Candle Chat

OUR SENSE OF SMELL AND HOW SCENTS AFFECT US

Many in the scientific world are beginning to believe that smell could be our most suggestive sense. Studies are indicating that smells can indeed affect many things such as our emotions, mood and perceptions. It is known that scent preferences can be highly subjective and personal relating to our memories and associations. For instance, to some the smell of certain flowers may evoke negative feelings. To me the smell of gasoline is as good as it gets since it brings back pleasant memories of Sunday afternoons when my father took me and my siblings to the refinery where he worked & filled our car up from the gas pump for employee use. We enjoyed this time together, thus I've always associated the smell of gasoline with happiness. Who would know? We can then imagine and surmise that those who dislike certain flowery scents may have experienced a negative trigger around that smell at a previous point in time.

Did you know that some people can smell certain aromas where others can't? Genetics, or to a smaller degree, small physiological changes and factors like mood and medications can affect our sense of smell. It's thought that we never experience a smell the same way twice. The sensitivity of our nose changes from hour to hour and our sense of smell is the weakest in the morning and gets stronger as the day goes on. We've all noticed that we can't smell as well when are noses are stuffed up and may also have been aware that when we are hungry, our sense of smell seems to get keener.

To me, the most exciting thing about our sense of smell is that it seems to be able to tune into fragrances that affect our behavior and mood. There are logical reasons for this phenomena. The association of fragrance and emotion is all because of our olfactory system. Our olfactory receptors are connected to the limbic system, which is thought to be the seat of emotion. Smell sensations are relayed to the cortex, where 'cognitive' recognition occurs.

There is evidence that pleasant fragrances can improve our mood and sense of well-being. Even the thought of pleasant fragrances have been found to make us a bit more cheerful. Experiments have shown that actually smelling the scent can dramatically improve mood and sense of well-being.

Interestingly, the positive emotional effects of pleasant fragrances also affect our perceptions of other people and things. Results from experiments where subjects were exposed to pleasant fragrances tended to give higher 'attractiveness ratings' to people in photographs. In one study, the presence of an unpleasant odor led subjects to give lower ratings to photographed individuals and to judge paintings less professional. Other tests conducted with shampoos resulted in participants touting many irrelevant positive qualities about the shampoo, when only the fragrance had been changed.

A lot of research is being done on how our environment affects our well-being and scents are up there in the list of physical cues that influence our perceptions. Can a floral smell be a mood stimulator and encourage social interaction? There is a wealth of information out there that says yes. Scientists are revealing that recollections tied to smell can be stronger than memory of other types.

Olfaction can transport our thoughts back to some of our earliest experiences and the outcome can be a feeling. Scientists are also suggesting that the lack of or absence of these feelings could be a sign of cognitive decline. Early stages of developing therapies to train people to smell better are thought to perhaps one day lessen the deterioration of mental faculties. Without delving too deeply into this phenomena, suffice to say, stimulating our sense of smell with fragrances can light up our lives with both old and new positive memories.

Since odors are ofen tied to a unique experience that has given us a strong and stable connection, it seems to me that we might want to surround ourselves with the fragrances we love that have for so long made us feel so good!

Janis Lyn