Our sense of smell sits nestled against the other four senses that we use hundreds if not thousands of times a day. Most of these processes are completely subconscious but they have an impact on the way that we behaviour and the way we go about our daily lives. Our sense of smell is probably the one sense that has most of an impact on our decisions, memories and emotions overall. This is one of the reasons that Essential Oils continue to be popular. These are used effectively in helping to produce certain feelings and states of mind such as helping to calm anxiety and fear as well as helping to improve concentration and motivation.

There are some key ways that our sense of smell has an impact on our day to day life and these include:

• Emotions

Our sense of smell is linked to the limbic area of our brain which is concerned with our emotions. This means that a smell can trigger particular emotions in us whether that is a sense of happiness, sadness or even change the way that our personality is reflected. The emotions that we feel when we visit a store or perhaps think about a particular product or brand will have a direct impact on the way that we behave in that store and whether we are eager to buy a particular item. The reason why our emotions are triggered so much by our sense of smell is that it is also very closely linked to our memories.

• Memories

There have been some great studies that have been undertaken looking into the way our sense of smell affects our memories and it is thought that after coming across a smell after a year people can recall the smell with around an accuracy rate of 65 percent, with a visual item people can recall it with about 50 percent accuracy in just half the timescale. Coming across a smell that triggers a memory can then impact on our emotions. This could be anything from the smell of a roast dinner reminding you of your mother’s cooking and sitting around the table together on a Sunday lunchtime to the smell of perfume that perhaps reminds you of a past relationship and how you felt about that individual.

• Productivity

It has been proven that there are certain smells such as the scent of orange that can increase productivity in an office. A study took place in Japan that saw lemon oil being used in diffusers thought an office where data entry individuals worked. It was reported that after the introduction of the scent the data entry employee’s productivity levels increased by as much as 54 percent.