With finals just
a couple weeks away and stress levels rising, it seems like the perfect time to
find ways to lower one’s stress. If you are like me, this usually means reading
a good book, painting or just relaxing, but have you ever thought about taking
a simple walk outside or imagining the smell of the mountains or rain in your
mind? Many studies have demonstrated that viewing scenes of nature can lower one’s
heart rate as well as restore one’s focus, but a recent study found that smells
can lower stress better than sight or sound (Yeager, 2020). The study consisted
of 154 participants that were shown one of three virtual environments (park,
forest or city), given headphones with recorded sounds and had nostril tubing
that delivered smells/odors corresponding to the scene. The participants were then
asked to rate the pleasantness of the experience from 1-100. During the
process, the participants were given a small shock in order to induce a stress
response, which was recorded through the electrical conductance on the skin.
The researchers then observed the time it took for the conductance to rise and
fall. It was determined that the conductance from the cityscape did not rise as
much compared to the forest and park visuals. More importantly, the study
demonstrated that smell has a greater effect of reducing stress than sight or
smell because the rise and fall of skin conductance was fast (Yeager, 2020). A
possible reason smell may be a better stress reducer is because smell goes
straight to the hypothalamus and avoids the thalamus, meaning it is a faster
route (Yeager, 2020).
Not only does
this study follow nonmaleficence but it also stives to better the lives of
individuals. This is because the structure and the way the study was conducted minimizes
side effects or unintended outcomes that participants may have because they are
using only small shocks. Furthermore, the study expands our knowledge of how to
reduce stress effectively, which is beneficial for individual health as chronic
stress can cause more damaging health problems. Understanding the effects smells
of nature has on stress can thus be used to lower chronic stress and help
prevent further health complications. Therefore, when you are preparing for
finals and start to feel yourself getting stressed, go outside for a walk and smell
the wonderful scents of nature.
Yeager, A. (2020, January 8). Smells
of Nature Lower Physiological Stress. The Scientist Magazine®.
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/smells-of-nature-lower-physiological-stress-66864
This is an interesting way to reduce stress, I will definitely have to try getting outdoors during finals week to see if it reduces my stress. I was interested in the participants specifically. Did they all live in the city or was there a spread between rural and city dwellers? I ask because I am interested if it is connected to the phenomenon in which smell can trigger childhood memories. This has been fairly well documented, but you can read this paper (Willander and Larsson 2006) for more information. In this paper they found that smells brought up the oldest memories. The place in which the participant that they tested in your study lives or lived may have given this result. If they live or lived in a city, then they may be reminded of more stressful situations than in nature. If one potentially lived in rural areas all of their lives, then I wonder if the results would be the opposite if they find nature more stressful than the city because of more stressful memories associated with rural areas. Thanks for the post.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that the introduction of scents reducing stress has to do with odor evoked memories? The paper suggests that most scents that evoke memory are positive and can reduce stress which would fit in what you are describing (Herz, 2016). This positive memory of scents could contribute to the change in stress response. Also we tend to have scent associated memories earlier in life which could mean this was a time pre-stress (Herz, 2016). Odor evoked memories are an interesting solution to a stress problem but this also seems like an easy way to fix the problem.
ReplyDeleteHerz R. S. (2016). The Role of Odor-Evoked Memory in Psychological and Physiological Health. Brain sciences, 6(3), 22. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci6030022