EATING a bar of chocolate may cheer you up, but sniffing it calms you down,
says a British psychologist. Among several food smells tested, only chocolate
had a significant calming effect on the brain鈥攁nd only real chocolate at
that.
Neil Martin, a psychologist at Middlesex University in Enfield, asked 60
volunteers to sit in a 鈥渓ow-odour room鈥�, wearing goggles and headphones to block
out other stimuli, while he wafted smells their way. He used EEG
(electroencephalography) to record their brain waves as they sniffed.
Half the volunteers were treated to the odours of real foods, while the
others made do with synthetic smells. The real foods included chocolate and
coffee, as well as the less aromatic baked beans and rotting pork. But apart
from chocolate, the smells had little effect on the subjects鈥� 鈥渢heta鈥� brain
wave, which is associated with attentiveness. Only chocolate reduced
attentiveness. It caused a dip from the 鈥渘o smell鈥� control reading of 2.6
microvolts in the brain wave down to around 1.8 microvolts, Martin told a
meeting of the British Psychological Society in London this week.
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Chocolate connoisseurs might not be surprised that the scent of synthetic
chocolate did not have the same relaxing effect as the real thing. 鈥淭hey may
have thought it was chocolate,鈥� says Martin, 鈥渂ut not chocolate as they knew
颈迟.鈥