Who hasn’t delighted in the fragrance of roses wafting through an open window or the aroma of freshly brewed coffee? These can add pleasure to our home environments and stir joyful memories. Scents and our sense of smell are underrated wellness powers.
The Science Of Scent
According to Sandeep Robert Datta, a neurobiology professor at Harvard Medical School, brain cells that connect with our sense of scent – called olfactory sensory neurons – fire electrical signals to different parts of our brain. These travel to areas involved in learning, emotions and memories.
Those coffee aromas may trigger memories of happy café hours spent with long-lost loved ones. The rose fragrance may recall childhood gardens in distant lands. “Even decades later, the same scent can bring the memory and emotional salience of the moment flooding back,” a Spring 2024 article on Harvard’s medical school website revealed.
“We code this information into our psyche and use it, often unconsciously, to make decisions about the elements we want to surround ourselves with,” shares Amber Dunford, a Salt Lake City-based interior designer and college instructor in design psychology. Identifying and understanding these preferences can help you and your design team in creating a harmonious, happy home.
That’s the goal of the emerging specialization of design psychology, Dunford explains. “It looks at our past history with space, how those experiences impact our current design decisions, and aims to draw out those connections to create a more meaningful design plan for the client.” Our sense of smell has a role to play in this discipline. What we’re experiencing with happy scent associations is the release of serotonin, dopamine or endorphins, she explains. They can make us feel happy, excited or relaxed.
Design psychology expertise can also help a designer and client avoid home scents that may trigger darker memories, perhaps associated with trauma or loss.
Design psychology can support the creation of new scent associations, Dunford points out. Perhaps there’s a new holiday tradition in your household involving incense, candles or celebratory drinks? The related scents can forge future happy memories. “Homes are lovely vessels for capturing scents that offer comfort,” she notes.
What happens when they don’t?
Individual Responses
The most dominant sense in our evolutionary experience of the spaces around us is sight, Dunford says. It’s not one that chemist, entrepreneur, educator and sensory expert Hoby Wedler, Ph.D., blind since birth, can call upon. The San Francisco Bay Area professional trained himself to use his other senses, including smell, more intensely than most of us. It was a survival skill.
“Our sense of smell is always turned on, but we don’t often think about it unless something smells off,” he says. That can be food odors persisting long after the dinner dishes have been cleaned up, he suggests. There are additional odors that can seem off to others.
Aspen-based inclusive design educator and board certified cognitive specialist Shelly Rosenberg works with families raising children with special needs or with members having disabilities. “With the population that is neurodivergent, cognitively disabled or nonspeaking, I am typically investigating scents as possible triggers that can dysregulate someone subconsciously or without their ability to communicate the irritation. People with Autism Spectrum Disorder can have heightened olfactory sensitivity called hyperosmia. Scents that most of us can block out or ignore can prove disturbing to the neurodivergent system.”
“Neurodivergent clients often have very strong opinions on scent. If the client is nonspeaking, we can begin with offering an assortment of scents (and various concentrations of those scents) that are typically well tolerated and even appealing.” She notes that designing for a special needs client might require first removing aggravating smells and later adding specific scents to improve mood or productivity. “Studies show that smelling citrus or mint can stimulate attention, where the essence of rose or lavender can help us relax.”
Rosenberg shares these tips for adding supportive scents to our homes: Use essential oil diffusers, grow fresh herbs in a sunny window, tuck herbal sachets in drawers or closets, use natural beeswax candles, simmer herbs and dried fruit and add natural linen sprays to bedding.
She offers these tips to decrease or remove irritating scents: Open windows, use air purifiers, change air filters often, maintain clean air ducts, find and treat moisture and mold, use nontoxic (or less toxic) furniture, rugs and paint, add portable kitchen ventilation and avoid scented candles and air fresheners.
A Nose For Danger
That last caution is one that became top of mind for Kristina Braly, MD, entrepreneur and former board certified anesthesiologist, and inspired her to create Aembr, a line of healthier home fragrance products.
“Because manufacturers aren’t required to disclose their full ingredient list, customers unknowingly expose themselves to phthalates, synthetic stabilizers, and harmful VOCs [volatile organic compounds], which linger in the air and accumulate in household dust,” Braly says.
Citing research on phthalates exposure published in the National Library of Medicine, she reports, “Over time, regular exposure may contribute to hormonal imbalances, respiratory irritation, and even potential carcinogenic effects.” For the estimated 32% of Americans with fragrance sensitivities, effects can be felt more immediately. Citing research from the Environmental Working Group, Braly notes: “Undisclosed allergens and irritants can trigger reactions such as migraines, sinus congestion, dizziness, skin irritation, and even brain fog.” For those with respiratory conditions like asthma and COPD, the anesthesiologist adds, fragrance components like solvents and fixatives can worsen breathing difficulties.
Dangerous scents can also be non-fragrant. Mildew, gas leaks and other potential hazards can assault our nostrils and warn of danger. Interesting to note, natural gas does not have a detectable scent; gas companies add an odorant to let the public know if there’s a leak.
Last Words
“If you have a dryer full of clean clothes and you walk by it, it will evoke a sense of cleanliness,” Wedler observes. “Fresh sheets on the bed make us feel at home and invited into our homes. I love hanging sheets and towels on my clothesline outside to bring that outdoor freshness to them. I can’t say it any differently: Smell is so incredibly important to the lives we live,” he declares – and he’s so right!
***
Interviews were conducted by email the last week of January and first week of February 2025.
Read the full article here
