A study has found that sniffing people’s sweat might be therapeutic and could reduce anxiety.
This according to Swedish researchers who tested this theory with volunteers, using sweat from their armpits.
Scientists say smelling someone else’s perspiration activates brain pathways linked to emotions, offering a calming effect.
It may be early days however, but the group of scientists will be sharing their discoveries at a medical conference in Paris.
Lead researcher Elisa Vigna shared, “Sweat produced while someone was happy had the same effect as someone who had been scared by a movie clip. So, there may be something about human chemo-signals in sweat generally which affects the response to treatment.
It may simply be that being exposed to the presence of someone else has this effect, but we need to confirm this. In fact, that is what we are testing now in a follow-up study with a similar design, but where we are also including sweat from individuals watching emotionally neutral documentaries.”
Lead researcher Elisa Vigna speaking to Sky News
The team of scientists from the Karolinska Institute of Stockholm suggests that human body odour can help people with anxiety communicate their emotional state.
Those who were exposed to the armpit sweat of others appeared to be calmer in the therapy.
But before you walk up to a random sweaty person and start sniffing their underarms, you may want to consider the bacteria that’s present on the skin when there’s sweat involved.
Also, yes, you guessed it, the smell of sweat, particularly from the armpit and groin region.
Does this study need further research?
Vigna says these are just preliminary results and her team of researchers will still need to put in further work to determine the depth of this study.
Also read: Butting heads! Do you instigate conflict whether unintentionally or deliberately?
