Rose Oil as “Miracle Grow” for the Brain and The Many Ways Essential Oils Support Brain Health and Cognition

Recently, I was elated to see posts on social media about rose oil increasing the size of our brains go viral!

This research being celebrated made my heart sing, as I’ve been sharing about the brain health effects of essential oils for a long time now. This trial, however, brought it to a whole new level.

Specifically, the groundbreaking study from Kyoto University found that continuous inhalation of rose essential oil for 30 days resulted in measurable growth of gray matter volume (GMV) across the whole brain. The posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), a region linked to memory and emotional processing, was the most impacted.

Knowing my love of essential oils, I had a few of my functional medicine colleagues and followers reach out to me to ask for my opinion on this research. So, in this video blog, I provide a deeper dive of the study to answer their inquiries and share the information with you. I also will discuss the many other ways essential oils aid our brain health.

Topics we’ll cover include:

• The effect of essential oils on brain function
• Neuroplasticity and how essential oils enhance it
• The impact of essential oils on brain health
• The latest viral study on aromatics: how rose oil acts like “miracle grow” for the brain
• Some limitations on generalizing the research on the brain growth resulting from sniffing rose oil

As always, the references, resources, and links to studies can be found in this accompanying article.

So, let’s get started.

 

Essential Oils Effect on Brain Function

Essential oils are known to impact brain functioning based on several mechanisms. These include their ability to:

(1) modulate hormones and brain signaling patterns

(2) shift brain electrical activity

(3) protect the nervous system (neuroprotective)

(4) impact neuroplasticity

Furthermore, we know that various essential oils have different molecular makeups that may be particular for specific aspects of improving cognition and brain health. For example, rosemary and sage oils both have good human evidence for acting as neuroprotective agents and enhancing memory.

Additionally, by impacting neuroplasticity, essential oils could further influence brain pathways and support emotional processing. I’ll expand on this below.

 

Neuroplasticity and Essential Oils

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.

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

Scientifically speaking, the Aroma Freedom technique facilitates neuroplasticity and assists with memory deconsolidation and reconsolidation. This process first accesses the neural pathways of the old memory. Next, essential oils are introduced to calm the mind-body and to begin shifting the association of that memory with a different brain pattern. This is known as deconsolidation.

Finally, to create new brain “routes,” specific essential oils are inhaled while simultaneously focusing on a goal or intention. In this way, essential oils aid to “redirect” brain pathways to more positive thoughts. This is a form of memory reconsolidation.

This application of essential oils 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!

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. You can learn more about this process in my interview with the founder of AFT, Dr. Ben Perkus here.

 

The Impact of Essential Oils on Brain Health

Essential oils can also enhance brain health through their impact on almost all brain health factors that cause dysfunction in the mind and body. This is because:

• They modulate the immune system, inflammation, and cellular stress through various biochemical pathways. This protects mitochondrial health and relieves the negative impacts of environmental exposures leading to neurodegeneration.
• Some essential oils support enzymes that help the body detoxify and act as antioxidants. These actions safeguard neurons and cellular structures from various environmental insults.
• They are neuroprotective, preserving cognitive health and helping one recover from brain trauma.
• They are antimicrobial, antiviral, and antifungal, aiding in mitigating stealth infections that can lead to brain inflammation.
• The can positively affect neurotransmitters and balance brain biochemistry.
• They support digestion and assimilation and a healthy microbiome, which influences the gut-brain connection.
• They support emotional balance through beneficially modulating stress, cortisol, hormones, and resulting blood sugar issues.
• They support vagal tone, enhancing parasympathetic activity. This brings calm to the mind and body so autonomic physiological functioning can be optimized.
• They support our emotional health through their biochemical properties, influence on brain electrical activity, and aromatic-based memory associations. Due to this, they are a form psychoaromatherapy and neuroplastic agents that help us heal from trauma and adversity.

