Mindfulness Exercise: Mindful Scent

Getting in touch with your body-based five senses is a mindful way to slow down your stress response and then initiate the relaxation response. Marsha Linehan, as part of her broad ranging Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) developed the self-help self-soothing skill involving the use of the five senses. Research shows that soothing via the five senses with activities that feel comforting and nurturing help manage spiraling anxiety and depression.

You deserve self-care

Initially, many of us believe that focusing on self-care is self-indulgent or inappropriate. However, practicing self-care is not an act of selfishness. It creates a reservoir of enjoyable experiences and positive emotions that you can rely on when necessary.

Practicing self-care and learning to self-soothe are essential aspects of life. It’s possible that we didn’t have these behaviors demonstrated to us during our upbringing. We might have received messages suggesting that being workhorses or self-sacrificing is necessary to be considered "valid" individuals. However, today we have extensive and advanced research indicating that a more nuanced approach to well-being is emotionally healthier.

When you are running low on energy and patience, and feel anxious and/or depressed, this is usually an indication that some self-soothing would be help your well being.

Using your sense of smell to self-soothe

Mindful smelling involves utilizing our sense of smell to enhance awareness of our current moment and surroundings.

Focusing on the sense of smell improves mindfulness by promoting awareness of environmental scents and their effects on the mind and body.

Naturally, scents can evoke memories and significant information, as the brain's smell and memory centers are linked. This ability offers an additional method for learning new material and for identifying and managing emotional reactions that might be prompted by a sensory memory.

You can train your nervous system to be calm, with aromas that you find pleasing, immersing yourself in a soothing sensory experience of different scents. Enhance mindfulness by appreciating the fragrances that appeal to you, such as rose, lavender, sandalwood, and seasonal spices.

A simple mindfulness practice: The Mindful Scent Exercise

Because the brain centers for smell and memory are linked, scent invokes memories and significant emotional information. Most of us have had the experience of having certain smells bring up a very personal memories and the emotions arund those memories.

Mindfulness practices help us train our nervous systems to be patient, to slow down, to increase tolerance for a broad range of emotions and thoughts.

The Mindful Scent Exercise is a mindfulness practice that uses the bodymind scent connection. Noticing what happens to your body and mind during a scent experience inceeases your emotoinal intelligence.

• Deliberately take a few minutes to slow down.

• Think about a scent you enjoy. Perhaps roses, honeysuckle, baking cookies...whatever you associate with good memories.

• Notice and describe the feelings it evokes in 3 -5 words.

• Reflect on the memories the scent bring up.

• For example, for me, the scent of a rose brings up feelings of feeling cared for, luxury, joy, happiness, and love.

• Try to notice these feelings with a sense of detachment,

• Yet, also absorb the positive energy at the same time.

Of course, some smells bring up unpleasant memories and emotions.

Use the same Mindful Smell Exercise to:

• Notice this specific scent

• Deliberately slow down

• Notice the memories and feelings the scent invokes

• Try to notice these feelings and memories with a sense of detachment, patience and acceptance

• Do not get all caught up in the emotions

• Absorb the new information while fostering non-judgment

• You stretch your tolerance for negative emotions by experiencing them without becoming swamped by them

• Take a breath

• Toggle back to a more pleasant scent memory and let that experience fill your nervous system

  
  

Being more mindful with your sense of smell can interrupt our automatic mental reactions that might dismiss a scent as unpleasant without fully exploring and understanding it. By ‘staying with’ your observations of smells, you allow yourself to become more deeply involved in your activities and to reflect on your experiences in the present moment, which can enhance your self-awareness and self-control.

Sources

Burdick, D. (2013). Mindfulness skills workbook for clinicians and clients. Eua Claire, Wisconis: PESI Publishing.

Linehan, M. (2015). DBT skills training manual (2nd ed). New York: The Guilford Press.

Rhind, J. (2014). Fragrance and well being. London: Stinging Dragon.

Rhind, J. (2014). Listening to scent. London: Stinging Dragon.

Rogers, N. (1993). The creative connection. Palo Alto, California: Science and Behavior Books.

Self soothing: DBT. Retrieved February 27, 2023 from https://dialecticalbehaviortherapy.com/distress-tolerance/self-soothing/

Farrar, A. and Farrar, F. (2020). Clinical aromatherapy. Nursing Clinics, 55(4). (Retrieved February 27, 20232 from https://www.nursing.theclinics.com/article/S0029-6465(20)30047-5/fulltext

Attuned Psychology. Stop and smell the roses; discover mindful smelling. https://attunedpsychology.com/stop-and-smell-the-roses-discover-mindful-smelling/