Dr Norman Swan

speaker

26,995 appearances 288 recordings 3 series first heard Apr 2006 last heard 15 Sep

Dr Norman Swan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 10 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 3.

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What's That Rash? · What has your nose got to do with sleep? · 18 Aug 2026 podcast

Right.

So we're not and sadly, sadly, we're not talking about that.

So I

Delore to smoke.

No, that's that's that's the subject of another podcast altogether and we're not gonna talk about it.

Yeah, sleep adjacent.

I mean, originally there were therapeutic properties attached to lavender.

The English botanist John Gerard in the seventeenth century described various ways that lavender could be used.

Uh Abbas Hildegard in the twelfth century mentions that lavender shouldn't be used as a food, but as a strong scent that might help with lice and evil spirits.

So lavender has been around a while, in a sense, as aroma therapy.

But you know, even in the uh a hundred years ago in the twentieth century, it was still not about sleep, the use of lavender, but it's become synonymous with sleep in recent years.

So it's not as if there's no evidence.

There has been some evidence that certain aromas such as lavender, chamomile, jasmine, have been associated with improved sleep quality, reduced anxiety.

Why should we be surprised at that?

Because when you sniff something in and it interacts with the olfactory epithelium, the olfactory lining at the top of your nose, that's brain adjacent.

And the connections you to understand why aromatherapy is not necessarily nutty, is that this part of your brain seems to have a direct line to your amygdala.

And your amygdala is that part of your brain which processes emotion associated with memories.

And so it is conceivable, perfectly conceivable physiologically, that something you sniff.

has a direct effect on the brain.

And certainly you can imag we've all experienced odors that make us feel unwell or make us feel alert or more stressed.

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