The Power Of Smells

Even in the womb, unborn babies can perceive odours. Still, these odours are only linked to emotional experiences in the course of life.

The unique thing about odour perception is that it enters the brain unfiltered. Due to the anatomical position of our olfactory mucosa, the limbic system is the first station in the brain. This is where all our experiences are connected with emotions and thus stored as memories. All other sensory impressions take a different path and reach their storage location only after being checked in the thalamus. This is the reason why the link between scent and experience is so firmly anchored.

While my children turn up their noses in disgust at the smell of French cigarettes, I wallow in memories of a holiday in the south of France as a 15-year-old. But most of the minds of scents are created much earlier, even before language development is complete. These memories can hardly be influenced by rationally thinking adults because we in our brain neither know the location of the memories, nor can we get to the emotional evaluation.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote: "man cannot smell anything smelling without feeling a sense of unpleasantness or pleasure."

In evolutionary terms, this makes sense because all people with an intact sense of smell automatically avoid poisonous or spoiled food. Incidentally, smell and taste are often mixed up in colloquial language. We can only taste the basis, i.e., sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. This also works for colds when the sense of smell is impaired by a blocked nose.

Only through the sense of smell can we perceive the subtle differences in taste that lead to whether we like foodstuff or not. The scent also often plays a decisive role in the choice of ear candles, no matter what the aromatherapy wants us to believe. I do not let myself be treated by a scent that I do not like.

Even interpersonal life is strongly influenced by scents. Not for nothing do we say "I can smell you well" when we want to express our affection for another person.

The choice of a partner is made with the scent of the other person. The chemistry between two people must be right, and literally! For love, body chemistry is an absolute must. Humans release scents; thus they have the own so-called smell, which are decomposition products of the immune system. A person's scent penetrates our limbic system, the part of our brain that controls our drives. If we perceive the smell as pleasant, our emotions are stimulated, and we recognize the other person as attractive.

So open your nose when looking for a partner! Perhaps we will soon smell the perfect partner.