The Importance Of Smells

The sense of smell is one of your five sense but that’s elementary level stuff everyone knows that, But why is smell important?

Survival

This may sound extreme, but you would be surprised how many dangers our sense of smell helps us to avoid. Your nose will actually send pain signals to your brand when encountering bad smells to indicate a possible threat.

More often than not you will smell rotten food before you see it and if food doesn’t smell good this is a strong indicator of not to eat it. Rotten food is not good for your health and most people can effectively avoid eating something rotten without a sense of smell but some rare instances like when drinking milk from the carton you have to rely on your sense of smell or just get a glass.

Our sense of smell indicates more than just the presence of rotten food, but warns us of dangers that go undetected by the other senses. For example a gas leak which is invisible to the eye is easily detected by the nose; you will also smell smoke from a fire long before you see the smoke allowing you to remove yourself from a dangerous situation long before it becomes a threat.

Two Senses

Technically sense and taste are two separate senses but they are so closely connected that it’s reported that our sense of smell contributes 80% of the flavors we taste. That’s right researchers have concluded that 80% of what we can taste comes from our ability to smell.

Your tongues tastes buds only identifies sweet, sour, salty and bitter qualities in food, everything else you are able to taste is distinguished by what your sense of smell picks up. That’s why the majority of the food you eat becomes flavorless if you have a blocked nose and are unable to smell.

So next time you have to eat something you don’t like try holding your nose... unless you’re at a family dinner or eating a meal prepared by someone else.

Identifying Health issues

Your sense of smell isn’t going to diagnose health issues so if you feel like something’s wrong, rely on a doctor and not your nose. However the loss of your sense of smell can be an early indication of some medical issues. Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis can all cause a diminished sense of smell.

Even if there is no serious underline medical issues behind the loss of your sense of smell, losing your sense of smell can still affect your well-being as it can lead to depression and an increase in salt in your diet. Too much salt in your diet is not healthy and those who have lost their sense of smell tend to add a lot of salt to their food as salt is identified by a tongues tastes buds.

Daily life

Smells also have importance to daily life and even attraction. Our actions can be influenced by what we smell and subconsciously we are all aware of this. We feel good by smelling nice, we are attracted to individuals who we perceive to have a pleasant scent. Business owners are aware of this and that why there is a massive industry of perfumes and fragrances. Even business owners who are not in the beauty sector try to persuade us to buy their products through our sense of smell.

If you want to know more about how we are influenced by smells click this link here.