Deccan Herald-Your partners smells and effect on you- Inner Dawn Counsellor Kala Balasubramanians views featured

What does it do to you when you smell the clothes of your partner? Especially when they are away.

Recent research suggests that smelling the clothes of your partner could help you feel more calm, deal with stress better and feel less lonely.

It is true that for each one of us, particular smells can transport us to a different realm of vivid memories and evoke strong emotions too.

To understand this we should look a little more deeper into why our sense of smell elicits such strong memories and emotions.  The signals of smell from our nose are transmitted to the olfactory bulb and from there directly to the hippocampus that contains memories and directly to the amygdala which is involved in experiencing emotions. This shortcut available for our olfactory sense allows such strong memories to be evoked and strong emotions to be experienced when we smell a particular odour. 

When we put this into the relationship context it makes sense that we experience pleasant memories and feel a sense of safety and happiness when we smell the clothes of our partner with whom we have a good relationship associated with. On the other hand if your relationship with your partner is unpleasant and difficult, then if you sniff your partners clothes, it would bring forth corresponding unpleasant emotions and memories, making your feel anxious.

Inner Dawn counsellor Kala Balasubramanian’s views featured on Deccan Herald on 14th of March 2019

https://www.deccanherald.com/metrolife/partner-s-smell-helps-you-feel-less-lonely-723029.html