Collection: Linalool Terpene
Linalool Potential Effects:
Why would so many different plants produce linalool? Its anti-microbial properties are protective for the plant and represent a potential therapeutic use in people. Whether it was used as an early antibiotic is unknown, but linalool (often in the form of lavender or peanut stems and leaves) has been used in traditional medicine practices for its sedative and anti-epileptic properties.
Mice exposed to linalool vapors show reduced levels of anxiety and lower depression-like behaviors. In these tests, mice exposed to linalool vapors spend more time in fear-inducing environments, and they’ll continue to work to escape a seemingly hopeless situation. It’s not exactly like testing anxiety and depression in the clinic, but in these well-validated measures, linalool appears to help.
Linalool also makes the immune system more resilient to the destructive effects of stress. Stress causes a shift in the distribution of white blood cells in the body (i.e., the cells of the immune system); the percent of lymphocytes decrease, and neutrophils increase. In rats, linalool prevented this shift, and in doing so, prevented the stress-induced changes in how the rats’ DNA was expressed. Interestingly, the authors reasoned that this protection was mediated by linalool’s ability to activate the body’s parasympathetic response, which is activated when the body is resting and digesting food, thereby fitting with linalool’s anti-anxiety effects.
Linalool Facts:
Aroma: Floral
Vaporizes at: 388ºF (198ºC)
Potential effects: Mood enhancement, sedation
Potential therapeutic value: Treatment of anxiety, depression, insomnia, pain, inflammation, and neurodegenerative disease
Also found in: Lavender
