Smell training to improve your sense of smell.
It may sound strange but it certainly makes sense.
Training your muscles by going to the gym or playing a musical instrument every day ensures that you make progress in what you practice. This is how you should also view training the sense of smell. It is, as it were, physiotherapy for the nose.
Research.
Various scientific studies have shown that smell training is effective for loss of smell and can accelerate recovery. Whether smell training is also effective in your case depends on several things.
In 2009 , Professor Thomas Hummel from the University of Dresden started a study to investigate whether intensively smelling different odors every day has a positive effect on the sense of smell. The study lasted 12 weeks and was conducted among a group of people with anosmia. These people had all lost their sense of smell due to head injuries, severe upper respiratory infections, or other unexplained reasons.
Twice a day over a period of 12 weeks.
One group had to smell four different scents ( Rose, Eucalyptus, Lemon and Clove ) daily in the morning and evening over a period of 12 weeks. The other group did not participate in the smell training. Both groups were smell tested at the beginning and end of the study using the Sniffin' Sticks scent pens. This showed that a large percentage of the group of people who had followed the smell training had a better score on the smell tests at the end of the study compared to the group that had not followed the smell training.
Positive effect.
In addition to Dr. Hummel, there have also been several other studies into the effect of scent training, which show that smelling scents twice a day has a positive effect on the development of the sense of smell. The effect is particularly noticeable when training the sense of smell daily for 6-7 months. However, the effect of smell training is highly dependent on each condition. So it is certainly not a medicine but a way to accelerate and stimulate recovery.
If you would like more information about this research, click on the link below.
https://academic.oup.com/chemse/article/34/8/705/453732
How do I use the oil bottles?
The package contains 4 bottles of 2ml each. natural essential oil. Both the scent and the ingredients are listed on each bottle. The bottles contain the scents Eucalyptus, Lemon, Clove and Rose,
What should I do next?
- Take one bottle of oil.
- Hold this about three centimeters under your nose.
- Relax and take a deep breath in through your nose. Don't breathe too quickly because the smell won't come in properly.
- Repeat this four times; you have then inhaled the scent five times.
- Rest for a few minutes before moving on to the next scent.
- Repeat the same steps for the other scents. Choose the order of scents yourself.
When and how often?
Try to repeat these steps twice a day, for example in the morning and evening.
You can keep a score for yourself on a scale of 1 - 10. This way you can easily see whether you are making progress in recognizing the different smells.
If you make no progress at all after 12 weeks, the chance of recovery is probably very small to continue with the training.
