In prior posts, we looked at the importance of color for marketing. For example, see FORTY Facts on the Psychology of Color and the Psychology of Color. Today, we consider how scents help us make better sense.
Our guest blogger is Leanna Serras of FragranceX.com.
Insights into How Scents Help Us Make Better Sense
The people at the top of their field often use tricks and strategies to stay on top of their game, stay focused, and productive. Did you know the scents you inhale can actually improve your productivity? Several scientific studies reveal how certain smells can improve your memory. Increase alertness. And fight fatigue. When you use the best scents for aromatherapy, you can take advantage of these benefits. That way, you’ll get more stuff done.
Research shows how key aromas in a room help people work more efficiently. For instance, in a study at Northumbria University, a lot of participants with ADHD improved brain patterns after inhaling the scent of vetiver. This left the participants with decreased symptoms of ADHD. Due to their boost in brain function and improved concentration. If you regularly use vetiver, you’ll also sharpen your focus.
FragranceX looked into scents that make you more productive. And this revealed the powerful ways scents like citrus, cinnamon, peppermint, and lavender help with productivity. The graphic below describes ways to boost your work performance. As well as how to use these scents to help you recharge and sustain your energy.
For instance, the Society of Cosmetic Chemists discovered how peppermint increases alertness. And it also improves performance on vigilance tasks. Wheeling Jesuit University found that cinnamon improves participants’ performance on tasks that require heightened attention.
Though aromatherapy isn’t yet used in a lot of work environments, see for yourself how effective it can be. Continue looking for new ways to boost your productivity. So you can accomplish more. Importantly, you’re not taking any pills for these benefits. They’re simple to get. You can find them in many fragrances you can buy at your local store!
I am definitely not surprised that scents increase senses in people. I’ve used some scented items to enhance senses before and I agree that it works. Many stores use scents to attract more customers. For example, if you walk past a Bath and Bodyworks store in the mall you are guaranteed to catch a smell of something enticing as an attempt to attract you into the store. Amusement parks such as Hershey park pump the smell of chocolate into the air in order to get park goers to purchase candy in the park.
I really enjoyed reading this post because I’ve personally experienced the benefits of scents when studying and doing other activities. I’ve used peppermint to help me focus while studying or doing homework. I’ll either chew gum or use my diffuser in order to experience the scent and I definitely do think it helps. It helps me feel more awake and allows me to hone in on the task at hand. This post has given me a bunch of new scents that I’m eager to try as well.
This is not a surprising article, and I agree 100%. Just like chewing gum or listening to classical music, scents can also inhibit parts of your brain to help study better. Certain scents are calming to the nervous system, and essential oils and oil diffusers are very big on helping people wind down and relax when they need it.
This post is indeed very interesting. I believe that scents really have some effects on human beings. I personally like the scents of Jasmine, which really helps lift up my mood. Plus, in my country, we usually use lemongrass and peppermint as main ingredients in the inhaler production.
From Bath and Body Works, I often get the scents that help with different functions in my life such as sleeping, studying, calmness, etc. I have used the peppermint to help me stay focused while studying or in class. There are lotions, sprays, and body washes I use daily. I personally enjoyed this post because I now know more scents that can help me in different areas. For example, I did not know that lemon can help improve performance!
This is a very interesting post. Personally I have never tried any of these, but I know that my mom has scents like jasmine and lavender. Also I have read somewhere before that peppermint can help you to stay focused. Ill have to start chewing more gum.
Scents have such a tremendous impact on our emotions, moods and attitudes. In my own home my mom used different scents for different purposes, and when I am sitting and studying it definitely helps me focus. Because of the tremendous effect scents have, they have been incorporated into marketing plans for store locations. I know when I walk into some of my favorite stores, I will be greeted with a familiar scent. Going into new stores, I can also try to tell what kind of atmosphere they are trying to create with the scents they have chosen. Just recently, I was in a clothing store in Philly, and automatically as I walked in I was hit by this flowery scent, which matched the overall style and theme of the store. It is really interesting to see how stores have incorporated this into their plans to entice customers to stay, to help them remember and resonate with the brand, and to even purchase the scent.
