A lover’s scent can lower stress levels

Q. “We humans are under the spell of odors, even if we aren’t fully aware of it.” In a recent study, researchers demonstrated that sniffing a romantic partner’s shirt can lower levels of the stress hormone, cortisol. What’s the backstory here?

A. The human olfactory system can detect over 1 trillion different odors, but our sense of smell is perhaps our most underrated ability, says Carl Engelking in Strange Science, a Discover magazine special issue. Interestingly, we experience scent signals differently than our other senses: “Rather than proceeding directly to the thalamus the seat of consciousness like other sensory signals, scent information travels to part of the brain associated with emotions and memories,” meaning that most of it is experienced subconsciously.

In this study involving 96 opposite-sex couples, men were given a shirt to wear for 24 hours and told to avoid anything that could interfere with their natural scent. The women were given three shirts to sniff their lover’s, a stranger’s and one never worn. Afterward, they took a stress-inducing test and provided a saliva sample to monitor their cortisol levels. Those women who had unknowingly sniffed their partner’s scent had lower stress levels throughout the test, and those who correctly identified their partner’s shirts had even lower counts.

Concludes Engelking: “So when times get tough, or your beloved partner is an ocean away, you might want to try reaching into that pile of dirty laundry for comfort.”

— Bill Sones and Rich Sones, for The Oklahoman