Three Ways You Can Improve Your Sense Of Smell

Your sense of smell is one of those things you can easily take for granted. If you want to improve the sensitivity of your nose, here are three useful tips to keep in mind.

In this video from the TED-Ed YouTube channel, Alexandra Horowitz, an adjunct associate professor at Barnard College, explains the science of smells and how our noses work. She also shares some useful tips for anyone looking to improve their ability to identify smells. So if you want to upgrade your nose, here’s what Horowitz recommends you do:

1. Get close: If you want to get better at identifying scents, you have to bring scents closer to your nose. Your nose will be closer to the odour source, and the warmth of your breath will make odours easier to smell.
2. Take big sniffs: The actual smelling process happens up in the bridge of your nose, so take one or two solid, sharp sniffs to get more odour molecules up in there.
3. Dwell on smells: When you pay notice to smells, try to describe them, name them and try to locate odour sources, you’re more likely to remember it so you can identify the same smell later on.

So get out there and get close, sniff hard, pay notice and, of course, follow your nose.

How to master your sense of smell [YouTube]