Smelling someone else's odor can calm anxiety

Researchers from Sweden have come up with a different perspective of “soothing”. According to them, smelling the odor on the other it can be a treatment for social anxiety. The tests were carried out on volunteers who have to smell other people's armpits. Yes, that's right you read!

The researchers indicate that the smell is capable of activating pathways in the brain that are connected to emotions, as a supposed calming effect. However, it is still early for researchers to say with certainty the effectiveness of this. Know more!

Smell is a strong point

Smell is one of the five senses of the human body. Between sight, taste, touch and hearing, smelling is something that human babies can identify from the very first days.

Growing up, humans have the ability to sense that something might put them in danger just by smelling it. The smell is responsible for an interaction with the environment, being able to provide far beyond what the other senses are capable of.

Of course, each sense has its extreme importance.

Many don't know, but smell is also capable of giving flavor to food and memorizing important questions regarding taste.

All this detection happens above the nose, when the smell signals are directed to the limbic system, connected to the brain, responsible for our emotions and memories.

Is human body odor capable of calming?

Following this same line of reasoning, researchers from Sweden believe that the smell of the human body is in direct communication with the emotional state. The odor we transmit can trigger sensations in people who are smelling us.

The studies are still fully valid and are in the first stage of discovery. The medical conference in Paris, which is taking place this week, has been addressing the issue of treating anxiety.

The scientists asked for donations of underarm sweat to spread through the air while a movie was being broadcast. After the experiment, another 48 women with anxiety decided that they could smell the underarm samples.

In addition to them, other women had contact with any odor emitted by the air in the environment.

Together with the smell, the volunteers received the help of a therapy known as mindfulness, so that they put aside any negative thoughts and could focus on what was happening at the moment.

At the end of the experiment, the volunteers who were exposed to the odor of sweat claimed to be better after the therapy. Researchers believe that sweat may contain purely human chemical compounds capable of giving positive responses to treatment.

It is not necessarily necessary to smell a specific sweat, as being in the presence of another person can also cause this feat. Elisa Vigna, from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, says that all these observations could soon be confirmed.

Lover of movies and series and everything that involves cinema. An active curious on the networks, always connected to information about the web.