Essential Oils for Aiding the Symptoms of Grief and Trauma and How Aromatherapy Can “Rewire” the Brain for Healing

This article has been updated (July 2026) to reflect emerging insights on the links between nervous system regulation through the vagus nerve, neuroplasticity and brain processing, and to provide resources regarding an integrative framework for better brain health.

 

Summary: Essential Oils, Grief, Trauma, and Brain Healing

Grief and trauma affect far more than our emotions. They can influence the brain, nervous system, cognition, sleep, immune function, and overall resilience. Research suggests that chronic stress and emotional distress may alter neural pathways and impact how the body responds to future challenges.

Fortunately, the brain remains capable of change throughout life through neuroplasticity—its ability to create new connections and adapt in response to experiences and environmental inputs.

One reason essential oils are uniquely positioned to support emotional wellness is their direct connection to the olfactory system and limbic regions of the brain involved in memory, emotions, stress responses, and nervous system regulation. Emerging evidence suggests aromatherapy may help support emotional processing, resilience, autonomic balance, and overall well-being during periods of grief and recovery.

In this article, we’ll explore how essential oils may help support emotional healing, neuroplasticity, vagus nerve function, and the body’s natural capacity to recover from stress and trauma.

 

Table of Contents 

• Introduction
• How Essential Oils Can Impact Grief
• Can Essential Oils Influence Neuroplasticity?
• How the Aroma Freedom Technique can “Rewire the Brain”
• How Aromatherapy May Support Aspects of Emotional Processing
• Essential Oils, the Vagus Nerve, and Emotional Regulation
• Essential Oils for the Symptoms of Grief
• Conclusion
• Resources
• Frequently Asked Questions

 

Introduction: Grief Hurts, Essential Oils Can Help

In our previous post, I reviewed the multi-faceted aspects of grief, its common symptoms, and how it can lead to either post-traumatic growth or result in prolonged and heightened activation of the nervous system. When unresolved, chronic grief can negatively affect cognitive, emotional, and physical health and decrease one’s quality of life.

Thankfully, we have tools that can support us with coping with hard transitions and aid our healing. Essential oils are an effective modality that can help us deal with loss and difficult emotions in a healthy way. These aromatic allies can be used to assist us in our ability to move forward and enhance our enjoyment of life after loss.

In this video post, I will continue my discussion on how essential oils affect brain function and highlight specific oils that can aid with alleviating some of the symptoms of grief. I also will explore how the Aroma Freedom Technique (AFT) and other somatic practices can help resolve hard emotions and assist with a positive transformation after a challenging life transition.

 

How Essential Oils Can Help Heal Grief

Due to their aromatic nature, essential oils can be used as a nourishing and comforting modality to help one process trauma and loss. This is because aromas reach the brain’s limbic system, our memory and emotional center, to instantly create a shift in our emotions. In fact, smell influences our mental state directly, before the change even reaches our consciousness.

As a result of the direct influence of smell on our mood, inhaling essential oils can alter and interrupt the brain’s imprinting of trauma when one is exposed to triggers. Rather than re-enforcing the feelings of helplessness and sadness, scent can promote emotional well-being, security, and hope. At the same time, the biochemical properties of our aromatic companions can help alleviate the physical, mental, and cognitive manifestations associated with grief.

 

Can Essential Oils Support Neuroplasticity?

One of the most exciting areas of brain research is neuroplasticity—the brain’s remarkable ability to reorganize, adapt, and create new neural connections throughout life.

While grief and trauma can contribute to maladaptive stress patterns, the brain is not fixed. Through supportive lifestyle interventions, emotional processing, nervous system regulation, and targeted sensory inputs, new pathways can develop that promote resilience and recovery.

Aromatherapy may play a unique role in this process because olfactory signals bypass many of the brain’s filtering mechanisms and communicate directly with regions involved in emotion, memory, learning, and behavior.

This direct connection may help explain why certain aromas can immediately evoke memories, shift emotional states, or create a sense of calm and safety. Over time, these sensory experiences may become part of broader strategies that support healthy adaptation and emotional resilience.

 

How Essential Oils Affect Neuroplasticity Through the Aroma Freedom Technique

Our brains adapt to change and novel information by forming new pathways and neural connections. This “rewiring” is necessary for our daily functioning and survival.

When destructive, implicit (subconscious) memories from our past experiences bias our beliefs and/or unconsciously run our lives, we can become dysfunctional. The Aroma Freedom technique (AFT) helps to “pull out” these negative thoughts by creating the “pattern interrupt” discussed above. It incorporates the use of essential oils to stimulate the neurons in our brain to reroute and rewire our thinking away from these unhelpful thought patterns in a precise and calculated manner.

This impressive application of essential oils, invented by Dr. Perkus, is based on neuroscience, psychology, and how essential oils’ impact our nervous system response and vagus nerve tone. It accelerates our innate capacity to heal not just our minds, but also our bodies!

Scientifically speaking, the Aroma Freedom technique facilitates neuroplasticity and assists with memory deconsolidation and reconsolidation. This process first accesses the stuck neural pathways of the old memory through bringing the event to mind. This usually stimulates various physical and emotional sensations in the body that are brought into conscious awareness and focus. Next, essential oils are introduced to calm the mind-body and to begin shifting the emotions of the associated memory with a different brain pattern and feeling. This is known as deconsolidation.

Finally, to create new brain “routes,” specific essential oils are inhaled while simultaneously focusing on a new goal or intention. In this way, essential oils aid to “redirect” brain pathways to more positive thoughts. Their smells can then serve as an “anchor” back to relaxation and clarity when one is triggered with an overwhelming feeling or situation. This would be considered a form of memory reconsolidation.

