Smelling Your Partner's Shirt Can Help Reduce Stress Levels

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The human psychology is such a beautiful thing; for without it, we wouldn’t be humans anyway.

Truly though, the innate beauty of how our mind works is quite astounding. Our psychology as humans stem from how our mind works, how our minds influence our behaviours or how it influences particular people’s behaviours.

Psychology is defined as r1, r2;

The scientific study of how the human mind works and the way it influences behaviour, or the influence of a particular person’s character on their behaviour.

Our minds works differently; after all, no two people are actually the same – not even identical twins.

So when it comes to emotions, the factors that drive our mind and psychology vary from one person to the other.

And modern science has been growing in leaps and bounds, to the extent that psychological researches backed by scientific experiments keep yielding strange and amazing results, testifying to how awesome the human mind can be.

For instance, did you know that smelling food can make you fat? (topic for another day)

Well this post would be focusing on a recent research that suggests that our olfactory system influences a lot of our body’s neurological functions, such as weight-gain through the act of smelling food.

I dare say; Science and Psychology rocks!

I mean; how else could we have discovered such a correlation between our smell-organ and weight-gain, if not through science and research?

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Recently, some researchers carrying out a study at the University of British Columbia, revealed that the ‘scent of a person’s partner can reduce stress and lower the stress hormone cortisol, considerably.’

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The Research

96 opposite sex couples signed up for the study. Of the 86 couples, the men were given the task of “scenting” a clean shirt for 24 hours, by simply wearing it and using it for the 24 hours period.

The women who are considered to possess a better sense of smell than men (I’m yet to personally believe this though…lolz), were tasked with being the “smellers”

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The shirts were marked for the “smelling” act – a clean shirt, the shirt worn by their partner, and a shirt worn by a stranger.

After the “smelling” act, the women were then subjected to several levels of stress tests. They also submitted saliva samples in order for their cortisol levels to be tracked. The women were also given a math task and granted a mock job interview.

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The Result

Following the detailed study and research, the results revealed that the act of smelling a partner’s shirt reduced measurable cortisol levels, and subjective feelings of stress.

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Also, the researchers discovered that if a person correctly “smelled” and identified their partner’s scent, it increased the effects of stress-reduction tangibly.

An interesting discovery from the study showed that smelling the scent of a stranger actually increased the woman’s cortisol levels. The increase in the cortisol levels showcased the evolutionary instinct of self-protection and awareness against danger in humans. Suggesting that the tic must have been gained overtime, as a means to protect ourselves.

A lead author of the study, Marlise Hofer said;

"From a young age, humans fear strangers, especially strange males, so it is possible that a strange male scent triggers the 'fight or flight' response that leads to elevated cortisol. This could happen without us being fully aware of it."

Co-authors of the study were Hanne Collins and Ashley Whillans while they were at University of British Columbia. Several bodies support the research with grants such as American Psychological Foundation Visionary Grant, a UBC faculty of arts graduate student research grant, and a UBC faculty of arts humanities and social sciences grant.

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In Conclusion

The strange research reveals the apparent understanding that stress levels can be drastically reduced by actions we take when our loved ones are far away from us.

From the research, the action such as sniffing a clothing of a partner can do the trick of stress-level reduction. The study made use of t-shirts in particular, however, the result of the scientific discovery can be applied to other clothing.

Another benefit of the research is the potential of the knowledge and psychology involved being used to deal with mind trauma of medical proportion; such as depressions, mood swings, etc.

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Research: Paper

Reference: Ref 1, Ref 2, Ref 3, Ref 4

Further Reading: 1, 2, 3, 4

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@rickie