then you put this the binaural beats on through the night because why have the chemistry entering your body when you can have that more you know the physical the beats work with you so imagine combining these together but I’m stressing that don’t have your diffuser running all night set the stage set the body stage to further go into this state so that’s created by the oral sense yeah it’s so fun

Dr. Mark Leeds [46:31] Yeah and then I like to follow follow up the binaural beat program with you know because that doesn’t run all night At least on the recording I set, but then it ends with that white noise effect of the ocean and the fireplace, […]

Amy Anthony [46:53] I get you.

Dr. Mark Leeds [46:55] […]

Amy Anthony [46:56] How long does the binaural track last?

Dr. Mark Leeds [47:00] The one that I like, and there’s all different ones. In fact, I had one that I made for a patient that was like 30 minutes long. And she said that it’s great, except the problem is that she keeps having to wake up. Every time it ends, she wakes up and she starts it again. So I went back and remade it to a nine hour recording. And she said, and it was a big file. It was like a one gigabyte MP3. And she said that, but that one worked for her. It plays all night and it keeps her asleep. It just, it settled in at the Delta of like, probably, I think like four Hertz or something like that, you know, you’re, you know, like that in the background behind the music. And yeah, it somehow that nine hour version of it worked perfectly. And, so the one I made for myself that I play, I got a little $30 speaker that takes an SD card or a USB. So I didn’t have to like go online or do Bluetooth or anything. I just put the thing right in the speaker and I just, all I do is turn the speaker on. It just starts playing it. And, but yeah, I made mine last 10 hours, so it’ll definitely cover the whole night.

Amy Anthony [48:03] Wow. That’s really cool. So yeah, they like how these therapies can really compliment each other and you just see what’s right for the individual.

Dr. Mark Leeds [48:10] Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s the best thing of like, you know, finding things that are, you know, and those two therapies are the sound therapy and aromatherapy are things where you’re not introducing any chemicals to the body. Well, you are kind of, I mean, but, you know, but it’s not like

Amy Anthony [48:27] In small amounts, it’s like the mindful way is again, I can’t say it enough. Less is more in one drop is all you need to really notice a shift. And it’s proven, it’s proven that like lavender in excess amounts, can be excitable to people. You’re putting like 30 pounds of lavender on your palm. You know what I mean like that’s yeah that’s a lot

Dr. Mark Leeds [48:52] Oh you mean like the extracted amount of that’s what it was extracted from 30 pounds of lavender

Amy Anthony [48:58] Yeah like there are five drops but like a figure that is often shown I could look up references in my office like 250 to 350 pounds of lavender depending on the region the time of year gives you a pound of oil of lavender oil That’s flowering lavender tops. So it’s a lot of plant material.

Dr. Mark Leeds [49:23] Yeah, it reminds me of vitamins where you have the fat-soluble vitamins are the ones you’re not supposed to take too much of, like A, D, E, and K. You have to be careful not to overdo them.

Amy Anthony [49:35] Yeah, I was just thinking back last night, I was reading something about beta-carotene and the dangers of that. There’s some studies in the 70s. But yeah again the fat solubility when we’re talking with fat soluble stuff it takes more to break down the body has to do more it could be got stored in your tissues so yeah yeah

Dr. Mark Leeds [49:55] But yeah any kind of therapy where where less is more is always a good therapy or not not always but that’s yeah generally less is more is a good a good principle to go by

Amy Anthony [50:04] Yeah like I tell my this myself this stuff it’s like and I have self-doubt I think like all of us do less is more in that what we can do to help you remember that you are an amazing person and you belong here and like when I think about my choices in life it’s like Amy you were born with nothing you’ll leave with nothing so like if all you did was drink water do you really need to drink that it’s like what do you need you don’t need a lot right we just need some things to remind us how awesome we are as human beings.

