Spring back to life!

I'm going for some Smell Training with Chris Kelly, smelltraining.co.uk, this weekend.  You may well be wondering what this is so I'm going to try and explain it to you!

The problem is it's not that easy, even the people who teach it aren't quite sure how it works, but basically, researchers have found that 'similar areas of the brain are stimulated when both detecting and imagining particular scents'. This being the case, if a person can imagine a certain smell from their memory, for example a rose, when they attempt to smell it it's possible that eventually by imagining the smell and repeatedly trying to smell it, they will start smelling it properly. In the case of Smell Training, strongly scented essential oils are used, the recommended ones being rose, eucalyptus, lemon, and clove. A patient will smell them daily for several months in the hope of retraining the brain to remember how they smell and eventually be able to smell them again. It's not guaranteed of course but 'in clinical studies, evidence suggests that patients who did this fared better in identification and discrimination of smells that those who didn't'.  So for me it's worth a try!

I have sourced this information from the 'Fifth Sense' website, which is a charity dedicated to supporting Anosmics and researching it also. It's a brilliant resource for Anosmics and those who want to learn more about it. If you want to have a look, the website address is fifthsense.org.uk

I've got to be honest when I say, I'm more than a little nervous about going for my training.  I have every faith in the lady who is teaching me, she is Anosmic herself and through self training has regained the majority of her sense of smell back.  But what if it doesn't work on me, what if I come back and nothings changed? How will I feel?

The fact is I suppose I wont know until I've tried, and I'd end up kicking myself if I gave up now.  I have to carry on being the strong me, like I've been rattling on about in my previous posts!

So I'm going to go now and psyche myself up.....sorry for the short post but we are leaving at 7am tomorrow morning as its the other end of England!

Now I need my beauty sleep, if I get much sleep that is, this is a big day for me tomorrow.
Night, night I'll let you know how it goes.  Oh heck!