Rotate your scents by mood. Broadly speaking, sweet, powdery floral scents—think lavender and rose—tend toward relaxation and a calmer mood. Citrus, pine, mint, and other sharp or cooling scents tend to be more energizing, Dalton says, partly through the trigeminal nerve, which registers sensation as well as smell. “That can shift your mood because it’s part of the touch system in your body, but it happens to be in your nose,” she says. “So when you smell something strong enough, it will activate both the smell system but also this other touch system, and that sensation can be arousing.”
Don’t overthink it. A smell walk is meant to be “an embodied, holistic experience,” McLean-MacKenzie says. “It’s about not trying to rationalize it all the time, but actually just responding.” Your associations are your own—what matters is that you notice them.
