How to master your sense of smell

What we humans smell is involuntary no matter if it is garbage or a delicious dish. The mind-blowing fact is that smell tends to generate strong emotions so if we train our brain to smell better, it will be quite possible for our brains to master the art of smelling. Helen Keller stands as the great example of this, she was able to differentiate the people’s work solely through her smell.

Mastering The Art Of Smell

  • Animals vs. Humans

Dogs and pigs have a strong sense of smell and that is the reason why dogs are capable of identifying explosives and pigs are capable of finding truffles underground. Opposing to this, the noses of humans cast air around them and that is the reason if a human wants to master the art of smell, he has to bring the nose closer to the world may be the ground, surfaces and sometimes even objects.

  • Sniffing

Smelling takes place in the postage stamp sized square like tissue which is known as the olfactory epithelium. So, when a human being smells, the odor molecules get into the nostrils and hit the tissue. After hitting the tissue, they combine to our olfactory or scent, receptors.

When a person inhales one or more times, more and more air gets to the smell receptors. After two or more sniffs have taken place, the receptors that are responsible for noticing new smells will temporarily shut down so that the human can sniff again later.

  • Dwelling on the smell

Mastering the art of smell can be done through by paying attention to the smell which will let the human know about the source, location, description of the particular smell. Electric signals are sent from the sensory neurons to the human’s brain olfactory bulbs in the situation where an odor molecule gets bound to a scent receptor.

These signals then get to the other areas of the brain where the taste, emotional information or memory is integrated before it gets registered to us as a smell.

For starters, you can get some vanilla or spices from your kitchen and ask them to bring under your nose. After that you can take a sniff and then try naming the source. These are the basic steps that will help a person master the art of smell.

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