The smell of emotions
Do emotions have a smell? Lots of research indicates they do, and in fact, it can be contagious. It’s incredible how it works! Did you ever feel nice next to a couple in love? Or a laughing child? And on opposite, did you feel stressed next to a distressed person? It is about the smell. When it comes to smells, people can be influenced by them without realising it.
The Sense of Smell in Humans is More Powerful Than We Think
Many people experience that when somebody shakes hands with them the person leaves a fragrance and they try to find a clue from that fragrance about the person. Social interactions that result in handshakes are considered more warm and passionate and people tend to smell that fragrance and its chemical traces to know about other person’s health status and genetic compatibility as suggested by a study conducted in Israel in 2015. Many people smell their palms right after handshakes just to get information on people’s sensitivity level and general mood (Delplanque, Coppin and Sander, no date). It helps them in finding whether that person is ecstatic, worried, or terrified. Scientists have this consensus that humans do not use their ability to sniff or they do not have this ability very refined like their animal ancestors who were way better at identifying body odour and based on that, an individual. Research in the field of the human sense of smell reveals that humans are generally not well connected with their noses and they believe that smelling and locating is not vital when you have your vision to serve the purpose. However, this fact does not belittle the possible role of smell which can be so strong that it differentiates between 1 trillion odours (Zaraska, 2017).
But it still presents a challenge to describe this many odours in words because of the complicated knowledge of our instinctive abilities to smell, and mostly, smelling something is attributed to the function of our conscious mind. Any information from the outside sources enters the nose and proceeds to cortical areas where it triggers our emotions and forms a memory without making us realize it. Smell can influence emotions because emotions are strongly linked to our sense of smell and we are driven by it even without knowing it (Kadohisa, 2013).
Smell, memory, and emotions are entwined
Experts believe that smell, memory, and emotions are entwined and have a strong connection. The literature discusses a sensory experience that brings back memories hidden in our memory box. The brain’s anatomy compels fragrance and memory to be closely associated, because the olfactory bulb in the human brain functions to deal with different smells and then processes information and transmits that information to other parts of the body’s central command. Fragrance directly travels to the limbic system where it activates a sudden rush of emotions and recalls to mind a long forgotten experience or event. The potential to smell only improves when you consciously try to smell things closely and use your sense of smell frequently that decides the flavour of food because food molecules travel to reach your nasal epithelium (Khamsi, 2022).
Odours can affect people’s moods and emotions in several ways because of our own experiences with them. For odour to evoke any emotional response, first, you must build an emotional connection with that odour. Associative learning is responsible for provoking emotions and memories, which in turn, results in good or bad moods. This conditioned response by individuals links back to the original situation when it happened (Sarid and Zaccai, 2016). The process can be understood when a person experiences an unusual smell in the presence of an unconditioned stimulus, like the pungent smell of chemicals in a chemical factory which elicits an unconditioned emotional response causing an unpleasant feeling. Now, this smell becomes a conditioned stimulus for your chemical factory experience, and, ever every time visit that time story in the future it will elicit that same conditioned response of unpleasant feelings (Herz, 2009).
Smell experiences at emotions.market
We can recognise close people by their smell. We can feel the other person by their smell, even if they behave otherwise. How, do you think, would an anger smell? Or a grief? What do you think is a smell of joy? Could a smell of joy make you feel happier?
Understanding your emotions, when it comes to smells, may be very useful for emotional regulation and achieving good emotional state.
Here on emotions market creators offer emotional experience directory with focus on smells and olfactory system: category Taste and Smell offers sub-sections Smell tastings and Smell creations – here you can find various sensory and emotional experiences to do with smells, including smell creations, smell guessing games, smell games and quests and much more.
Sensory experiences category offers a variety of experiences dealing with touch.
Addressing your fears and phobias through an emotional experience or sensory experience is possible too. Sensory experience recipient (buyer) can indicate the particular smell them want to focus on, for creator to adjust their offered sensory experience.
References
Delplanque, S., Coppin, G. and Sander, D. (no date) ‘Odor and Em’, pp. 787–797.
Herz, R. S. (2009) ‘Influences of Odors on Mood and Affective Cognition’, Olfaction, Taste, and Cognition, pp. 160–177. doi: 10.1017/cbo9780511546389.016.
Kadohisa, M. (2013) ‘Effects of odor on emotion, with implications’, Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 7(OCT), pp. 1–6. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2013.00066.
Khamsi, R. (2022) ‘Unpicking the link between smell and memories’, Nature, 606(7915), pp. S2–S4. doi: 10.1038/d41586-022-01626-x.
Sarid, O. and Zaccai, M. (2016) ‘Changes in mood states are induced by smelling familiar and exotic fragrances’, Frontiers in Psychology, 7(NOV). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01724.
http link: https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-sense-of-smell-in-humans-is-more-powerful-than-we-think