摘要: | 自古以來芳香療法就與人類生活息息相關,應用範圍涵蓋身、心、靈等。植物精油進入人體有兩大途徑:嗅覺與經皮吸收,氣味分子透過嗅覺影響大腦進而對生理與心理產生作用。然而,精油的臨床效果主要是根據作者的個人經驗撰寫而成,缺乏科學的驗證。 根據行政院衛生署調查發現,2012年心血管疾病占國人十大死因之第二順位,而肥胖為主要相關因子,其病後復健亦非常艱辛,而健康體適能與有氧運動能改善心肺功能,降低發生率。因此,衛生署與教育部積極推動與體適能相關之政策。研究發現運動時交感神經活化導致心跳加速、呼吸急促,一旦停止後交感神經活性迅速被抑制,副交感神經活性增加,導致心率開始下降。芳香氣味能否在此時影響其調控機制,使心率恢復過程變得更順暢是本研究重點。 在這項研究當中我們選擇了3分鐘登階運動為運動介入(藉以模擬心肺疾病患者病後復健情況),探討不同的精油氣味對大專女生運動後心率回復的影響,並使用心率變異分析儀來檢測其變化。本研究採開放標籤之簡單隨機指派實驗設計(open-label, randomized controlled trial),將34位學生分別指派成兩組,一組為藍膠尤加利精油組,另一組為茉莉花精油組。結果發現,登階運動造成心率變異(SDNN)顯著下降,經過五分鐘休息時間並無法顯著提升。但是代表副交感活性的RMSSD在前三分鐘快速上昇,與心率回復的趨勢大致相當;之後變化趨緩,但仍未能回復到平時水準,顯示心律回復可能包含兩階段過程。結果也顯示,藍膠尤加利似乎對運動後副交感神經活性的提升有更好的效果,相較茉莉花精油或不使用精油,都有明顯的差異。藉由此一研究結果,值得未來在心肺相關患者的病後復健時,做為改善心率回復、呼吸順暢度、提升病後生活品質的參考。 Since ancient times, aromatherapy is closely linked with daily life, applied covering the body, mind, and spirit. There are two ways for essential oils to enter the body: the smell, and the percutaneous absorption. Compared to percutaneous absorption, the sense of smell has more profound effects on humans. However, the clinical effects of essential oils were mainly personal experiences of the authors, and lack of empirical scientific basis. According to the statistics of the Department of Health, cardiovascular disease is the No.2 leading cause of death of people in 2010. Physical fitness exercise and aerobic exercise to improve cardiorespiratory fitness, therefore, are the key policy which the Department of Health and the Ministry of Education actively promote. It is known that sports excite sympathetic nervous system, which results in acceleration of the cardio rhythm in normal healthy people; after exercises, sympathetic activity is quickly suppressed and parasympathetic activity increases, causing heart rate decreases rapidly. Will aromatic odor affect this regulatory mechanism and make the heart rate recovery process become smoother? In this study, we chose 3-minute stepping exercise as standard to investigate the impact of essential oils on College female students during heart rate recovery. The results showed that the stepping exercise cause heart rate variability decreased significantly, and did not change much within the five minutes resting time. On the other hand, RMSSD, representing the parasympathetic activity, increased fast and significantly in the first three minutes, a result consistent with the trend of heart rate recovery, followed by a slow-changing phase, suggesting the existence of a two-stage process. Eucalyptus or jasmine essential oil does not make significant differences during the fast-changing phase if we use windows of 30 seconds in analysis. Eucalyptus seems to give better results in enhancing the activation of the parasympathetic nerves, however, when a window of 60 seconds were used. |