Category : Articles

Sub Category : spirituality

When I was 17 years old I spoke to my counsellor about trouble sleeping. I explained how I'd taken to spraying my boyfriends cologne on a teddy, to help me sleep.
I viewed it as an embarrassing sign of weakness but she saw an opportunity!
I'd also been having panic attacks that were leading me to miss school or go home early. She surmised, from everything we'd discussed, that my boyfriend was a calming factor in my life and suggested that since "his smell" /cologne was helping me at night, that perhaps I could try to use it to calm me enough to stay at school.
I was highly sceptical but was prepared to try anything. So off I went to school with a hanky that smelled like Old Spice... And it worked! Not always but enough! It helped me increase my attendance above the threshold at which they had been threatening a referral to the Educational Welfare Officer!
Somewhere along the line I'd forgotten this tool as it lay buried under piles I've accumulated and cling to over the years... until one day, years later when I was having yet another panic attack.
My partner enveloped me in his arms attempting to offer me my tool of "containment touch" 
It wasn't working, I shifted to pull back, when the smell of cologne wafted and I felt a sudden easing of my heart rate and breathing. 
The knots in my stomach untwisted as the scent brought me rushing back to a memory of me as a little girl, falling asleep on my daddy's chest, inhaling his familiar smell; stale smoke and cologne.
On other occasions it's been a certain flower, that brought feelings and memories from a moment below the Eiffel tower. Or a perfume that reminds me of an old friend and our happy memories.
This is because our sense of smell, our Olfactory sense, feeds into our Limbic System which is instrumental in controlling mood, memory and emotions!
At a primal level, this is so our brain can essentially cross analyse smells to distinguish between pleasant/foul, safe/unsafe, familar/strange. An act of Darwinism.
Think of how the smell of chlorine evokes memories of splashing in the pool, or how a certain smell, like blood, can evoke panic or fear .
If you can find a smell that calms you, you can use this association to your advantage.
Many use essential oils which are deemed calming such as lavender. Personally, they don't really work for me. Although I did find an incense that conjured soothing feelings from time spent frequenting a tiny little store I used to love and had long forgotten! 
The Perfume industry is already attempting to influence you through your olfactory nerve... You might as well try see if you can influence it yourself... Just maybe you'll find a new tool to frequent for your mental health kit. 
What smells, tastes or sounds evoke calm, happy memories and emotions for you?