Keep calm… and sniff a happy stranger!

IT IS perhaps the last place you’d expect to find a sense of wellbeing, but sniffing the armpit of someone who’s in a good mood can make you happier and more sociable.

Scientists have found that people give off different ‘chemo-signals’ in their sweat depending on how they’re feeling.

European researchers collected underarm sweat from volunteers who were watching the 2007 comedy Mr Bean’s Holiday. Exposing others to the smell during mindfulness therapy improved their mood and helped them overcome social anxiety – a common mental health condition that makes people worry excessively about participating in social situations. The finding may lead to new ways of treating mental health problems.

Individuals who had one therapy session while exposed to body odour had a 39 per cent reduction in anxiety, as opposed to a 17 per cent fall for those who only had therapy.

Sweat from people watching a horror film also helped anxiety patients. Lead scientist

Elisa Vigna, of Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute, said: ‘Our state of mind causes us to produce molecules, or chemo-signals, in sweat which communicate our emotional state and produce corresponding responses. Combining these with therapy seems to produce better results in treating anxiety.’

The results will be presented today at the European Congress of Psychiatry in Paris.