Aromatherapy, also known as Essential Oil Therapy is a holistic healing technique that encourages health, equilibrium and wellness by using natural plant extracts. It uses essential aromatic oils to improve, enhance and heal the body, mind and spirit. It improves both physical and emotional health. It is both viewed as an art and a science. The therapy has recently gained greater recognition in the fields of science and medicine.

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Essential oils are extracted from grasses, leaves, flowers, fruits, bark, wood, needles, twigs, roots, and resins shrubs from all over the world. Each essential oil has its own unique medicinal qualities, characteristics, and therapeutic effects.

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Essential oils have been known to have a positive effect on all the major physical systems of the body including the circulatory, lymphatic, digestive, eliminative, reproductive, endocrine, muscular, and skeletal.

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Humans used aromatherapy for thousands of years. Ancient cultures in China, India, Egypt and elsewhere integrated components of aromatic plants into resins, balms, and oils. Such natural substances have been used for pleasures, healing, perfume,  medical and religious purposes. Aromatherapy also has been known to have positive physical and psychological effects. Modern day research has confirmed their therapeutic and medicinal qualities of being anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, antiseptic, anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, anti- venomous, anti-depressive, anti-neuralgic, stimulant, nervine, digestive, diuretic and more.

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The effect of essential oils on the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual is extraordinary: from healing, uplifting depression, anxiety into clarity, stress into calming and scattered into grounding. Essential oils are known to be sedative or stimulating in nature, addressing the autonomic nervous system to produce the desired effect.

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The discovery of distillation of essential oils is credited to the Persians in the 10th century, although the process may have been in use long before this. Information about the distillation of essential oil was published in Germany during the 16th century. In the 19th century, French physicists recognized the value of essential oils for the treatment of disease.

In the 19th century, medical doctors became more developed and concentrated on the use of chemical drugs. However, the French and German doctors have always acknowledged the importance of natural botanicals in the treatment of disease.

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The word "aromatherapy" was coined in a book he wrote about the subject, published in 1937 by a French perfumer and chemist René-Maurice Gattefossé. Previously he had discovered lavender 's healing ability in treating burns.