A Sense of Stress? The Nose Knows
Believe it or not, women have twice as many neurons related to smell as men do. That means they have a stronger sense of smell. Researchers at University of British Columbia studied how smelling their partner’s previously-worn shirt impacted cortisol levels of women in stressful situations. They found that a partner’s scent lowered stress levels as measured by cortisol and self-report. What’s the real-world benefit to learning this? To keep stress in check, women who travel for work may want to bring along something their partner has recently worn.