Tag Archives: scent

Scents and Dreams (and Nightmares)

German researchers have found that different smells can influence your dreams. When study participants were exposed to bad smells (researchers used rotten eggs), they generally had bad dreams. When study participants were exposed to good smells (researchers used roses), the dreams were generally good ones. It does make sense — smell stimulates a whole lot of behaviors in the body. Different scents can influence emotion, bring back memories, increase or decrease appetite, and even stimulate sexual arousal. Dangerous smells can even trigger a fight-or-flight response. The scent of burning (even if it’s just my neighbors using their grill on the … Continue reading →

Seven Ways Scent Can Enhance Your Health

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Your nose is as much as ten thousand times sharper than your taste buds. That can make your sniffer a pretty powerful tool for your health! Here are some ways you can use aromatherapy to boost your health. Food scents can actually help you lose weight! A study from the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago found that sniffing food scents like apple, banana, and peppermint could help stave off cravings. Try keeping your favorite food scent handy and see if you a whiff of something delicious can keep your stomach happy. Use rosemary to boost brainpower. … Continue reading →

A Look at Pheromones

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You may have heard of pheromones when people talk about attracting a mate. But that isn’t the only thing pheromones do. What are pheromones? They are chemical signals given off by the body. Pheromones can exert a subtle influence on the people around you! Pheromones are perhaps best known for attracting mates. It isn’t hard to find perfumes and colognes that claim to help you attract the opposite sex with the power of pheromones! Research has shown that pheromones may help prevent inbreeding — we have an involuntary preference for mates who do not smell like family members. Studies have … Continue reading →

What Your Nose Knows

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Don’t knock your nose — scientists believe that the nose is capable of recognizing thousands of smells. In fact, studies are showing that your sense of smell may be as much as ten thousand times sharper than your sense of taste. That’s pretty amazing! So how does smell work? Inside your nose are millions are cells that act as scent receptors. We have hundreds of different kinds of smell receptors that allow us to identify lots of different odors. Once your scent receptors detect a smell, they send the information to a cluster of neurons in the brain known as … Continue reading →