Incense Shown To Relieve Anxiety In Mice

From the Holy Land comes a fragrant revelation as modern as it is ancient: Frankincense, burned for millennia to sweeten and purify the air, does not just smell good. It does not just, arguably, drive off demons or make a nice gift from a Wise Man. It may very well be good for you.

Pharmacologists in Israel have found that frankincense, a whitish resin tapped from the veins of a shrubby tree, relieves anxiety and depression, at least in mice.

In an article in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and elsewhere report that the active ingredient in frankincense lights up brain receptors that play a role in the perception of warmth on the skin and might help regulate emotion.

“I’m not surprised,” Stacy Rapp and Cat Cabral said in unison from behind the cluttered apothecary counter at Enchantments, an occult supply shop in New York’s East Village, where they grind the pebbly chunks of frankincense to make incense with names like Fiery Wall of Protection. Click here for the full story

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