Introduction
Scent and it’s Meaning — Many people do not realize that scent is the strongest sense tied to memory. A whiff of an old fragrance or cologne can take you back to a specific moment in time, and the smell of fresh baked bread can feel like a hug. The bond between scent and emotion is not poetry — it is neuroscience. Once you understand the way fragrance works, you can use that to spiritually curate your space, and your mindset.
Scent Goes Straight to Your Brain’s Feeling Organ
While our other senses (sight, touch, taste, hearing) are routed around the brain before making emotional sense, our sense of smell go straight to the brain’s limbic system. The limbic system contains the amygdala, and hippocampus — places of evaluations and memory contentment/healing, respectively.
No wonder scent is so evocative. When you sense a fragrance, the scent molecules are traveling up your nostrils to the olfactory bulb, which will process the information, and then send it straight the this emotional area. There is none of the middle-management of the other senses, and it arrives instaneously.
Building Calm: Calming Scents for Your Nervous System
I’ll mention again that scent is personal, but there are a few scents that have been studied as consistently calming to the human body.
• Frangipani: There is varying amounts of volatile organic compounds in frangipani, for example, benzyl salicylate which stimulates almost directly in the limbic system but particularly the hippocampus (the library for your brain’s memories). Frangipani molecules usually provide associative cues in the brain for memories of warmth, sex, or peace. It is soft, floral but luxe, and has some anti-anxiety effect to the serotonin pathways without amps of excitement stimuli.Emotional Effect: Feminine. Cheery. Bright.
Best for: Self-care. Creating. Emotions reset.
“A scent that encourages your brain to remember what that lightness feels like.”
• Cedarwood & Oakmoss: Grounding, woody, earthy scents. They conjure up thoughts of stability and safety, which lend some relief to an anxious mind. Our Forest Lumen candle is based on that idea. To feel grounded and secure.
• Jasmine: The fragrant flower is a natural antidepressant. Research indicates it can have positive effects on mood and be as mind quieting as Valium. It calms your nerves without making you drowsy.
• Tobacco Vanilla: Olfaction (sense of smell) links to the emotional memory of the amygdala, and when the amygdala identifies odour molecules with dense base notes such as tobacco or vanilla, the individual subjectively starts recognising personal memories that have identifiers of comfort, ritual, and closeness. In essence, Vanilla is implicated in a diminished startling response, along with rest/recovery for the nervous system, whereas tobacco grounds timelessness, i.e. you feel like you are sitting alone in a substantial, leather armchair, in a calm still room.
Best for: Evening time. Writing or deep work. Coming home to relax.
“Inhale/exhale. With each inhalation you are reprogramming your nervous system into new memories of slowness and warmth that correlate to safety.”
• Bergamote nectarine: The citrus oils (terpenes) specifically, limonene (majority molecule in each scent)-can have a clinically direct effect of reducing (stress hormone) cortisol levels in addition to clear lucidity and biobehavioral effect. Unlike a caffeine explosion on your body, these molecules are calm and healing, being used to allow your nervous system to bring in clarity and wakefulness. Bergamot oil has been studied and clinically supported in hospital aromatherapy protocols to enhance nice internal affect states, quickly.
Best for: Morning clarity. Mid-day clarity. New beginnings.
“It was the feeling of feeling sunlight on my room through an open window. The scent of a chemical exhale of relief.”
How to Use Scent with Intention:
Understanding the science of how your brain can interact with scents you can utilize fragrances purposefully, rather than as decoration.
1. Scent Associations: Use a specific scent for a specific activity. When you are in a good state of mind save light your calming candle. Light your candle every time you meditate or take a bath. Over time your brain will learn to have a positive association, and just the smell of the scent will put you in a relaxed state.
2. Layering Fragrance: Consider each fragrance that defines your whole house. Use reed diffusers sparingly in the background. Light a candle with the target scent when you want to create a concentrated ambience or mood.
3. Only use quality scents: Synthetic and overpowering scents can shock your nervous system. At LUMZEN we pride ourselves in only using the highest quality phthalate-free fragrance oils and extremely high concentrations in our 100% soy wax. This ensures a safe, rich, complex, and realistic scent fills a space without overwhelming it.
The next moment you light a candle, take a moment to acknowledge the invisible labor being done at work. Each breath, every inhale, you are sending a message of calm to your brain, crafting a sacred space of inner peace to exist out of.
