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SEX, SLEEP AND DREAMING, SMELL March 18, 2020

Trouble Sleeping? The Scent Of Your Search …

Lover Might Help

By Emily Reynolds

Though some research has challenged the common conception that scent is the most evocative of all
the senses, it can be undeniably powerful when you catch a whiff of something that jogs a memory.
We also know that scent plays a part in sexual attraction: people with a keener sense of smell often
find sex more pleasant and may even have more orgasms during sex, and the scent of a partner can
reduce stress and increase feelings of safety.

So new research findings from a team at the University of British Columbia may not come as a
complete surprise. In a paper published in Psychological Science, Marlise Hofer and Frances Chen
suggest that the scent of your lover may not just be comforting but can also help you drift off to
sleep.

The team asked 155 heterosexual participants in long-term romantic relationships to sleep with a t-
shirt for a pillowcase on two separate nights. One of these shirts had previously been worn for 24
hours by their romantic partner, and the other was a control shirt, which had either not been worn,
or worn by a “scent donor” unknown to participants. T-shirt wearers were asked to refrain from
using any scented body products and to avoid activities likely to produce odours such as exercise,
smoking, sex or eating pungent foods.
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Each night, participants’ “sleep efficiency” — i.e. the proportion of time they spent in bed that they Hand Gestures Help
were actually asleep — was measured via a smartwatch Then, in the morning, participants were Students Mentally Organise
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asked what time they went to bed and got up, how they would rate their sleep quality, how well
rested they felt, and whether or not they believed the scent was their partner’s or the control. Psychology's 10 Greatest
Case Studies – Digested
As expected, sleep efficiency was higher on nights spent sleeping with a partner’s shirt rather than
Are religious people really
with a control shirt — and this was still the case when controlling for multiple factors, including less smart, on average, than
participants’ relationship quality and length, attachment style and levels of stress. Efficiency was atheists?

increased by an average of 2.1% — around the same increase induced by melatonin supplements, Some perfectly healthy
often used to improve sleep. And though participants were able to identify their partner’s scent 70% people can't remember their
own lives
of the time, the results also suggested that sleep efficiency improved whether or not participants
were aware that the t-shirt was their partner’s. 10 of The Most Widely
Believed Myths in
Psychology
When it came to sleep quality, however, participants only reported having higher quality sleep when
they believed they were spending the night with their partner’s shirt, whether or not they were
actually exposed to their smell.
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Individual differences, the team notes, are likely to moderate these effects, something the study did
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not explore in depth. Women, for example, were more likely to see an increase in sleep efficiency WordPress in August 2016
than men, and factors like relationship quality are likely to have a variety of impacts on both quality
and efficiency of sleep.

But for anyone who’s ever struggled to drift off when alone, the results are still cheering. Melatonin
is all well and good — but a worn t-shirt could be the real secret to getting a good night’s sleep.

– The Scent of a Good Night’s Sleep: Olfactory Cues of a Romantic Partner Improve Sleep Efficiency

Emily Reynolds (@rey_z) is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

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