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Scents for wellbeing

Why do scents have a direct and immediate effect in situations of fear and panic?

The sense of smell is the most immediate of our human senses with which we can support and promote our physical and emotional wellbeing within 0.2 to 1 second.

Scent molecules have a direct effect on the limbic system, where our emotions are processed.

If you are interested, please contact the health management of the TU Darmstadt to borrow appropriate essential oils from a selection.

If you have any further questions or are interested in trying it out, please feel free to contact us:

If we want to relax or calm down, scents such as lavender, orange, chamomile, lemon balm, incense, vetiver are recommended.

If, instead, we want to improve our mood, citrus scents such as lemon, bergamot, lime, orange, tangerine, grapefruit or litsea are particularly suitable.

We can support our concentration and memory best with peppermint, rosemary, lemon, vetiver, but also lavender or a combination.

Please pay attention to the purity and quality of the essential oils.

Scents can be used particularly well as anchors because our memories are directly connected to our limbic system. This means that smells are stored together with emotions as memories. A familiar smell can therefore also be used to immediately recall a desired emotion.

Example:

If we nebulize rosemary & lemon while studying, we support our ability to concentrate and set an anchor to support the recall of what we have learned in the exam using rosemary and lemon and activate the positive emotion associated with it.