Heaven scent

Breathe in and savour the smells all around you, and commit them to the page-you may gain a new perspective, says Jackee Holder

- Jackee Holder

"Whenever I wear my signature perfume, strangers both male and female feel compelled to follow me off trains and down streets to comment or enquire about the scent I am wearing. I finally looked up what the floral notes of the perfume were, and discovered it includes the fragrances of mandarin, orange blossom, jasmine and vanilla. But what does all that have to do with therapeutic writing?

Well, it turns out that the nose is home to more than 400 olfactory receptors. Smell is ancient, and more evolved in the human body than sight and hearing. Smell takes a direct route to our emotions. When we connect to our past through the portal of scents, smell becomes a powerful time traveller and conduit for writing about childhood memories and experiences of people.