The Effects Caused by Lavender and Rosemary for Salivary Cortisol, Stress Levels and Mood Alteration

This study is being conducted in order to confirm the effects of inhaling method for aromatherapy on cortisol which is a stress hormone by the saliva test method. An attempt is being made to dertermine if there are any differences between the effect of lavender and rosemary when concidering their effects on the cortisolsl. The test shows a statistically significant decrease in the cortisol levesl(Table 4), and as far as the comparison of the effects between lavender(N=10) and rosemary(N=10) is concerned, the lavender group show a p-value of .005 which means that there are no statistical significances; while the rosemary group show p-values of .081 meaning that there is a decrease in cortisol levels, which is statistically significant(Table 5). It has been proven that the saliva test method is a practical and scientific method when confirming the effects of aromatherapy and also a convenient method for both of the test coordinator and the subjects. Results of all 20 subjects showed similar results obtained by means of conventional blood tests. However, the rosemary group shows statistically significant decrease in cortisol level compared to the lavender group, thus proving that the test method for studying the effect of aromatherapy on stress is valid. Further studies should be conducted in order to investigate the differences in the effects of the cortisol level at different concentrations of the aroma.