Lavender Scent Calms Dental Patients
Researchers, who presented their results in England, have found that lavender scent may reduce pre-dental appointment anxiety in patients. Numerous people avoid the dentist because they are scared of being hurt, and this leads to an unhealthy mouth over time. This tends to work both ways, as the dental team becomes more anxious when dealing with an anxious patient, which may in turn hinder their levels of performing the required dental work and prolong the appointment and throw off the office scheduling for that day.
These investigators researched patients’ anxiety levels prior to them seeing the dentist, with the major focus being on breathing a lavender scent prior to their visits. Using three hundred forty adult dental patients, who were seated and waiting for their dental visit, the research team measured their levels of anxiety. Some of these test subjects were exposed to a lavender scent, while the other subjects were not. The dental patient test subjects who breathed the lavender scent prior to their dental appointment reported that they felt less anxious than the group that did not breathe the lavender scent. The researchers reported noticeable and significant results independent of the dental procedure to be rendered. Noteworthy, was that breathing the lavender scent did not achieve the reduced anxiety effects concerning future dental office visits.
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