The smell of your partner could help put an end to the struggle to sleep, a new study shows.
The research conducted by the University of British Colombia, showed that participants who were exposed to the scent of their romantic partners over the night, had better sleep experience even though their partners were not present.
Scientists arrived at the findings after examining sleep data of 155 people recruited for the study. Each participant was asked to use two identical-looking t-shirts as pillowcases. Unknown to them, while one of the t-shirts had been initially worn by their romantic partners, the other was either wore by a stranger or was clean.
The participants’ partners had been given the shirts to wear for 24 hours and were told to avoid using perfumes, smoking, exercising and eating foods that could affect their body odour. To preserve the scent, the t-shirts were frozen.
Each morning, apart from completing a survey about how well they slept, the participants were monitored throughout the night with an actigraphy sleep watch. They reported sleeping well on the night they believed they slept with their partner’s scent. Regardless of what participants reported, objective data from the sleep watch showed improved sleep on the night they slept with their partner’s scent.
“One of the most surprising findings is how a romantic partner’s scent can improve sleep quality even outside of our conscious awareness,” said Frances Chen, the study’s Senior author and Associate Professor in the UBC Department of Psychology. “The sleep watch data showed that participants experienced less tossing and turning when exposed to their partners’ scent, even if they were not aware of whose scent they were smelling.”
The researchers said they were recruiting participants for a pilot study to investigate whether the scents of parents can improve their infant’s sleep quality.
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