Aroma360 Blogs

Did you know that each human has their own distinct odor? Like fingerprints, every person has their own distinct odor. The distinct odor you have comes from the same genes that determine tissue type. The only known exception to this fact has been identical twins that share the same genetic make up.

 

 

Research reports the beneficial effect of sleep on creativity can be enhanced by an incorporating scent. In a recent study, participants congregated at a lab in the evening and watched a 10-minute video about volunteer work. After they watched the movie, they were given the task to task think of innovative ways to encourage people to volunteer more of their time. For some of the participants, a hidden scent diffuser diffused a scent while participants watched the movie. Before going to bed, they were given an envelope containing a second scent diffuser, which they were instructed to open before falling asleep. The remaining participants were exposed to no scent, either while sleeping or awake. The following morning, everyone was given two minutes to list the creative solutions they had come up with. The raters scored all the ideas on a creativity scale and found the ideas of those who slept with the scent were far more innovative than those who had slept with no odor at all.

A recent study examined how identical scents can actually smell different from one another, depending on the type of labeling used. If a scent is paired with a pleasant-looking label, it will be perceived as a more pleasant smell overall than the same scent when paired with a more negative, less attractive label. The reason is, our expectations actually influence how our brain perceives scent. Brain scans taken during this particular study reveal that the person’s initial reaction to the labels—positive or negative—affected how blood flowed to the test subjects’ olfactory processing areas. How is that for first impressions!