Emotions have a contagious scent that can help combat anxiety: this is what a study published in the Journal of Affective Disorder by researchers from the Department of General Psychology at the University of Padua, in collaboration with the University of Pisa, both in Italy, and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, indicates.
“Social anxiety is defined as a heightened, sometimes extreme and exaggerated fear of social situations such as public speaking or addressing people we barely know.
So we asked ourselves whether social odors could have a modulating effect on this anxiety,” explains Claudio Gentili, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Padua and coordinator of the research.
According to Cinzia Cecchetto, the study's lead author, these social odors are “body olfactory signals produced by an individual and conveyed through sweat,” but they are unrelated to the smells we are used to smelling in environments such as gyms or closed spaces.
“When they are perceived by another individual,” in a completely unconscious way, “they can influence behavior or trigger an emotional response,” says Cecchetto.
In light of this “contagiousness” of emotional body odors, researchers thought about exploring them for the first time as catalysts for psychological treatment.
The study involved 48 girls with symptoms of social anxiety who were divided into groups exposed to emotional odors of happiness, fear or simple air.
Participants completed a two-day mindfulness practice that included breathing exercises, meditation, and relaxation. For each group, anxiety symptoms were assessed at the beginning and end of each day.
The results show that girls who practiced mindfulness while exposed to the odor produced in a state of fear “had a greater reduction in anxiety levels, compared to those who breathed only air,” says Cecchetto.
“It is now a question of understanding which components of active social odors are, which are responsible for the effect, and then extracting them to obtain synthetic substitutes and use them at a clinical level, such as nasal drops,” Gentili emphasizes. (HANDLE)
