An illusion that makes even products with the same taste seem incredibly different. Did you know that apples and onions actually taste the same, but what makes us perceive the difference is their scent? The sense of smell is 10,000 times more potent than the sense of taste.
The known history of scent dates back to 20,000 years ago. In the Lascaux cave in France, depictions of plants believed to be medicinal have been observed, and it is thought that these plants themselves or their smoke were used for healing. In fact, the word perfume comes from the Latin “perfumum,” meaning through smoke.
Again, in human history, its uses have been observed spanning from purification to mummification, healing, love, and war. Scent is a stimulus powerful enough to alter our entire metabolism by triggering memory, creativity, affect, and physiologically hormones after being perceived by our brain. It can be said to be one of the body’s most complementary, most powerful senses. It is our only sense that remains active 24 hours a day. A human can distinguish more than 10,000 odor molecules. Although this figure may seem large, it is quite modest compared to many other living creatures.
The magic of nature
After odor is received through receptors in the nose, it produces many metabolic and chemical effects via various connections extending to the limbic system, and from there to the pituitary and hypothalamus. In other words, it is directly related to our emotions and our body’s fine-tuning. In fact, 80% of the tastes we perceive are shaped by the sense of smell. Studies show that, apart from emotional factors, odor also significantly affects consumption and production habits, meaning it is even effective on our behaviors.
Today, as in the past, it is among the effective and utilized methods in the treatment of Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and depression. It has been shown to be beneficial due to its secondary support not only in diseases where brain functions are affected, but also in many diseases where the fundamental structure of the body is disrupted. Interestingly, there are publications showing that it is effective even in cancer treatment. The tremendous magic of scent memory exerts effects on the human body in broad areas, ranging from performance enhancement through conditioning to the control of sexual urges. To put it simply, I hope—or let’s say I believe—we have all experienced the happiness created within us by any scent that evokes the smell of mom’s cookies from our childhood. We must not forget that the sense of smell supports the ability to survive in a newborn creature by enabling it to approach the mother’s breast and body, and is the most developed sense from birth. Although people generally equate their future states with their emotional state at the moment they first perceive a scent, it has also been shown that certain scents have effects independent of memory due to harmony in terms of brain frequencies.
