Toni Dockter: Filosophy with a Fuchsia Flair

[Note: This is Part 3 of the Smell Blogs]

When you starve to death, a whole slew of hideous things happen to the body. Luckily for you, this blog isn’t about that. It’s about the effect of starvation on the senses.

And finally! Here is what I learned from Some Mother’s Son. (See yesterday’s blog about Bobby Sands, the IRA martyr who starved himself to death in 1981.) As you starve—among many other bodily breakdowns—you first lose the sense of taste. Then you lose your sight. Then you lose your hearing. The sense of smell is different. First, it intensifies. At the every end, it does diminish, but it is not lost. You die before that happens.

I did not rewatch the movie to confirm my memory from over a decade ago because there is no DVD version. But I did try to corroborate this tidbit of information about starving to death and the senses. I researched the topic on line, which is not for the faint of heart. You don’t want to know what horrible thing happens, like at Day 42 in the starvation process.

You do? All right, if you’re the ghoulish type, it’s called nystagmus, which is a “a loss of muscular control due to severe vitamin deficiency…. the eyes begin to gyrate wildly and uncontrollably, first horizontally and then vertically…accompanied by spells of constant vomiting and dizziness.” It’s terrifying. It lasts for days.*

The preservation of the sense of smell to me says it is the most important sense we have. It’s the most necessary one for survival. I find that interesting. (And boy did it take me long enough to get to that point!)

Consequently, the answer to the title question is: VERY important. As mentioned in the original Smell Blog (1/15/10), the sense of smell is linked to associative learning, emotions, and memory. The nose (i.e. the olfactory bulb in the brain) has the ability to distinguish 10,000 different scents. Amazing the nose knows so much.

So what can we do with this piece of information? We can use the sense of smell to our advantage. This is where the practice of Aromatherapy is helpful.

Do not turn your noses up at this suggestion! Aromatherapy has healthy benefits. It has been used by different cultures for thousands of years. Some of the benefits of smelling certain scents (in aromatherapy they’re call essential oils) are:

- Calms the nerves

- Energizes

- Boosts creativity

- Improves sleep

- Aids digestion

There are plenty more. That’s why the Smell Blogs will continue with Part 4 – Why you should give aromatherapy a sniff.

The starvation topic will continue with the blog: Why I Could Never Starve Myself.

Stay tuned.

*Excerpted from Time Magazine, an article from August 1981 about the IRA prisoners who engaged in the hunger strike in the Maze, the Northern Ireland prison. Terribly sad story. Here’s the link. Bobby Sands is mentioned in it.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,949330,00.html

Also, there is a new movie about Bobby Sands and the hunger strikes in the Maze Prison being released on DVD this month. It’s called Hunger, written and directed by British artist, Steve McQueen (no relation to the American actor). I won’t be watching it as it’s an extremely graphic portrayal of this hellish story. I won’t even watch the trailer. But I’m glad the movie was made.