 

Essential Oils Effect on Brain Regulation

Besides influencing our brain processes and cognitive health, essential oils are perhaps most well-known for their ability to induce relaxation and relieve stress. This is through their various mechanisms which impact brain regulation indirectly, including:

1. Regulating our hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis (the bidirectional biofeedback pathways between our brain and our endocrine system)
2. Buffering stress at the level of perception
3. Balancing hormones, which influence neurotransmitters
4. Lowering cortisol, the stress hormone which impacts brain activity
5. Stimulating the vagus nerve, which serves as the communication between the gut and brain

Now that we understand the various mechanisms of how essential oils support brain health, let’s look more discerningly at the study with rose oil that caught the world’s attention.

 

The Study: How Rose Oil Acted as “Miracle Grow” for the Brain

In this small study of 50 people, researchers sought to investigate the changes that could occur after 30 days of inhalation of rose essential oil (the intervention). Participants’ brain images were measured at Kyoto University using an MRI machine at baseline and after one-month.

For the trial, 28 people in the intervention group were given rose oil to wear as a designated scent on their clothes for one month. Their results were compared to the 22 subjects in the control group who used plain water to “aromatize” their own garments.

 The authors reported (non-italicized parenthesis mine):

… daily inhalation of rose essential oil increased the GMV (grey matter volume) of the whole brain and its PCC (posterior cingulate cortex) subregion measured by GM-BHQ (Grey matter measurement). On the contrary, the amygdala and OFC (orbitofrontal cortex) GM-BHQ did not show any significant changes. These results remained unchanged even after multiple comparisons using the Benjamini & Hochberg (BH) method.

The PCC is involved in memory-odor associations, odor memory retrieval, and semantic memory processes (Maddock et al., 2001, Binder et al., 2009, Bird et al., 2015).

 

Some Caveats to the Brain Growth Report with Rose Oil

There are some limitations and considerations with the results of this study that may limit our ability to generalize its findings to the mass population.

First, the characteristics of the odors chosen may have influenced which brain region was impacted. According to the study, intensity and pleasantness of smells are processed in different areas of the brain, which may account for some of the brain areas that were stimulated by the rose oil.

Water and rose oil are both well-known scents. The water is a neutral scent and the rose oil is often considered pleasant.

These aspects of the scents could explain why the PCC was most activated, because it decodes pleasant and unpleasant odors and memory-based associated smells. In other words, most people have a memory come to mind then they encounter the aroma of a rose and it is often considered a pleasant odor.

The smell of rose oil and water likely would not have strongly activated the OFC, which is involved in identification of scents, as these odors are so common. Nor would they trigger the amygdala, which is most responsive to unpleasant or strange aromatics.

According to the authors, the study had three other limitations. These include:

1. The composition of the participants were only women, so the results are not reflective of the whole population.

2. The study did not take into account the women’s lifestyle, exercise, diet, education, career, etc. All of these factors could have influenced brain health and volume.

3. The study wasn’t truly “double-blinded”, due to the easy distinction between smelling water vs. rose oil.

Other factors that limit the generalizability of this study, from my perspective, include:

1. The study results can only be interpreted for one oil and one part of brain growth, rose oil’s impact on GMV, in this select population.

Other essential oils or “rose scented” perfumes were not assessed in the general population.

Furthermore, other fragrances emitted by less-known essential oils may activate different brain regions to “decode” them, as compared to the familiar odor of rose.

2. The participants weren’t monitored for adherence.

This means that the results could have been skewed depending on how well they followed the instructions.

3. Dipropylene glycol (DPG) was used to dilute the essential oil.

DPG could have altered the effect of the essential oil based on its characteristics and how it impacted vaporization of the aroma.

According to the authors:

DPG is a polyhydric alcohol that combines PG (propylene glycol) and is a safer and less irritating ingredient than PG. To investigate the effects of continuous inhalation of essential oil, DPG was selected in this study because it has high water retention, antibacterial properties, and is effective in increasing the shelf life of products (Japan Cosmetic Association, 2021), and has been confirmed to be safe for the human body, including the skin (Cosmetic Ingredient Review Expert Panel, 1984).

