Analysis suggests that the smell of other people’s sweat, which can be considered offensive, actually helps alleviate social phobia. Social phobia is a symptom of experiencing fear or anxiety about certain social situations or performance.
A research team led by Elisa Vigna, a senior researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, presented this analysis at the meeting of the European Psychiatric Association held in Paris, France on the 26th.
The research team recruited 48 women between the ages of 15 and 35 suffering from social phobia and divided them into three groups of 16. The three groups received psychotherapy for 2 days. During this treatment, one group was exposed to fresh air and the other two to the smell of the other person’s sweat. There was a difference in the smell of sweat. The sweat shed while watching a horror film and the sweat shed while watching a comic film were revealed respectively.
As a result, it was found that the treatment effect of the two groups that smelled the sweat was higher than that of the group that breathed fresh air. Anxiety scores in both groups who smelled the sweat dropped by around 39% after treatment, while those who only breathed in the fresh air dropped by 17%.
There was no difference according to the type of sweat. The research team explained, “The emotional state of the person who was sweating did not affect the effect of the treatment,” and “any sweat had the same effect.”
The research team speculated that human sweat may contain chemical signals that enhance the therapeutic effect. The research team said, “We are conducting additional research to analyze approximately 300 compounds isolated from human sweat.” .
