Aromatherapy, Seasonal Depression & Finding Peace Through Scent
Every winter in Northern Michigan, the rhythm of life shifts. The sunlight fades earlier each day, lake air turns sharp, and color drains into a palette of gray and navy. For many of us, this seasonal transition can affect emotional well-being in subtle but real ways — what we often describe as seasonal depression, low mood, or emotional heaviness brought on by the lack of sunlight.
For me, the experience of winter isn’t dramatic — it’s quiet. It feels like dimming. Less spark. More inwardness than I ever intend.
Over time, aromatherapy and natural scent rituals have become one of the simplest ways I support myself through these darker months. Not as a replacement for sunlight, therapy, or professional care, but as a meaningful companion to my emotional landscape.
How Aromatherapy Supports Emotional Well-Being
Aromatherapy is widely recognized as a complementary tool for emotional support — especially when it comes to stress, anxiety, mood regulation, and nervous system balance. Natural botanicals interact directly with the brain’s limbic system, where memory and emotion live. When you inhale scent, the body responds before the mind has time to rationalize.
This is why a single aroma can spark comfort, nostalgia, longing, or tranquility without explanation.
More importantly, natural fragrance does something subtle: it creates space. It softens overstimulation, slows the pace, and offers a small moment of inward attention — something winter makes harder to access.
The Personal Side: Scent & Seasonal Depression
Seasonal depression doesn’t always look like sadness — sometimes it looks like functioning with less light inside. Sometimes it looks like numbness, exhaustion, or a craving for stillness. Sometimes it looks like withdrawal. Sometimes it looks surprisingly productive on the outside while feeling detached on the inside.
Natural scent didn’t “fix” this for me. But it helped me notice it. It slowed me down enough to recognize what was happening emotionally beneath the surface.
Aromatherapy became not a cure, but a form of self-understanding. A way to check in with myself during months when nature offers very little in return.
Why Natural Botanicals Feel Different
One thing I’ve learned as a natural perfumer: our bodies tend to respond differently to botanicals than they do to synthetic aroma molecules. We evolved alongside plants, so natural aromatic compounds often feel more familiar to the nervous system — less overwhelming, more grounding.
Natural fragrance can gently support:
• emotional regulation
• creativity and daydreaming
• a sense of sensory aliveness
• nervous system soothing
• mind/body reconnection
• the simple joy of ritual
During winter, when external stimuli flatten, these small experiences matter.
Rituals for Low-Light Months
Winter taught me to approach aromatherapy through ritual rather than through goals. There is no “right” way to wear scent — only intention.
Some of my favorite practices wearing scents:
• a morning ritual with coffee/tea
• slow inhalation before prayer
• exercise in any form
• breathwork paired with botanicals
• wearing scent for comfort
With seasonal depression, the smallest rituals often carry the greatest weight.
Discovery Sets: A Gentle Way to Explore Peace
If you’re new to natural fragrance, I always recommend beginning not with commitment, but with curiosity.
Our GLO Discovery Sets are designed exactly for that — to let you explore how scent interacts with mood, emotion, memory, and winter itself. Each fragrance offers a different kind of presence: some soften, some brighten, some ground, some bring warmth back into the body.
Finding peace through scent isn’t about choosing the “best” perfume. It’s about discovering what your nervous system longs for during the season you’re in.
And winter asks for different things than summer.
A Closing Thought
Aromatherapy is not a shortcut and it is not a prescription. It won’t replace sunlight, sleep, therapy, or support systems. But it can offer something just as necessary: a moment of permission. Permission to feel without explanation. Permission to pause. Permission to soften the season and step back into yourself.
Sometimes peace doesn’t arrive loudly. Sometimes it arrives through scent.
-Connie