lavender oil really can beat anxiety

LAVENDER oil has long been used to help relax people, but I always dismissed this home remedy as little more than a placebo.

However, this week I went to a talk by a psychiatry professor who was visiting from the Medical University of Vienna, and apparently there’s more to it than that.

On the Continent, lavender oil has long been ingested in capsules as an over-the-counter remedy for anxiety. Research is now emerging suggesting there’s sound evidence for this, with large, placebocontrolled trials showing how effective the capsules are.

One study compared them to paroxetine — an antidepressant routinely used to treat anxiety — and found the lavender capsules were just as effective.

Another study compared them to lorazepam, a medication now only rarely prescribed to treat anxiety because it is so addictive. Again, lavender oil was more effective but without any risks of addiction.

Lavender oil has been shown to work directly on the nerves in the brain to help make them less excitable, and so reduce whirring, worried thoughts.

This happens when the oil is sniffed but even more so in capsule form. I was quite flabbergasted.