Endocrinological effect of lavender aromatherapy on stressful visual stimuli

Effectiveness of Aromatherapy Yoga in Stress Reduction and Sleep Quality Improvement among Chinese Female College Students: A Quasi-Experimental Study

College students, particularly female students, often suffer from severe stress and poor sleep. Aromatherapy yoga has become a popular exercise in recent years and may help reduce stress and improve sleep quality, although empirical evidence is limited. We investigated the effectiveness of aromatherapy yoga intervention in reducing stress and improving sleep quality among Chinese female college students. A total of 89 participants—44 in the experimental group (aromatherapy yoga) and 45 in the control group (yoga)—with an average age of 19.88 ± 1.13 years, were enrolled in this quasi-experimental study. Interventions were performed in the respective groups once a week for 12 weeks, for 90 min each time. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Mann–Whitney U test (including effect size) were used to test the differences in stress reduction and sleep quality before and after the intervention. From the findings of the current research, both therapies did not help female students’ stress levels or sleep hygiene significantly. However, aromatherapy yoga has the potential to improve sleep disturbances experienced by female college students. Additionally, there was no difference in the amount of stress or the quality of sleep between the aromatherapy yoga groups and the regular yoga groups before and after therapy.

The effect of lavender on stress in individuals: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Lavender is considered as one of the medicinal plants to manage stress. Although many preliminary studies evaluated the effect of lavender on individuals' stress level, to the best of our knowledge, we did not find a study that summarizes the results. Therefore, the present study aimed to estimate the Pooled effect of lavender on the stress level of individuals using systematic review and meta-analysis.

METHOD

A systematic literature review based on PRISMA 2020 was performed on the SID, MagIran, Embase, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science (WoS) databases, and Google Scholar motor engine using related MeSH/Emtree and ‎Free Text words,‎ including "Lavender*", "Lavandula*", "Stress*", "Stress Disorders, Traumatic", and "Stress, Psychological" with no time limitation until August 2021: We also searched two Iranain free local resourses including MagIran https://www.magiran.com and Scientific Information Database (SID) https://www.sid.ir. The quality assessment of studies was performed using JBI checklist. Heterogeneity among studies was quantified using I² index and Random Effects model was used to combine the data and perform the meta-analysis.

RESULTS

In the initial search, 1520 articles were found. After excluding the irrelevant studies, finally, 21 articles with a sample size of 791 in the intervention group and 804 in the control group were included in the meta-analysis. As a result of combining the studies, stress score after using lavender in the intervention group showed a significant decrease of 0.63 ± 0.13 (95% CI) more than that in the control group (P < 0.001). The results of subgroup analysis demonstrated that the highest standardized mean difference (SMD) before and after the intervention in the intervention group compared to the control group was related to L. angustifolia species with 0.73 ± 0.22, student groups with 2.27 ± 1.34, and diagnostic tool of Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) with 0.82 ± 0.42, indicating that the difference between the groups was statistically significant (P < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

The pooled estimation of this systematic reiew and meta-analysis revealed that lavender significantly reduces individuals' stress. Therefore, it seems that the use of lavender can be considered as a part of a stress management programs, especially in student groups.

Healthy Dwelling: Design of Biophilic Interior Environments Fostering Self-Care Practices for People Living with Migraines, Chronic Pain, and Depression

The benefits of biophilic interior design have been recognized by healthcare facilities, but residential environments receive relatively less attention with respect to improving the health of people living with chronic diseases. Recent “stay-at-home” restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic further emphasized the importance of creating interior spaces that directly and indirectly support physical and mental health. In this viewpoint article, we discuss opportunities for combining biophilic interventions with interior design, fostering disease-specific self-care. We provide examples of designing residential spaces integrating biophilic interventions, light therapy, relaxation opportunities, mindfulness meditation, listening to music, physical activities, aromatherapy, and quality sleep. These modalities can provide the clinical benefits of reducing migraine headaches and chronic pain, as well as improving depressive symptoms. The disease-specific interior environment can be incorporated into residential homes, workplaces, assisted-living residences, hospitals and hospital at home programs. This work aims to promote a cross-disciplinary dialogue towards combining biophilic design and advances in lifestyle medicine to create therapeutic interior environments and to improve healthcare outcomes.

Use of Yoghurt Enhanced with Volatile Plant Oils Encapsulated in Sodium Alginate to Increase the Human Body's Immunity in the Present Fight Against Stress

(1) Background: The COVID–19 pandemic and the imposition of strict but necessary measures to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus have been, and still are, major stress factors for adults, children, and adolescents. Stress harms human health as it creates free radicals in the human body. According to various recent studies, volatile oils from various aromatic plants have a high content of antioxidants and antimicrobial compounds. An external supply of antioxidants is required to destroy these free radicals. The main purpose of this paper is to create a yoghurt with high antioxidant capacity, using only raw materials from Romania; (2) Methods: The bioactive components used to enrich the cow milk yoghurt were extracted as volatile oils out of four aromatic plants: basil, mint, lavender and fennel. Initially, the compounds were extracted to determine the antioxidant capacity, and subsequently, the antioxidant activity of the yoghurt was determined. The 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhy-drazyl (DPPH) method was used to determine the antioxidant activity; (3) Results: The results show that cow milk yoghurt enhanced with volatile oils of basil, lavender, mint and fennel, encapsulated in sodium alginate has an antioxidant and antimicrobial effect as a staple food with multiple effects in increasing the body’s immunity. The antioxidant activity proved to be considerably higher than the control sample. The highest antioxidant activity was obtained on the first day of the analysis, decreasing onwards to measurements taken on days 10 and 20. The cow milk yoghurt enriched with volatile basil oil obtained the best results; (4) Conclusions: The paper shows that yoghurts with a high antioxidant capacity were obtained, using only raw materials from Romania. A healthy diet, compliance with safety conditions and finding appropriate and safe methods to increase the body’s immunity is a good alternative to a major transition through harder times, such as pandemics. The creation of food products that include natural antioxidant compounds combines both the current great possibility of developing food production in Romania and the prevention and reduction of the effects caused by pandemic stress in the human body.