How Are Smells and Feelings of Safety Connected?
Since I want to regularly share useful, helpful things with you, I had the idea of sharing a practice around aromas. Partly because scents are one of my favorite topics, right alongside psychology 😍.
A small disclaimer: different things work for different people, and a particular practice may not suit you — and that’s completely fine. This especially applies to neurodivergent people, who may have heightened sensitivity to smells. If you need something different, it’s important to try other things, and eventually you’ll find the practice that works for you. For example, the “Safe Place” exercise, which only requires your imagination.
Today I’d like to offer you a self-regulation practice centered on scents that give you a feeling of safety and calm. It can be used when you’re experiencing stress and want to ground yourself.
Choose a scent that you associate with something pleasant and positive — something that evokes a sense of coziness and safety. These might be the aromas of:
☕️ freshly brewed coffee, 🫖 tea, 🌿 mint, 💛 essential oils, 💐 a favorite perfume, 🧴 a beloved shampoo, ❄️ fabric softener, and so on.
- Sit comfortably. Notice your body — if there’s tension anywhere, try to relax that area. You can close your eyes.
- Feel the rhythm of your breathing. If it’s fast, try making your exhale longer than your inhale. This small trick is calming in itself, because it engages the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for rest and recovery.
- Now you can turn to your favorite scent — while you’re inhaling it, picture where you are and what surrounds you.
- What feelings and images arise? What emotions?
- What do you sense in your body?
- Anything else you notice?
Don’t rush yourself, give yourself time to sink into the sensations evoked by the scent. Try to describe them in detail.
It’s a good idea to keep your favorite “safety scent” somewhere nearby so that, when you need it, you can return to a state of calm.
What is all of this for, and how does it work?
From the perspective of CFT (Compassion-Focused Therapy), our reactions and emotions can be understood in terms of 3 systems:
- the threat system (stress, muscle tension, fight-flight-freeze responses, avoidance, self-criticism, attack, anger, fear, anxiety);
- the drive system (motivation, striving to achieve goals, heightened activity, arousal, readiness, excitement, interest);
- the soothing and safety system (contentment, relaxation, care, connectedness with the world, joy, compassion or self-compassion).
Each of these systems has a different focus. The threat system is evolutionarily important and necessary for responding to events or triggers perceived as threats to our organism. But we often fall into the trap of our own thinking, which overly protects us by generating worries about all kinds of things. Or we’ve frequently felt unsafe, and our brain has grown accustomed to operating from the threat system. When it activates in us, it triggers maladaptive strategies (avoiding what’s necessary, harshly criticizing ourselves, etc.). The unpleasant thing is that it shuts off all other behavior.
The drive system is needed for seeking and obtaining pleasure. It’s also about finding resources and solving a task or problem. Life becomes very hard when, for example, the drive system is suppressed (as in depression), cranked to maximum (as in bipolar disorder, ADHD, or addiction), and the threat system is off the charts (as in many conditions).
The soothing and safety system is crucial for balancing the first two — it forms a sense of protection and connection with the outside world, and it fosters more adaptive behavior.
The scent practice I described above helps develop the soothing-affiliative system (safety system), which in turn naturally and physiologically helps bring a “dysregulated” threat system back into balance. If you find something that genuinely calms and grounds you, it can be enormously helpful in moments when the “storm” hits. It could be a walk in the forest, the touch of a pleasant texture, yoga, doing a puzzle — anything that stabilizes you. Personally, I love inhaling scents I associate with certain wonderful places and people, watching water, listening to the sound of train wheels, watching videos about my hobbies, and listening to atmospheric electronic music.