Have you ever wondered how the sense of smell works? How does the perception of smell happen? How do we smell perfumes, plants, flowers, and plant materials?

Flowers, plants, spices, fruits, herbs, and resins emit tiny molecules of an aromatic odorous substance that contain a massive amount of information. The “perfumed message” reaches the olfactory mucous membranes. These are located high in the nasal cavity, approximately at eye level.

Here, the message finds hundreds of millions of small antennas and the olfactory cilia waiting for it. In turn, the cilia are connected to the olfactory bulbs and they, through the olfactory nerve, bring the smell in the form of a nerve impulse directly to the Limbic System in the brain.

This then takes note of the emotional and intuitive behaviors aroused by scent in the memory archive, thus creating more sensorineural maps (Patterns).

The received messages are then transmitted to the Hypothalamus, which controls many functions of the autonomic nervous system.

It regulates sleep, sexual activity, body temperature, appetite, digestion, heart rate, etc. and reacts to stimuli by telling the body to relax, activate, rest, erase painful sensations, and so on. This is why it is called “the Brain’s Brain.”

Before reaching the brain—sight, hearing, taste and touch pass through nerves and synaptic conjunctions. However, the sense of smell is an immediate connection that passes to the hypothalamus directly from the olfactory receptors found in the nose. For this reason, Aromatherapy, an ancient technique to heal ailments and dysfunctions through the therapeutic properties of scents, uses the sense of smell as a valid treatment.

It uses the olfactory archetypes of spices, citrus fruits, fruits, woods, resins, flowers, roots, bark, herbs, and leaves against that which we are “structured and programmed” to respond with certain behaviors or specific physical reactions.

Now you know that whenever you smell anything with your nose, you know how the olfactory perception of scents works.

Each scent stimulates physical and emotional reactions in us. They are capable of creating a change in our daily lives.