Depression caused by lack of smell =(
Depression & Smell
“Smells are surer than sights and sounds to make your heart-strings crack.”—Rudyard Kipling
During Dr.Herz’s
talk, she touched upon the connections between the lack of smell and
depression. She described that emotional well-being takes an extreme nose-dive
when a person does not have a sense of smell. The connection between the sense
of smell and the brain is so intertwined that people risk becoming in a state
of severe clinical depression. She explained this extremely intertwined
connection to the class, as the olfactory bulb is part of the brain’s limbic
system; this system is connected to memory and feelings. This olfactory bulb is
close with the amygdala (this processes our emotions), and also the hippocampus
(responsible for associative learning). This extreme relationship between the sense of
smell to the brain creates the potential to experience such a severe depression
when a person is lacking the sense of smell (whether it be from birth, which is
rare or from an injury which is more common).
The
effects of losing ones smell can cause extreme anxiety in ones personal life.
Since a person cannot smell himself or herself they become obsessed with their
personal hygiene, and worry about this constantly. These people are so anxious
about smelling they become reclusive, and lose their human desire to socialize.
As we have learned social relationships are extremely influenced my smells,
whether it be a family relationship such as a mother/child bonding or a sexual
relationship between two partners. There is an extreme connection between scent
and the mother child bond, a mother knows his/her newborn’s scent a few seconds
after she has the left her arms, and the new born remembers the mothers scent
as well. Looking at sexual relationships body odor and the aroma of the man is
one of the biggest impacts on a woman.
Elizabeth Zierah “The Nose That Never Works, The miseries of
losing one’s sense of smell,” discusses this idea of the connection between
lacking smelling and depression, and also discusses Dr. Herz’s book The Scent of Desire. Elizabeth Zierah
has not only suffered from a loss of smell but also a stroke of her left side
of her body. She says without hesitation that the loss of smell has been
detrimental to her more than those effects from the stroke.
In the article Zierah discuses how she adapted after losing
her smell, how losing her smell also meant her lose of appetite. This caused
her to lose eight pounds until she saved herself by what she terms as “mouth
feel” feeling the texture of her food. She has found that Japanese food is the
best when it comes to satisfying her desires of mouth food since it’s cuisine
is “designed around balance of tastes and variants of texture.”
This article perfectly depicted what I wanted to know after
Dr. Herz’s talk. The idea that depression could be caused by a lack of smell
made me curious, and the idea of changes in eating because of this made me
wonder… Zierah’s extreme case of having a stroke and putting her loss of smell
as more extreme to that really put this into perspective for me. I began to
think about how miserable I feel while I have a sinus infection, not being able
to taste my favorite NY slice, or smell my morning bacon egg and cheese. That
would seriously depress me. On top of that not being able to smell yourself to
make sure your clean, one of my favorite things to do is smell my hair…
I truly
hope more research is done to find a cure for such a lacking lifestyle …
This is a link to an interview with Dr. Lisa Liberatore
about the importance of losing your sense of smell, and how much of your life
it actually effects. She touches upon what the loss of smell also triggers, and
things that you can do to treat this issue.
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