Boost Your Mood Through Smell

Boost Your Mood Through Smell. Our sense of smell triggers vivid memories and creates mood faster than any other of our senses. It makes sense that we can use it to alter our mood. We’ve been having a heatwave. Yesterday was glorious. Today the skies have turned grey the rain seems to have settled in and the world feels a lot different. I drove in the rain just to pick up an online order. When I got back, I opened the sliders and the newness of the smell transported me back to being a kid getting summer flip flops. The association was so strong I could picture childhood flipflops exactly how they looked, blue and white striped with plastic daisies for decoration, how they felt in my hands and that sense of joy bubbling up. All because of a remembered smell. What a mood booster smell can be.  

How Smells Can Boost Your Mood

Our sense of smell comes via the olfactory system, it sends signals to the amygdala and hippocampus in the brain. These areas are key to forming memories and acting on an instinctive level, often by-passing rational thought and creating emotions in record time. It can be easy and pleasurable to use smell to boost your mood.

3. List- 

all your positive associations. Your may be able to think of quite a few aromas that make you happy/ safe/ comfortable. A nice side effect of noticing these is some other good ones can pop up out of nowhere. I love the smell of hot buttered toast with a waft of washing up liquid in the background. That reminds of happy times at nursery school break time.

4. Exposure –

With your, maybe ever-growing, list collected together. Experience/ recreate those experiences in reality. Take a trip to the sea side for the salt air, wind and freshness, visit a rose garden bluebell wood/ bakery, brew that filtered coffee, cook your favourite meal.

• 5. Scent yourself –

• As well as aromatherapy, I’m sure you have tried many shower gels, soaps, deodorants and perfumes/ colognes etc. I have worn the same perfume for a long time. The wonderful thing about finding a favourite is that it can become grounding. A solid comforting foundation through good times and bad. A deeper level of scent magic. If you have a favourite scent, why not treat yourself?  Or keep experimenting!

Boost Your Mood Through Smell

The power of your sense of smell is often overlooked. Why not choose to surround yourself with smells that can make you happier. I’m writing this with lemon and bergamot oil diffusing in the room. You can experience the mood boosting benefits in reality or using your imagination via hypnosis, for example. The mind mastery that can come with regular meditation/ hypnosis, can also reduce or replace any negative associations you might have with certain “normal” smells. The evocative nature of trance can help you recall pleasing/ comforting scents in your imagination and allow you to re experience a happy time and place. That can only boost your mood.

Improve Your Memory (welcomehypnotherapy.co.uk)

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