Some of us can lose our sense of smell which can impact directly on our day to day lives. If you are looking to learn how to regain your sense of smell; you have come to the right place.
Most of us take our sense of smell for granted, but there are a lot of people out there who struggle to recognise certain smells. In fact, one out of every two hundred people experience some form of smell loss in their lifetime. But fear not, the sense of smell can be retrained—and your sense of smell can be regained.
What is anosmia?
Anosmia (sometimes referred to as smell blindness) is used to describe the temporary or permanent loss of the ability to detect smells. For many of us that have experienced temporary anosmia during a cold or hay fever, the effect can be irritating, but for the thousands of people who experience smell blindness more long term the effects can be profound.
Ten things you may experience if you lose your sense of smell:
- An inability to taste food, which can lead to eating too much or too little
- an inability to smell spoiled food, which can lead to food poisoning
- increased danger in the event of a fire if you cannot smell smoke
- losing the ability to recall smell-related memories
- loss of intimacy due to the inability to smell perfume or pheromones
- losing the ability to detect chemicals or other dangerous odours in your home
- lack of empathy from family, friends, or doctors
- inability to detect body odours
- mood disorders such as depression
- lack of interest in social situations, which might include being unable to enjoy the food at a social gathering
What causes anosmia?
Many of us will have experienced short-term anosmia during an illness such as a cold or flu, but for many this is a more prolonged.
Some causes of Anosmia include
- viral illnesses such as colds, flus and more recently Covid 19
- smoking
- nasal polyp
- head trauma
- multiple sclerosis
- asthma, allergies, and hay fever
- stroke
- old age
How to Regain your Sense of Smell with Squish Therapy Dough?
At the University of Dresden in 2009, Professor Thomas Hummel set up a study to investigate the possibility that people who had lost their sense of smell could ‘train’ to regain some sensation.
His study group included people who’d loss their sense of smell after a head injury, after respiratory tract infection and sufferers who had no known cause for their problem. After 12 weeks, 30% of the group reported some improvement, no matter what the cause of their anosmia.
Since then, the evidence of the power of smell training has been building for over a decade. A recent analysis of all the published studies on smell training to date concludes that we know smell training is effective for many people and remains effective long after the smell training stops.
Anosmia sufferers who have tried the smell-training technique have reported that they began to detect other scents in the environment, other than just the oils used in the training.
How to Smell Train
You should think of smell training as physiotherapy for your nose. Just like physiotherapy, frequency and consistency are key to achieving results.
Smell training is actively sniffing the same scents every day, spending around 20 seconds on each scent and really concentrating on what you’re doing.
If you are looking for an innovative smell training kit then our Squish Therapy Dough Smell Training Kit is a great way to get started. Last year we collaborated with AbScent to create a Smell Training Kit that combines scent with the added stimulation of touch and colour to liven up your training.
Once you have your kit it is helpful to make a note of how your smell is before you begin. You can compare your level of smell and experiences today and after a couple of months of smell training. Many people who have used smell training have notices the ability to detect scents in the world around them even if the smells in their Smell Training Kit are still muted.
So, there you have it! You now know why it occurs and how Squish Therapy Dough can help regain your sense of smell. I hope this article has been helpful for you in understanding how you can retrain your sense of smell.
If you liked this post, please share it with your friends and family! You can find lots of information on Anosmia and how to regain your sense of smell here .If you would like to purchase one of our Smell Training Kits, you can purchase them here.
How to Regain Your Sense of Smell with Squish Therapy Dough | Squish Therapy Dough 2022