4. Our sense of smell is 10,000 times more sensitive than any other of our senses and recognition of smell is immediate. Other senses like touch and taste must travel through the body via neurons and the spinal cord before reaching the brain whereas the olfactory response is immediate, extending directly to the brain. This is the only place where our central nervous system is directly exposed to the environment.
This is what makes smell so powerful. We don’t have time to analyse it. Other senses such as sight and sound are processed by the cognitive centres in the brain. Smell bypasses these and goes straight to the core of our being.