Aromatherapy & Essential Oils for Surgical Recovery | San Francisco
At Ethos Plastic Surgery, we recognize that healing isn’t only physical; it’s emotional, sensory, and deeply personal. That’s why Harvard-trained plastic surgeon Dr. Ginger Xu offers aromatherapy as part of her holistic care experience. By gently engaging the senses, essential oils can calm the nervous system, reduce discomfort, and help restore balance in the body during every phase of recovery.
Ethos Plastic Surgery invites you to contact Ivy League-trained plastic surgeon Dr. Ginger Xu online or call (415) 504-1124. She and our team will be happy to answer your questions and explain the benefits of aromatherapy and essential oils with plastic surgery. We proudly serve patients in and around the San Francisco Bay Area.
What is Aromatherapy?
Aromatherapy utilizes plant-derived essential oils to support healing on multiple levels, including physical, emotional, and neurological. These natural compounds interact with your senses, hormones, nervous system, and immune response to help regulate mood, reduce pain, and bring your body back into balance.
Inhalation of essential oils works quickly. The scent enters through the nose and signals the brain’s emotional and memory centers, helping to calm anxiety, lift mood, and activate the body’s relaxation response. Scents like lavender and frankincense gently soothe the nervous system, slowing heart rate, reducing blood pressure, and easing emotional tension.
At the same time, essential oils work on a physiological level. Oils like clary sage and rosemary have been shown to lower stress hormones like cortisol, while others, including tea tree and eucalyptus, support immune health and reduce inflammation. When applied to the skin, oils like peppermint and wintergreen increase circulation and reduce muscle tension, relieving discomfort and promoting healing in the tissue beneath.
Why We Offer Aromatherapy After Surgery
Aromatherapy is deeply supportive throughout the healing journey. Whether used before surgery to create a sense of calm, or afterward to ease pain and help the body restore itself, it’s a gentle yet powerful tool. Patients often describe feeling emotionally lighter, more grounded, and physically more comfortable after aromatherapy sessions.
At Ethos, we believe healing is multidimensional. We offer both guided aromatherapy experiences and therapeutic-grade oils for use at home, so you can continue to support your recovery and well-being wherever you are. These practices are designed to align mind and body, bringing you into a state of balance where real transformation can take root.
Meet Dr. Ginger Xu
Dr. Xu embraces the responsibility and transformative opportunity to alter a patient’s appearance in a way that is congruent with their own values and matches a more cohesive sense of self; to realign the external with the internal; to create an improved emotional landscape and a better life. These ideals captivate and inspire her every day.
Aromatherapy Products at Ethos Plastic Surgery
We have had four different products custom-made for you:
- Healing Bliss Salve
A deeply nourishing botanical salve designed to support skin restoration following surgical procedures. This formula is packed with natural ingredients that help replenish moisture, calm inflammation, and support collagen production. - Acute Care Pain & Scar Oil
This custom-formulated oil combines Lavender, Frankincense, Arnica, Vitamin E, and Full-Spectrum CBD (0.3% or less) to help relieve post-operative discomfort and promote skin healing. The CBD included is federally legal and Farm Bill compliant, offering gentle support for inflammation, soreness, and tension. - Aromatherapy Mist: Stress Release
This calming aromatherapy mist offers emotional and sensory support during recovery. It’s designed to help patients “reset” during moments of stress, anxiety, or physical discomfort. - Massage Oil Candles: Healing (White) & Confidence (Black)
These dual-purpose massage oil candles are made with a proprietary blend of shea butter, cocoa butter, jojoba oil, and cosmetic-grade soy wax. Each of these products is skin-safe, toxin-free, and luxurious. When lit, the candle melts into a warm, nourishing oil that can be safely applied directly to the skin (it will not burn). Use for self-massage, hydration, or simply to enjoy the calming aroma
The Science Behind Aromatherapy: How It Affects Your Body and Mind
Your Brain and Mood: The Power of Scent
When you inhale an essential oil, its molecules travel directly to your brain’s emotional center, specifically the limbic system. This area is responsible for memory, emotion, and hormone regulation. It’s for this reason that certain scents, like lavender or frankincense, can make you feel instantly calmer or more uplifted.
The olfactory-brain connection helps explain how aromatherapy can:
- Reduce anxiety and improve mood
- Lower heart rate and blood pressure
- Trigger the body’s natural relaxation response
Smell, memory, and emotion are deeply linked. Even one breath of a grounding aroma can shift how you feel physically and emotionally.
Nervous System: Calming the Mind, Soothing the Body
Essential oils affect your nervous system by interacting with key neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and GABA. These are the brain’s chemical messengers that control mood, sleep, and even pain perception.
Lavender oil, for example, increases GABA activity, which is one reason it helps with anxiety and sleep. Menthol (in peppermint) activates cold receptors, which dulls pain while also distracting the brain from discomfort.
In short, aromatherapy can:
- Ease stress and anxiety
- Improve alertness and cognitive clarity
- Diminish pain by calming pain signals
Hormonal Balance: Resetting Stress Chemistry
Through its influence on the hypothalamus (the brain’s hormonal control center), aromatherapy can affect cortisol, oxytocin, and other key hormones.
- Lowering cortisol helps shift the body out of “fight or flight” mode.
- Raising serotonin improves emotional balance.
- Stimulating oxytocin promotes feelings of connection and calm.
Scents like clary sage and lavender have been shown in studies to support these hormonal shifts, helping your body reset after stress and restore emotional well-being.
Immunity and Inflammation: Supporting Natural Defense
Certain essential oils like eucalyptus, tea tree, and frankincense have immune-boosting and anti-inflammatory properties. They can:
- Calm inflammatory cytokines that cause pain, redness, or swelling
- Stimulate immune cells that fight infection
- Support recovery from illness or injury
When you feel less inflamed and more resilient, your emotional state often improves too. The body and mind heal together.