Dr. Mark Leeds [50:41] Yeah. Yeah. That’s an interesting theme that’s come up in some different podcasts also of just the idea that a person might not have anything wrong with them. You know, people are always thinking like I’m broken. I have defects. I have flaws and I need to work on myself and fix myself. And, you know, what if someone looked in the mirror at themselves and said, you know, maybe I’m fine. Maybe there’s really nothing wrong with me at all. And it’s almost like a dangerous idea because like, you know, if someone’s married, you know, their spouse is going to say like, hold on a second, you’re not perfect. There’s a lot of stuff to work on. But, you know, but that does come up like in this, the three principles, which is a spiritual movement. And people I’ve interviewed from the three principles, you know, they talk about that of, you know, you’re just perfect the way you are. And let’s stop pushing things like addiction and brokenness and all that. You know maybe there’s really nothing wrong with you and you’re fine as you are and I’m actually going to interview someone tomorrow on a thing called circling a therapy called circling where one person does therapy and focuses on the other and I don’t totally understand all of that I’m going to learn about it tomorrow but I guess like looking at a person and seeing seeing them as they are and kind of like honoring them and appreciating them for who they are as they are you know without saying you know not just I guess not the superficial aspects or the fake aspects, but the realness of them and appreciating them. So that’s, so I’m happy that aromatherapy kind of fits in with that, or at least what you were saying. Maybe that’s not an aromatherapy thing, but just what you’re saying of like, you know, a person is great and perfect the way they are.

Amy Anthony [52:19] Yeah. To have, to not beat ourselves up, you know, someone does, if someone does have post-traumatic stress disorder, we want to work with that and bring them back to themselves right yeah it’d be like you are an awesome person yeah

Dr. Mark Leeds [52:35] You’re an awesome person that’s what you said yeah

Amy Anthony [52:37] Yeah it’s like something might have gone wrong so let’s you know people use this thing let’s touch that wound and honor that wound and then let’s work with it’s not going to go away you’re but you’re still you know yeah and I just have to say this and I have to follow up with the show notes with you there’s a book I just read this year by a psychiatrist in Britain that works with nature therapy, gardening therapy. And of course, aromatic plants come up in the book, but it’s about the therapeutic power of nature and gardening and how it’s very successful to work with these plants in jails, prisons, post-traumatic stress disorder for soldiers, veterans, for addiction recovery. It’s a fabulous book. I recommend it to you. I’ll share it. I’ll follow up.

Dr. Mark Leeds [53:32] Yeah, that sounds good.

Amy Anthony [53:36] It’s profound just to be like, oh, all I need to do is maybe smell some vetiver and work with someone to align me and give myself permission to be in nature and that could be healing. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Leeds [53:50] What do you think about that theory or idea that the whole world has a network of communicating plants like trees are communicating through some kind of a fungal mycelial network

Amy Anthony [54:01] Yeah yeah yeah the interconnectedness of it all I mean there’s evidence I forget her name the scientist that was pioneering that research was it 20 years ago up in I think washington state I could be misquoting that but I mean I believe it’s this we are each other right you go on that level like we exchange air and oxygen when you’re breathing in this beautiful cedarwood oil I have those chemists those chemicals are going into me like I know that every every it’s the butterfly effect right every action has a ripple effect so yeah tree trees are living beings they don’t live in isolation yeah at all

Dr. Mark Leeds [54:44] And then there’s a the a lot of a lot of talk about mushrooms having healing properties and not the magic mushrooms that everyone’s talking about but the just regular every other kind of mushroom of you know that they’re I guess you can I don’t know that might be getting off on a whole other topic that you know the science of mushrooms and healthy eating and all that but

Amy Anthony [55:06] It’s part of the holistic supporting someone holistically right so yeah incorporating incorporating dietary mushrooms into your life because that’s part of aromatherapy is like it’s not about pushing essential oils to make a profit in selling cheesy products. It’s about supporting the person holistically. So like you’re just saying, it’s incorporated diet, exercise, or movement. I like to call it movement, getting sunshine. It’s working with nature, being in nature. That’s part of aromatherapy, I like to say.

Dr. Mark Leeds [55:43] Yeah, that’s a big problem of nature. You know, people having access to nature and, you know, nature being damaged by, you know, by human beings and things that are happening, you know, we can’t, a lot of people can’t get fresh water and environment being destroyed and, you know, trying to protect that. So that’s like a, you know, major issue now. But at least, at least for now, though, I mean, most people, most of us, most people listening to this can probably get access to essential oils. So like definitely if someone wants to go out right now like would you say like whole foods would be a safe place to go to look for them on the shelf

