From helping children understand the world around them to triggering memories and emotions, our sense of smell plays a far greater role in our lives than we may realise.
The sense of smell may not receive the same attention as the other senses, but teaching children to notice, distinguish and describe different smells can help enhance their well-being and enable them to better understand the world around them.
Dr. Will Tullett, a historian specialising in the history of smells, points out that pollution can negatively affect people's ability to smell, at a time when the scents of many modern products and places have become different from what they once were.
Some materials, ranging from certain types of margarine to car interiors and even homes, are now stripped of their original smells and replaced with artificial ones.
The Forgotten Language of Scents (Pexels)
The researcher believes that these changes make it necessary to strengthen what could be described as olfactory education, calling for children to be taught how to use their sense of smell consciously from the early years of school.
Training children to pay attention to smells is not limited to the classroom. Parents can also do this at home by encouraging them to smell different things and try to describe them.
The more smells a person becomes familiar with, the greater their vocabulary and pool of references for describing what they smell.
Wine-tasting experts, for example, follow a similar approach, as they are constantly exposed to a wide range of smells to expand their ability to compare and distinguish between them.
It is not simply about knowing whether a particular smell is pleasant or unpleasant, but about being able to notice similarities and differences between smells and associate them with different experiences and situations.
Tullett believes that paying attention to smells can help people better understand themselves, particularly when reflecting on why certain smells are associated with feelings of comfort, nostalgia or reassurance. The sense of smell can also provide important practical information in everyday life.
Smelling food can help determine whether it is still fresh and safe to eat, rather than relying solely on its expiration date.
Several studies have also documented a link between the ability to smell, enjoyment of smells and a sense of well-being.
Moreover, a loss of the sense of smell may be accompanied by symptoms such as depression, anxiety and other psychological problems.
Tullett, whose book Sniff: A History of Smells was published on September 8, points to a common belief that the past was smellier than the present, but the reality is more complicated than that.
Scents Reinvent Our Understanding of the World (Pexels)
Researcher Tullett highlights a bill in the British Parliament that would have criminalised people sleeping on the streets because of what the legislation described as "excessive smells."
Against this backdrop, he calls for us to consider why we regard certain smells as pleasant or repulsive, and to think about how these impressions were formed and how other people might perceive them.
Greater awareness of our attitudes towards smells, combined with more empathy for other people's preferences, could help limit the use of the sense of smell as a means of creating barriers between people.
Smells often derive their meaning from specific times, places and contexts. As a result, some of today's smells may become distinctive markers of the 21st century in Britain.
Among the examples cited by the researcher are the smell of hand sanitiser, the smells of wildfires and water pollution.
He warns that the smell of burning wood, which today evokes nostalgia and memories for many people, could, as wildfires and climate change become more prevalent, turn into a smell that triggers fear and anxiety, having once inspired nostalgia.
Thus, the sense of smell remains a unique window into our memories and emotions, while "olfactory education" is gaining increasing importance, not only in developing children's sense of smell, but also in fostering empathy and a deeper understanding of ourselves and others.
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