I recommend AFT to many of my clients who are stuck in old, negative patterns, habits, behaviors, or limiting beliefs. It is also helpful to release emotional upheaval and overwhelm and rewire the brain after loss or grief. You can learn more about this process in my interview with the founder of AFT, Dr. Ben Perkus here. (I have personally consulted with Dr. Perkus and have had immense relief after several traumatic experiences.)

 

Essential Oils Other Effects on Brain Function and Grief

Essential oils not only help one release blocked emotions and re-balance their mind and body after a challenging transition or past events, but they can also help to create a biophysiological shift in our mood and emotional state.

Essential oils are known to impact brain functioning based on several different mechanisms. They have the ability to:

(1) modulate hormones and brain signaling patterns

(2) shift brain electrical activity

(3) protect the nervous system (neuroprotective)

(4) impact neuroplasticity (as noted above)

Furthermore, we know that various essential oils have different molecular makeups that may be particularly effective for specific aspects of improving cognition, brain health, and our body that have been compromised by chronic grief. Based on the various symptoms present, selected essential oils can be implemented into one’s wellness regime.

 

Essential Oils, the Vagus Nerve, and Emotional Regulation

Another emerging area of interest involves the vagus nerve—the primary communication pathway between the brain and many organs throughout the body.

The vagus nerve plays a key role in regulating stress responses, emotional resilience, heart rate variability, digestion, inflammation, and parasympathetic nervous system activity.

When individuals experience prolonged stress, grief, or trauma, the body may become stuck in a heightened state of vigilance. Supporting vagal tone and parasympathetic activity may help create the physiological conditions necessary for healing and recovery.

Essential oils are increasingly being explored as one tool that may help promote relaxation, support autonomic balance, and encourage a shift toward a calmer, more regulated state. Through their influence on emotional centers of the brain and their ability to affect mood and perception, aromatics can support practices aimed at restoring nervous system resilience and vagal tone.

In fact, essential oils such as ylang ylang, lavender, and bergamot have been found to aid in enhancing the “rest and digest” state, as measured through various physiological markers and Heart Rate Variability.

For this reason, I integrate aromatherapy alongside nutrition, sleep optimization, stress management, movement, social connection, and other foundational strategies that support whole-person healing.

 

Essential Oils for the Symptoms of Grief

Based on their comprehensive and holistic healing characteristics, various essential oils may be helpful for coping with specific manifestations of grief. Examples include:

• Memory– rosemary and sage oils both have good human evidence for acting as neuroprotective agents and enhancing memory
• Energy and focus – rosemary oil, sage oil, jasmine oil, citrus oils, and peppermint oil all can help with fatigue, poor focus, and low energy
• Stress on the nervous system -essential oils to aid overwhelm and excess stress include clary sage, lavender, bergamot, ylang ylang, the stress relief blend, and the parasympathetic blend
• Sleep – the circadian rhythm essential oil blend and lavender oil can help one reset their sleep-wake times and aid sleep
• Digestion – peppermint oil, ginger oil, fennel oil, frankincense oil, and the intestinal mucosa blend can ease the inflammation and irritation that contribute to gut issues from nervous system hyperstimulation
• Mood support and whole body balance – the joyful blend combines various essential oils to uplift mood, enhance self-worth, support hormonal balance, ease stress, and support overall well-being
• Stored emotions causing somatic issues – specific oil blends, such as Fascia Release and Limbic Reset, can be used to release the trauma and tension stored in the tissues and relax the mind

The above oils can be used with AFT and/or Jennifer Pressimone’s ScentMapping Method to help one cope with loss as they address the imbalances in our physiology. I often use the somatic blends, such as Fascia Release and Limbic Reset, in conjunction with the other essential oils that address specific symptoms and with the above methods.

 

Conclusion: Processing Grief, Trauma, Loss, and Hard Emotions with Essential Oils

The aromatic nature of essential oils helps us to effectively process grief and loss. Their scents directly reach the limbic system, our emotional and memory center, to prompt calming emotional responses. They also influence brain function by modulating hormones, brain signals, neuroplasticity, offering neural protection, and enhancing vagal tone.

Specific oils can aid in dealing with various symptoms related to grief. These include rosemary and sage oils to enhance memory and focus; clary sage oil, lavender oil, bergamot oil, the parasympathetic blend, and the stress relief blend to relieve stress; circadian rhythm blend and lavender oil to support sleep; and peppermint oil, ginger oil, fennel oil, frankincense oil, and intestinal mucosa blend to ease gut issues. The somatic blends, such as Fascia Release and Limbic Reset, can be incorporated with these oils to release stored tension in the mind and body.

Used with AFT (Aroma Freedom Technique) and somatic practices, essential oils may help rewire brain pathways for better emotional processing as they address the various manifestations of grief, loss, and trauma.

I hope you find this information helpful and use it and share it with those who need to hear it.

Sending blessings.

 

Resources for Grief

• Saratoga Article: Grief, Brain Health, and Healing: How the Brain Adapts After Loss

• Learn more about the Aroma Freedom Technique on this resource page

• Learn about the link between smell, olfaction, and the somatic impact and the specific oil blends to release trauma and stuck emotions in the body here

 

More Brain Health Resources

For additional information on supporting brain resilience, you can explore these guides:

• Brain-focused nutrition
• Movement as medicine
• Mindset as medicine
• Smell to rewire the brain

You can also access my Brain Health Supplement Protocol for targeted support.