How Smell, Taste & Pheromone-Like Chemicals Control You

This episode explains how we sense chemicals through smell, taste, and pheromones. How things smell and taste and chemicals in the tears, breath, and on the skin of others have a profound effect on how we feel, what we do, and our hormones. I explain the 3 types of responses to smell, the 5 types of tastes, the possible existence of sixth taste sense, and how the act of sniffing can make us learn and focus better. I explain how smell and taste reflect brain health and can assess and even promote brain regeneration. I discuss how eating specific categories of foods makes us crave more of those foods, including how to make sour things taste sweet and develop a heightened sense of smell and taste.  Read the full show notes for this episode at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://athleticgreens.com/huberman LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/hubermanlab Waking Up: https://wakingup.com/huberman Momentous: https://livemomentous.com/huberman Timestamps 00:00:00 Introduction 00:06:02 Sensing Chemicals: Smell, Taste & Chemicals That People Make To Control Each Other 00:09:10 Vision Protocols Recap (Brief) & Correction 00:12:20 Color Vision: Excellent Resource: What is Color? (The Book) 00:13:54 How We Sense Chemicals: Enter Our Nose, Mouth, Eyes, Skin 00:17:28 The Chemicals From Other People’s Tears Lower Testosterone & Libido 00:21:16 SMELL: Sniffing, A Piece of Your Brain In Your Nose, 3 Responses To Smells 00:24:40 Smells & Memory: Why They Are So Powerfully Associated 00:26:40 Pheromone Effects: Spontaneous Miscarriage, Males & Timing Female Puberty 00:28:56 Sniffing Creates Alertness & If Done Properly Can Help You Focus & Learn Better 00:34:00 Protocol 1: Sniffing (Nothing) 10-15X Enhances Your Ability to Smell & Taste 00:35:50 Smelling Salts, Ammonia & Adrenaline  00:38:25 How You Can Become A Human Scent Hound, Detecting Cancer, & Tasting Better 00:43:45 Smell As A Readout Of Brain Health & Longevity; Regaining Lost Sense Of Smell 00:48:30 Dopamine, Sense