Can anxiety cause sensitivity to smells?
Anxiety Can Create Smell Sensitivity
Anxiety itself can actually create a sensitivity to smells. Anxiety puts you more "in touch" with your senses. Those with anxiety become more receptive to different scents in a way that those without anxiety are not, especially with regards to bad smells.
Moreover, it was demonstrated that stress affects smell recognition, including the development of olfactory system [44,45,46].
Hyperosmia is an overwhelming sensitivity to smells. There are many reasons behind this change in smell. Some include genetics, hormone changes, and migraines. If you have hyperosmia, your taste may also be affected.
As if reducing you to a clumsy fool isn't enough, anxiety can also distort your perception of taste (which, to be clear, you do with your tongue) and smell (which dominates flavour discernment).
Findings confirm the association between experienced taste/olfactory loss and emotional distress and suggest that dysfunctions of taste and smell correlate positively with anxiety and depression.
Among those who met criteria for major depressive disorder, the prevalence of altered smell and taste was higher at 39.8% (95% CI: 33.4–46.1%) and 23.7% (95% CI: 18.7–28.7%), respectively.
Anxiety can cause numbness and tingling, especially in the limbs, and some people experience burning sensations on their skin. Anxiety may also cause people to experience hot or cold sensations in their body, especially when they come into contact with objects or environments that are of different temperatures.
In conclusion, patients with depression have reduced olfactory performance when compared with the healthy controls and conversely, patients with olfactory dysfunction, have symptoms of depression that worsen with severity of smell loss.
Treatment. If you have hyperosmia, chewing peppermint gum can help until you can move away from the triggering smell. Successful long-term treatment of hyperosmia involves pinpointing and treating the underlying cause of the symptom. Treatment based on the root cause should alleviate your hypersensitivity to odors.
If you have symptoms prompted by everyday smells, it does not necessarily mean you are allergic but rather that you suffer from chemical intolerance. According to Linus Andersson at Umeå University, this hypersensitivity can be the result of an inability to get used to smells.
How do I overcome smell sensitivity?
- Keep your home well-ventilated, which help to improve air quality, by opening doors and windows, and installing vents and fans to circulate the air.
- Try an air purifier, which can help clean your home's air.
- Use scent-free personal care products (this website compares safety brands of many products)
Illness such as cold or flu, COVID-19, sinus infection, and allergies. Head injury. Hormone changes. Dental or mouth problems.
“It can be due to nasal or sinus inflammation, or other viral infections distinct from COVID-19. And it can even occur as a result of some neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's or dementia or vitamin deficiencies. Rarely tumors can present with smell loss.”
- Feeling nervous, restless or tense.
- Having a sense of impending danger, panic or doom.
- Having an increased heart rate.
- Breathing rapidly (hyperventilation)
- Sweating.
- Trembling.
- Feeling weak or tired.
- Trouble concentrating or thinking about anything other than the present worry.
The trigeminal nerve has receptors for pungent odorants throughout the nasal and pharyngeal cavities. The glossopharyngeal and vagus nerves provide the minor chemosensory function in the pharyngeal area. The ciliated olfactory receptors are part of the olfactory neuroepithelium.
Loss or changes to smell and taste are particularly common after severe brain injury or stroke and, if the effects are due to damage to the brain itself, recovery is rare. The effects are also often reported after minor head injuries and recovery in these cases is more common.
Anosmia is a complete loss of the ability to smell. Some people lost their sense of smell as a consequence of a nasal condition or brain injury, while others are anosmic from birth. Research shows anosmia is related to increasing levels of stress and depression, as anosmic people face major challenges in everyday life.
- Anosmia. Loss of sense of smell.
- Ageusia. Loss of sense of taste.
- Hyposmia. Reduced ability to smell.
- Hypogeusia. Reduced ability to taste sweet, sour, bitter, or salty things.
Many people report experiencing heightened senses when they are anxious or stressed. When you feel anxiety too often, your body may not have enough time to recover from stress response changes. This incomplete recovery can cause a state of 'stress response readiness.
Changes in sense of smell are most often caused by: a cold or flu. sinusitis (sinus infection) an allergy, like hay fever.
Why does my body feel weird when I have anxiety?
When you feel anxious you might have racing thoughts but also physical symptoms, such as difficulty breathing, tense muscles, trembling, a rapid heartbeat, and pain and bloating in your abdomen. These are all the results of the stress response when the body releases cortisol as it prepares for “fight or flight.”
Anxiety has also been linked to chemical imbalances in the brain and body. Scientists have found connections between anxiety and some strange physical, cognitive, and emotional sensations that seem to mainly affect the head.
Long-term anxiety and panic attacks can cause your brain to release stress hormones on a regular basis. This can increase the frequency of symptoms, such as headaches, dizziness, and depression.
When will I get my sense of smell and taste back? Patients usually improve slowly with time. About 65 percent of people with COVID-19-induced parosmia or hyposmia regain these senses by about 18 months, while 80-90 percent regain these senses by two years.
In terms of antidepressants, some people experience a reduced sense of smell (hyposmia) which could potentially impair their ability to properly smell a partner. As sense of smell also plays a significant role in a person's sense of taste, both senses can be affected.
This tight, generally reciprocal relationship between olfactory and emotion/mood circuits is reflected in the fact that, as also described above, odors can affect emotions and mood, and emotions and mood can influence odor perception.
- Antibiotics: amoxicillin, azithromycin and ciprofloxacin.
- Blood pressure medication: amlodipine and enalapril.
- Statin drugs (lower cholesterol): atorvastatin, lovastatin and pravastatin.
- Thyroid medication: levothyroxine.
An appetite-stimulating hormone causes people and animals to sniff odors more often and with greater sensitivity, according to a new study in the April 13 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings suggest ghrelin may enhance the ability to find and identify food.
Osmophobia, defined as a fear, aversion, or psychological hypersensitivity to odors, is a very rare isolated phobia. It is common among primary headache patients, with prevalence of migraine.
Research has demonstrated that aromatherapy, specifically lavender, can improve mood and lessen anxiety. A study published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing showed that aromatherapy helped intensive care patients to feel less anxious and more positive immediately.
What signs show that you have anxiety?
- Feeling restless, wound-up, or on-edge.
- Being easily fatigued.
- Having difficulty concentrating.
- Being irritable.
- Having headaches, muscle aches, stomachaches, or unexplained pains.
- Difficulty controlling feelings of worry.
- Having sleep problems, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep.
- a churning feeling in your stomach.
- feeling light-headed or dizzy.
- pins and needles.
- feeling restless or unable to sit still.
- headaches, backache or other aches and pains.
- faster breathing.
- a fast, thumping or irregular heartbeat.
- sweating or hot flushes.
Anxiety can cause many sensations in our bodies as it prepares for danger. These sensations are called the “alarm reaction”. They occur when the body's natural alarm system (“fight-flight-freeze”) is activated. These sensations occur because our bodies are getting ready to help us defend ourselves.
Symptoms of test anxiety
Physical symptoms: Headache, nausea, excessive sweating, shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat, lightheadedness, and feeling faint.
Olfactory training can teach the brain to remake connections back to specific scents.” Give your brain one minute to process that scent. When a minute is up, take gentle whiffs of the next scent for 25 seconds. Let your brain process that scent for a minute.
Follow the 3-3-3 rule.
Look around you and name three things you see. Then, name three sounds you hear. Finally, move three parts of your body — your ankle, fingers, or arm.
