Sweet smells banish pain

Sweet smells banish pain
13:14 20 June 02

The sweet scent of roses or almonds could take some of the pain out of
your stay in hospital. But only if you're a woman.

Serge Marchand and Pierre Arsenault at the University of Québec in
Abitibi-Témiscamingue asked 20 men and 20 women to keep their hand
immersed in painfully hot water for as long as they could while smelling
various odours. When given pleasant aromas such as almond extract to
sniff, the women experienced significantly less pain. Foul smells such
as vinegar seemed to slightly intensify their pain. However, the pain
felt by the men was not affected by the smells.

Physiology and Behaviour

Both sexes reported feeling happier in the presence of good smells,
while bad smells put them in a worse mood. But this effect on the
emotions can't be what changed the women's perception of pain. If it
was, the men should have responded in the same way.

Women are typically more sensitive to odours than men. But this also
can't explain why only women feel the pain-relief benefits, because the
women in the study didn't rate the intensity of smells differently from
the men.

Pleasant sensations of touch are known to activate an area of the
brain's frontal cortex used for taste and smell. So it's possible that
smells could be altering the sensory processing of touch, pain and
temperature by affecting this part of the brain in women.
More at: Physiology and Behavior (vol 76, p 251)