This means the effect of rose oil may be different with inhalation of the pure oil or using a scented carrier oil.

Regardless of the limitations and lack of generalizability, this study was pretty impressive in showing how an essential oil has the capacity to enhance our brain growth over time. I look forward to more replications that take into account these limitations and which test the impact of other essential oils.

 

Summarizing the Impact of Essential Oils on the Brain

Essential oils have many different effects on the brain. They impact brain functioning by their ability to modulate hormones and brain signaling patterns, shift brain electrical activity, protect the nervous system (neuroprotective), and impact neuroplasticity. They also address underlying triggers that could cause dysfunction in brain signaling and overall brain health such as calming inflammation, acting as antioxidants, and aiding detoxification and digestion. Finally, they can induce relaxation, relieve stress, and assist with emotional processing through their various mechanisms, which all impact brain regulation.

Recently, a new study with rose oil added to the repertoire of the ability of essential oils to better our brain. This is through causing a growth in gray matter volume throughout the whole brain in female subjects.

As more research is done on the impact of essential oils on brain health, I believe we will become more amazed by their prowess to support it and defend against the negative insults of our environment and aging on our cognition.

What have you noticed about using essential oils for brain health?

Be sure to comment below.

Sending you many blessings.

 

Questions and Answers:

How Do Essential Oils Impact the Brain?

Essential oils modulate hormones and brain signaling patterns, shift brain electrical activity, protect the nervous system (neuroprotective), and impact neuroplasticity. They also address underlying triggers that could cause dysfunction in brain signaling. Finally, they can induce relaxation, relieve stress, and assist with emotional processing.

Can Rose Oil Make My Brain Grow?

A small study found inhaling rose oil for 30 days caused a growth in gray matter volume throughout the whole brain in female subjects. However, there were some limitations to the study that make it not generalizable to all essential oils and populations.

 

Interested in Learning More About Essential Oils?

• Opt-in for my free weekly newsletter. Gain access to clinically relevant essential oils and integrative medicine information from a certified functional and naturopathic medicine doctor.
• Have you tried OneSkin? Get younger, healthier skin at the cellular level.
• Sign-up for my no-cost, exclusive, space-limited Mind-Body-Heart-Spirit Passion (MBHS) webinar.
• Grab free resources and more education on essential oils and mind-body wellness here.
• For Health Care Providers: Earn CEU’s From My Course on the Clinical Applications of Essential Oils.
• Learn about my community membership program.
• Skim through my branded essential oils website.
• Join my Essential Oils DIY Recipe Group (Facebook)
• Calm your nervous system and tone your vagus nerve with the Parasympathetic Blend.
• Find relief with Histamine Balance.™ (special savings link)
• Take the Wyld Notes quiz to find your personalized, all-natural, non-toxic signature scent here. (Click here for your 10% coupon code.)

 

Resources:

• ontinuous inhalation of essential oil increases gray matter volume. (Brain Research Bulletin. 2024.)
• Three Ways Essential Oils Support Brain Health for Better Mood, Memory, and Cognition: Part 1 (My video blog with references)
• A Naturopathic and Functional Medicine Approach to Supporting the Brain Using Essential Oils: Essential Oils for the Brain Part 2 (My video blog with references)
• Essential Oils for Stress Relief and Mental Health: A Review (My video blog with references)
• Essential Oils for Stress Relief (Jade Shutes, Aromatic Studies)
• The Aroma Freedom Revolution – Using Essential Oils to Rewire your Brain and Live the Life of Your Dreams with Dr. Ben Perkus, PhD (Ep. 380 of the Essential Oil Revolution)
• Boost Your Mood, Release Limiting Beliefs, and Enhance Motivation with Aromatic Techniques (My video blog with references)
• The Stress-Hormone-Brain Connection & How Hormones Influence Brain Signaling, Emotions, and Mental Health (Part I) (My article with references)
• Memory reconsolidation. (Current Biology, 2013)