Amy Anthony [56:22] Yeah so a few things I would like to share is definitely go to your local health food stores whole foods is a place to start I don’t advocate for brands or companies I’ll say that but I do have a I have a list of suppliers like plant therapy. They’re based here in the East coast is when you could go to. There’s a place called Floracopeia. They have lovely oils. They’re based in California, aromatics international, Eden’s garden. There’s a few online places to go to many. You could start going down a rabbit hole here, but definitely health food store. Please don’t go to Etsy or Amazon. I would rather you went to a store and you smelled the oil and essential oil should not give you a headache. It shouldn’t smell flat. It shouldn’t smell. That means synthetic. It should smell. It should have different components because an essential oil could be made up of 20, 30, 40, a hundred components plus. Yeah. So you should be able to smell variation. So go in person. And also as a part of my podcast journey here, as I was sharing with you before, is please seek an aromatherapist, seek a certified aromatherapist. I am the current New York State representative for the Alliance of International Aromatherapists. You can go to AIA, allianceofinternationalaromatherapist.org, and find an aromatherapist to work with. You can go to the National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy, that’s naha.org, to find a local aromatherapist to have someone work with you to help you guide you with the oils and be that gentle reminder of the safe use of essential oil, the safe application.

Dr. Mark Leeds [58:16] Okay. Do you work with people remotely or is it something because does it really need, like if you work with a client to help them with the aromatherapy, does it have to be in person so they’re able to smell the sense in your presence?

Amy Anthony [58:30] As a preference I’ve decided to not work remotely I know other people do but I feel it’s very important to be with that person to build rapport to see their expression to introduce them to the oils and see have them have the lived experience because you can have a you could do a questionnaires algorithms but you’re missing that like scent like you mentioned before not liking lavender but maybe I presented different lavenders to you know, like you need that lived experience. But again, I speak for myself, not all aromatherapists.

Dr. Mark Leeds [59:08] Yeah. But, you know, like I found recently, you know, […] you know, getting, you know, if you’re willing to fly at odd times and just go fly with a backpack, it’s not all that expensive getting to New York and back, you know, yeah. So, you know, it’s not completely out of the question, you know, somebody really wanted to work with you, they could take a trip up there and so how can people get in touch with you if they want to work with you directly?

Amy Anthony [59:33] Work with me here again because I am in-person only and I’m very private about working because I work from home. But definitely check out my website, nycaromatica.com to geek out with me about oils. I write articles. I have plant talk videos to help meet plants and ideas to work with them. I have free and pay what you wish classes on like how to diffuse essential oils, how to incorporate essential oils into your bath, how to make a salve, an aromatic salve for like topical application. So and also I have the Essential Aromatica podcast that I have. I interview other aromatherapists, but also have single episodes where I talk about botanicals and cooking with aromatics and different things. But I can’t stress enough. Like I want to love my professional community. So Naha.org and the Alliance of international aromatherapists.org is a way to find a local practitioner.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:00:37] Yeah. Okay. And you are, so you’re like, are you like the leader of aromatherapists of the entire state of New York?

Amy Anthony [1:00:44] No, no, that sounds so fabulous. It’s a volunteer position that I’ve taken on, to be like the person that a aromatherapist in New York state would reach out to. So we’re looking to build community, but also I speak for the AIA in a way I hear I’m here to professionally represent.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:01:05] Okay. Cause I was thinking that for aromatherapy is similar to cooking and I mean, cooking is, it’s not an easy thing to do. And in New York, you guys have the culinary Institute of America where the top chefs in the world come out of and what they’re doing and what you’re doing are kind of, I mean, you know, this is a major thing, you know, knowing how to combine things and make, and you’re not, you’re not making a dish for a restaurant full of people. You’re making it for an individual.

Amy Anthony [1:01:32] Yes. Yeah. I mean, you’re just bringing up something. I don’t care if it seems like I’m harping on this, but we have certification in this country and that’s why there’s places like Naha and the AIA. There’s people out there that are working with and selling oils that maybe you shouldn’t seek their advice. That’s all I’m So if you find someone that you know, went to a Naha and AIA approved school, you know, you’re getting a professional and someone that actually had to do case studies, write papers, take an exam. So,

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:02:07] Yeah. Yeah, that’s that’s important. I mean, because that’s it doesn’t sound like something that should be self-taught or self-studied and someone just I mean, you know, like these days, coaching is a big thing and anyone can call themselves a coach. But an aromatherapist is something that you want to see someone not only credentialed but credentialed by a reputable organization

Amy Anthony [1:02:25] Yeah until we have more regulation yeah so yeah so

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:02:32] Okay amy anthony thank you thank you for joining me in the podcast today it’s been an incredible conversation thank you

Amy Anthony [1:02:39] Well thanks for having me doctor this is really fantastic and thanks for the work that you do