Catching a whiff of partner’s scent could lower stress: UBC study
Posted January 7, 2018 8:30 am.
Last Updated January 7, 2018 8:32 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A study out of the University of British Columbia has found the scent of a romantic partner could help lower stress levels.
The psychology research found women feel calmer after being exposed to their male partner’s scent. Conversely, being exposed to a stranger’s scent had the opposite effect and raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
96 women and their male partners were recruited for the study. The men wore a T-shirt for a full day, without deodorant or scented body products, before the shirts were frozen to preserve the scent.
The women were asked to smell a random shirt, which had been worn by their male romantic partner, by a stranger, or by no one at all, before taking a stress test.
“Women felt calmer after we exposed the scent of the romantic partner, that was the main finding. I also found that women who smelled their partner’s shirt and were able to correctly identify that scent to be their partner’s scent had lower cortisol levels,” says Marlise Hofer, lead author of the study.
“That was what we predicted. I was excited to see that it had worked, because it’s not a study that has a lot of similar research at the moment.”
The researchers asked women to act as the “smellers” because they tend to have a better sense of smell than men.
The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
