It seems that many perfume companies or brands everywhere in the world are harnessing the power of scents to affect people's overall well-being to create the best and best selling perfumes.
What is the connection between smell and well-being?
Smells are not only about enjoying pleasant aromas, but they are also related to our emotions and well-being. To understand why a particular scent can affect our mood, it's important to look at the science behind how we process scents, according to Sandeep Robert Datta, professor of neurobiology at Harvard University.
When you encounter a certain odor, it begins to affect the olfactory epithelium, a sheet of neurons located at the tip of the nose. These neurons have receptors that detect chemicals released by the object you are smelling.
"Odors are collections of chemicals that come out of different objects, like perfume bottles, flavorings, etc. When you take a sniff, you're inhaling all these chemicals at once," explains Datta. "The way your brain knows what you're smelling is because your nose contains an olfactory epithelium."
After these receptors pick up the smell, they send electrical signals to the primary odor processing center, located at the base of your brain. From there, signals are sent directly to the brain triggering emotion and memory.
Rachel Herz, a neuroscientist and expert in the psychology of smell, says this connection is why smells can affect our emotions.
"The amygdala is directly responsible for processing emotions and emotional memory, while the hippocampus deals with the creation of various forms of memory," says Herz. She explains that this neural pathway is central to why our experiences with smells are so intertwined with our emotions.
"A smell becomes the impetus for a special experience," she adds. "For example, if you encounter a fragrance and experience a specific emotion, that perfume may later evoke the same emotional response." Smell isn't just about detecting smells, it's about how those smells relate to emotional experiences.
So can perfume really improve your mental health?
While scent can trigger emotions, Herz says there's no definitive answer on how perfume can affect your mental health. But, some kind of emotion and reaction always happens. Aromas are an essential part of our lives, not only for pleasure, but at the same time they play a role in our psychological well-being by "awakening" memory and evoking certain emotions.
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Source: Today