Circulation and Pain Relief: Local and Systemic Healing
Applied to the skin, many essential oils increase local blood flow. This brings oxygen and nutrients to sore or injured areas while flushing away pain-causing molecules. Oils like wintergreen and peppermint also have direct pain-relieving effects through temperature-sensitive nerve pathways.
Combined with massage or heat, this approach can:
- Soothe muscle tension
- Reduce joint pain
- Support physical recovery and ease emotional burden from chronic pain
Inhalation vs. Topical Use: Different Paths, Same Goal
Inhalation is fast-acting, working through both the nose (neural pathways) and lungs (circulation). It’s ideal for:
- Emotional shifts
- Calming anxiety or energizing the mind
- Quick relief from headaches or stress
Topical application, especially with massage, delivers slower, targeted effects to:
- Reduce pain or tension in specific areas
- Support local circulation and tissue healing
- Prolong calming effects throughout the day
Many therapies combine both for comprehensive benefits, as they heal the body while calming the mind.
Recommended Essential Oils for Key Therapeutic Purposes
Certain essential oils are known to ease pain, reduce inflammation, support skin healing, calm anxiety, and even alleviate nausea. Used thoughtfully, they can enhance both your physical healing and emotional well-being.
Here is a general overview of what different essential oils can do:
- For pain and inflammation, oils like lavender, frankincense, peppermint, and ginger offer soothing relief through their anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties. They can be diffused, gently inhaled, or applied topically in a diluted carrier oil to sore muscles or areas of tension.
- For skin healing and scar care, helichrysum, tea tree, chamomile, and lavender are commonly used for their antimicrobial and regenerative qualities. Once incisions are fully healed and cleared by your surgeon, these oils may help support tissue repair and reduce the appearance of bruising or irritation.
- To ease nausea and digestive upset, peppermint, ginger, lemon, and fennel can be inhaled or diluted and massaged gently over the abdomen. These oils help settle the stomach and restore a sense of balance after anesthesia or medication.
- For emotional calm and sleep support, lavender, chamomile, bergamot, and ylang ylang are grounding choices. These oils can help reduce pre-surgery jitters, lower stress hormones, and promote restorative rest. They can be administered in a diffuser or through topical rituals like a bedtime foot rub.
- For breath support and circulation, eucalyptus, rosemary, peppermint, and cypress may improve airflow and gently stimulate circulation when used appropriately. These can be especially helpful in early recovery to encourage lymphatic movement and reduce swelling.
Always consult your surgical team or a certified aromatherapist before use, especially around the time of anesthesia or wound healing. Essential oils are potent, so dilute properly, avoid applying to open incisions, and perform a patch test before topical use. Some oils, such as citrus oils, may cause photosensitivity and should be applied with caution.
Mind-Body Synergy: Why It All Matters
What makes aromatherapy so powerful is how it weaves together the emotional and physical aspects of healing. Whether it’s reducing cortisol, improving sleep, easing pain, or simply helping you breathe more deeply, essential oils support the whole you.
This is why we include aromatherapy as part of our holistic care at Ethos Plastic Surgery because healing doesn’t begin and end with the body. It includes your nervous system, your thoughts, your breath, and your capacity to feel calm and grounded during your recovery.
Healing That Goes Beyond the Procedure
At Ethos Plastic Surgery, we believe in supporting the whole patient. Aromatherapy is one of many tools we embrace to enhance comfort, calm, and confidence during your surgical journey. Dr. Ginger Xu believes that true healing extends beyond the operating room. It’s about creating an environment where your physical recovery is supported by emotional ease, sensory calm, and intentional self-care.
Whether through aromatherapy, nutrition, fitness guidance, integrative healing, sound healing, or another approach, each element is thoughtfully integrated to help you feel balanced, empowered, and connected to your body. This whole-self approach is what makes the Ethos experience both transformative and deeply personal.
To learn more or schedule an appointment with Dr. Ginger Xu, contact our office online or at (415) 504-1124 today. Dr. Xu and our team look forward to welcoming you!
FAQs
Aromatherapy with Plastic Surgery Care in San Francisco
Aromatherapy uses plant-based essential oils to support healing through the senses. At Ethos Plastic Surgery in San Francisco, we use aromatherapy to help calm the nervous system, ease anxiety, reduce discomfort, and promote a more balanced recovery after plastic surgery.
Common oils used in recovery include lavender and frankincense for relaxation, peppermint and wintergreen for muscle tension, and tea tree or eucalyptus for immune support. Dr. Xu and her team provide personalized recommendations based on your needs and recovery timeline.
Yes, when used correctly. At Ethos, we only use therapeutic-grade oils and guide you on safe methods of use, whether through inhalation or diluted topical application. All recommendations are tailored to your procedure and sensitivity.
Absolutely. Inhaling essential oils like lavender or bergamot can trigger the brain’s relaxation response, which reduces feelings of stress or overwhelm. Many of our Bay Area patients find it helps them feel more centered and at ease during recovery.
We offer guided aromatherapy experiences in-office and provide curated essential oil blends for home use. Dr. Xu’s holistic care plan may incorporate aromatherapy before surgery, during recovery check-ins, or as part of your ongoing wellness routine.
Yes. We screen all essential oils for quality and offer hypoallergenic options. If you have sensitivities, we’ll help you choose appropriate oils and recommend safe application methods to avoid irritation.
Yes. Aromatherapy is available to all Ethos patients, whether you’re having surgery in San Francisco or live elsewhere in the Bay Area or beyond. We also provide home-use kits and guidance so you can continue your practice from wherever you recover.