This idea was inspired by the linked depression aromatherapy. It seems like aromatherapy schemes often revolve around uplifting type thoughts: "relieve sadness", "soothe anxiety", "your house smells clean" etc with the occasional cameo by "enhance sexuality".
Getting soothed and unanxious sometimes is not productive. I wonder if it would be possible to use aromatherapy to get things done. Smell mixes might be labeled: Test day, Quarterback, Fix the roof, Legal battle etc. These fragrant mixes would not exactly be smelling salts but might count the smelling salt among their ancestors.-- bungston, Mar 22 2010 Depression aromatherapy Scratch-n-sniff_20anti-depressants [bungston, Mar 22 2010] I've sort of baked this.-- nineteenthly, May 13 2010 Do tell.-- bungston, May 13 2010 I think the smell of coffee might work this way for some people, though probably only by conditioned reflex.-- mouseposture, May 13 2010 How about "gunpowder in the morning"?-- swimswim, May 14 2010 [swimswim] Don't you mean napalm?-- mouseposture, May 14 2010 That's for lazy Sunday afternoons by the pool.-- swimswim, May 14 2010 To paraphrase Scott Adams, i think it's important that prescriptions hurt the patient.
Seriously though, what i do with essential oils is completely ignore the idea that they're supposed to be nice. As far as i'm concerned, whereas essential oils are useful for things like stimulating local circulation or killing athlete's foot fungi, there's no point in them being pleasant to use because that's airy-fairy waffly hippy bullshit. So i'm entirely functional and utilitarian in my approach. However, i do also think that the likes of associations with odours, such as "wake up and smell the coffee" are useful psychosomatically. This means that one should try to sell remedies which are completely imaginary.-- nineteenthly, May 14 2010 It's an interesting point, how many of the illnesses that we experience during our lives are "real" and how many are psychosomatic?
If the psychosomatic ones form a significant proportion of the whole - then from a perception angle alone, they deserve the application of some nice, safe form of medicine (one where the active ingredients are, for example, diluted to a point where they are unlikely to do anyone any harm)
At least this way, the perception of illness can be treated with the perception of medicine, and wellness can unsue.
The only problem then remaining is reliably telling the difference between psychosomatic and physiological illness.-- zen_tom, May 14 2010 Exactly. However, that doesn't mean structural pathology can't be reversed psychosomatically. "I'm thinking of having my whole body surgically removed".-- nineteenthly, May 14 2010 Fine, can I have it when you're done with it?-- mouseposture, May 14 2010 random, halfbakery