Note: These articles are not meant as a substitute for proper medical advice. Please consult with your medical practitioner before using any type of remedy, herbal or otherwise.
By Anna Wiens
Whether it’s the smell of a freshly brewed cup of coffee, the warning odor of a skunk, or the first flower bloom of the spring, scent has an impact on our mood and behavior. Out of all of the five senses, smell is the only one whose neurons bypass the integration and sorting centers of the brain and instead are connected directly with the brain’s limbic system. The limbic system is responsible for memory, emotions, and hormonal control. Therefore, smell is directly and uniquely linked with our memory and mood. That is why a scent can trigger a sense of nostalgia or impart a distant feeling. The sense of scent is said to be as much as 10,000 times more sensitive than the sense of taste. In fact, most of what we perceive as taste is actually produced by smell. That is why you can’t taste much of anything when you have a stuffy nose. Modern science is just catching on to the traditional notion of using scent therapeutically. Here we will explore some scent profiles and their traditional uses. We will explore three different scents used to calm, uplift, and focus.
