Sniffing A Stranger Can Help With Social Anxiety
This could be awkward!
A new study finds that other people’s body odour could help reduce your social anxiety!
“Chemo-signals” or human body odour can help your social anxiety by nearly 40% according to researchers.
It doesn’t sound appealing, but exposure to other people’s BO can calm your worries.
“Our state of mind causes us to produce molecules (or chemo-signals) in sweat, which communicate our emotional state and produce corresponding responses in the receivers,” say the researchers.
Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is an intense fear of being judged or rejected in social settings.
Those with social anxiety tend to avoid certain situations and can feel distressed if these environments are inescapable.
People’s anxiety levels have grown significantly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, surveys have shown.
“The results of our preliminary study show that combining these chemo-signals (odours) with mindfulness therapy seem to produce better results in treating social anxiety than can be achieved by mindfulness therapy alone.”
Sniffing out a person first, kind of like a dog can help!
