Mental health

A new study discovered that smells can help treat depression by affecting mood and mindset.

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Mental Health :- We’re getting a better grasp on how smell affects mood because scientists have found that the smell receptors are connected to parts of the brain that control emotions and memories.

Mental Health :- You’re right that a lot of therapies using our senses to help mental health work by changing the levels of important chemicals in the brain, like serotonin.

Mental health

A new study found that smells can help improve bad feelings. Have people in the past used scents to help with mental health, or is this a new idea?

Dr. Shailesh Jha, a psychiatrist, says that for a long time, people have used aromatherapy and essential oils to make themselves feel better and reduce stress, even though there wasn’t always proof it worked.

In the early 1900s, some psychiatrists started using nice smells to help patients relax. Scientists now understand better how smells can affect our mood because the parts of our brain responsible for emotions and memories are connected to our sense of smell.

It seems that smells can make us feel happier, similar to how antidepressants work. Recent studies have shown that aromatherapy, along with antidepressants, can help treat depression. The newest research confirms that it can indeed make people with depression feel better.

Mental Health

What other things do people use to help with mental health, besides smells, and why?

Other ways of using our senses in mental health treatments include:

Light Therapy :-Bright light is often used to help people with seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Special lamps or visors give them regular doses of light, which can make them feel better by replacing the sunlight they’re missing. It also helps their body’s internal clock get back on track.

Auditory Stimulation :-Methods like auditory integration therapy and binaural beat stimulation use specific sounds to try to change how people feel. They might be used to help with autism, ADD/ADHD, and anxiety by affecting brain activity.

Vibration therapy :-Using machines that make you vibrate a little bit has shown some potential for helping with stress and anxiety. These vibrations stimulate nerves in your body, which might activate certain parts of your nervous system that deal with stress. However, there isn’t a lot of proof from studies yet.

Tactile Therapy :-Touch therapies such as weighted blankets, gentle pressure, and massages use the sense of touch to help improve mood, reduce anxiety, and maybe even address emotional distress. Touching can activate nerves that tell the brain to release chemicals like serotonin

In lots of situations, using different senses can change how our brains work, which can help with mood and behavior problems. Scientists are still studying which sensory methods work best and are safest. However, using sensory input is becoming more helpful in psychiatry.
Do these tools mostly make more of the happy chemicals like serotonin, or is there another reason they work?
You’re right that a lot of therapies that use our senses seem to help by changing the levels of important chemicals in our brains, like serotonin.
But there are probably other reasons that also help with the positive effects:
Making more serotonin is probably a big reason why sensory activities help. When we stimulate our senses, it tells our nerves to release chemicals like serotonin and dopamine, which control our mood and behavior. This is why it can make us feel happier and less stressed or anxious.
The stimulation leads to changes in parts of the nervous system connected to daily rhythms, relaxation, and how we react to stress. This means the effects go beyond just changing chemicals in the brain and also affect how our mind and body handle emotions and arousal.
Certain sensory therapies also seem to affect the parts of the brain that control attention and memory. People who have experienced trauma or difficult childhood events have shown more organized brain function after undergoing specific sensory treatments.
Things like feeling cozy from being touched or feeling relaxed from certain smells can also help mental health, even if they don’t directly change brain chemicals. So, sometimes we’re still figuring out exactly how these things work in the brain.
Although the effects on mood-regulating chemicals are important, sensory therapies probably help mental health in many different ways that we’re still studying. These methods might affect not only chemicals in the brain but also other body and mind processes that influence how we feel. We’re still doing more research to understand this better.

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