The Healing Power of Scent
Our sense of smell is essential to how we
nterpret and interact with our environment.
Scent is a powerful tool
Smell can enhance performance, improve oxygen intake, heart rate and blood flow, and balance the sympathetic nervous system.
We are constantly processing sensory signals from our environment.
Four aspects
Our limbic system is the primitive part of our system and works with our autonomic nervous system to manage the involuntary processes of our body. It processes four main aspects of our experience:
- our memories
- emotions
- behaviour
- and our sense of smell
Smells can enhance performance, balance the sympathetic nervous system, and improve oxygen intake, heart rate and blood flow.
Calming scents, like vanilla, lavender, chamomile, jasmine, sandalwood and rosemary, can slow the breath and heart rate.
Whereas uplifting scents like orange, lemon, ginger and mint, can improve sluggishness.
Friendship and connectedness
Smell can also reinforce feelings of love, friendship and intimacy. We can recognise people through their unique smell.
Scents we can use for connectedness and as aphrodisiacs include rose, vanilla, ylang-ylang and jasmine.
Memories and smell
Because the limbic system processes both smell and memory, they are integrally connected, and one can trigger the other. Short term memories are laid down as long term memories by this system, and smells can become identifiers of experiences and places. This ability to remember and identify smells is integral to our evolution and survival.
Taste and smell
We also use smell to categorise experiences as good or bad.
This natural response is helpful to aid digestion, where a good smell can trigger the salivary glands and digestive process ahead of eating.
Remembered bad smells prevent us from eating rotten and harmful food.
Our sense of taste and smell converge at the back of the throat, where the nasal passage and tongue meet. If you exhale through your nose while eating, the smell receptors in the nose can enhance the flavour, improving digestion.
This convergence of smell and taste means that the herbs and spices with healing properties and that we enjoy eating can also heal in the same way through their scent alone.