I always felt that the scents around me had an impact on my productivity and focus, so this post doesn’t surprise me and I found it really interesting! As much as all of these scents have a positive impact on your focus, energy, and intellectual abilities, I believe bad scents have the opposite effect. Whenever I smell something burning, or just a bad scent it draws my attention away from what I’m doing and I find it hard to focus because then I am thinking about how to not inhale the scent. This is probably why many stores spray their perfumes on their items so that when you walk in or near the store, the good smell draws you in. For example, I love abercrombie and bath and body works because the clothes, candles, and soap smells so good. Often times, I don’t even need anything from Bed Bath and Beyond but I wind up buying things because they smell so good. Besides your personal productivity, stores can take advantage of the effects scents have and use it to their advantage when they are marketing.
I think this is a very interesting and useful post. I am not surprised that scents have the ability to improve memory, performance and alertness. However, I feel as if many people aren’t aware that there are so many scents that can positively impact them, so they rely on other supplements to help them. Just by simply having a spray, or candle with a given scent such as citrus, we can easily increase productivity. I will definitely be trying out more oils and sprays.
I find this very interesting that quite a few scents can have such a difference in many areas of performance. I guess I would have to try for myself with certain productivity task but for aromatic scents I definitely notice a difference in my relaxation.
It is no surprise to me that aromatherapy is becoming a more relevant topic. Scents are used to market products in so many ways. Take the store Lush for example, when you go in you instantly smell the all of the delicious smells of their products. So if a consumer is walking past the store in the mall, and they smell the store walking by, they are more likely to stop inside.
I like this article a lot because I did not know it was a proven fact that scents make you more productive. I love scents like vanilla, baked goods, lavender, eat. Having a candle in my room really mellows me out and I think helps me with my work, but to see that there has been actual studies that prove this is amazing. I also have a lot of friends with ADD so I will suggest having scents around them while working to see if they are productive and efficient.
Scents helping improve your senses makes a lot of sense. There have been studies that if you chew a specific gum flavor while studying and if you chew that same flavor while taking a test it is shown to improve memory. I imagine scents would have a similar effect; again with learning the more ways you are taught, through sight, audio, or kinesthetically, why wouldn’t the incorporation of scent also improve your overall ability?
I was not aware of all of the scents that could help productivity. I have done aromatherapy yoga and I found it very helpful, so I will look into the other scents. I knew aromatherapy was beneficial and scents like lavender can calm you down, but the fact that there are so many specific effects from scents should be marketed more. I think products should incorporate different scents to intrigue people into solving common problems.
I have heard a lot recently about these studies and from people who agree highly with whats mentioned in this article. I hear a lot about how certain scents can help people be productive, relaxed, and even help people sleep better. I think the idea of being able to use scents to help advertise certain products similar to how colors are used to invoke emotions or feelings to customers when advertising is really interesting and something I haven’t thought of before.
As someone who gets tired easily or loses focus quickly, I found this post very interesting. I think that it is interesting how one’s memory or attention can be improved by a simple scent. After reading this post it has made me want to do further research of scents and the positive affects it can have on people. I am curious to see if these scents actually make a difference!!
Marketing scents is a difficult task as, obviously, you are only able to smell the scent if you are physically there. There are many scents, however, which are only associated with a certain season, like pumpkin for fall, or with a holiday, like peppermint for Christmas. These types of scents make marketing easy as there are always many options for the type of product and time of year. In terms of relaxation, I have an oil diffuser in my room which I use when studying or when getting ready for bed.I have different oil scents I can add in depending on the timing and my mood, with the different scents giving a different feel. I agree marketing scents should be a more common form as there can be a variety of products for different purposes and moments within your day.
Something that may be tied to this is that your olfactory senses (smell) is one of the closest senses to your memories in your brain. Perhaps smells, in helping us remember events and things, may do vice versa: tell the mind to remember what is happening around you more / focus more.
This post resonates with me as I enjoy being around different scents, such as Cinnamon and Citrus. I do believe that the presence of some of the scents listed above promote a certain type of reaction, such as with lavender. Lavender has been known as a relaxing scent, and this article mentions that notion again. I like the variety of scents and effects mentioned here, as I find them interesting and wonder as well about if their incorporation would have effects in the workplace.
This post discusses a really innovative way to increase an employees productivity in the workplace. I think that the use of these oils could really help people who struggle focusing at work and they should try to offer resources for employees to utilize aroma oils at the office. By doing this, they might improve their employees productivity levels as well as general employee happiness at a company who provides additive perks to their employees like this.