Men & the sense of smell

[elai]

For many years, I always wondered what happened to my sense of smell. It seemed to disappear around 10 years ago. It wasn't a sudden thing, I only realized it after thinking back to memories of my childhood. I even went to one of those "nose" doctor specialists and he said nothing was wrong.

Well now I know why my sense of smell went to ♥♥♥♥. Puberty!! Something about the masculinizing process kills the sense of smell in men. And because puberty is a gradual thing, we never notice it Sad . While in women, and in kids, it works properly. I wonder how I can get my sense of smell back, without resorting to something like estrogen :P

Before you pass judgment on this, keep in mind that study after study has
demonstrated that a womans sense of smell is MUCH more powerful than
a mans. With certain kinds of smells in fact, womens sense of smell is up
to 100 times more powerful than mens.

In fact, a womans sense of smell is so strong that most women can detect
MILD body odors from over three feet away. And women can usually
identify past lovers based on their smell alone. Similarly, researches have
found that women can identify T-shirts worn by their children based on
smell alone, while fathers couldnt. You could say womens noses are
sensitive enough to detect a childs unique odor print.

And this is where it gets really almost science fiction weird. A research
study had 30 women whiff Ben-Zal-dah-hide, a cherry flavoring
ingredient. After each whiff the women rated the intensity of the odor.
What researchers found was that with each whiff the women became
more and more sensitive to the cherry odor. When at first they could smell
a moderate concentration of 1% Ben-zal-dah-hide in a bottle on the first
test, by the end of 30 sessions they could smell a concentration of 1-
th
1000 of a percent of Ben-zal-dah-hide in a bottle. Put in another way,
the more women smelled the better their sense of smell became and they
could detect odor of 1 part chemical to 100,000 parts water. They also did
the experiment on men and us men were far, far behind in our sniffing
abilities.

[mentalmosaic]

Hi Elai,

I think it's cool that you care about the sense of smell. I do, too!

I've even read (sorry, but I can't recall where) that of all the senses, more brain space is allocated to the sense of smell than the others.

I've also read that it's suspected that some schizophrenics have a heightened sense of smell and that they are able to tell, for instance, when people are lying because they smell slightly different when they do. (I'm not explaining this very well.. I'll try to find a reference online because it's rather fascinating.)

As a woman, I've noticed that when I hang around a new group of women, our periods all begin to synchronize. I've yet to hear of any studies done about this phenomena, but I suspect that we are somehow coordinating our menses via the sense of smell.

Makes you wonder what else we know about others via odor, doesn't it? Perhaps the reason, at times, that we have a hunch about someone's motives is that we are tacitly aware of what their odors are revealing.

Now... about you and your nose. Have you ruled out something as simple as allergies? Even mild ones can impair your sense of smell.

Also, I've found that taking short little sniffs can really help me to become aware of an odor. This is a good time of year to take a walk and spend some time sniffing fresh blossoms. Try "gulping" the air by taking 4 or 5 quick sniffs. You may think this is silly, but it really works. (And go ahead and laugh, but I came up with this technique from watching my dog when I was a kid!)

Barring that, you may want to check out this article:

Sharpen Your Sense of Smell and Taste: Every Bite and Sniff

Best wishes on your quest to smell! I'm interested in hearing about how it goes for you.

Tui

[Erki]

I made a thread about developing senses in overall but noone answered. They must have though I as a looney. I don't blame them.

Basically, I also would like to have better smelling abilities.

[Obiwan]

Check out the book Panic Healing by Choa Kok Sui, and learn about Chakras. Also, practicing any holistic approach will help your being heal to a degree.

[thinktank]

@mentalmosaic
I might be wrong but I think the major part of the brain function is devoted to the sense of vision...thats why we do most of our daily task using our eyes not our noses...