INCENSE INFORMATION

In America, incense is often associated with hippies and teenagers

There is as many reasons to burn incense as there is types and forms of incense. Modern Western culture doesn’t seem to appreciate the many uses and benefits of incense as much as the ancient cultures of the East. The average modern American will typically associate incense with the hippie culture of the 1960s and 1970s and may have experimented with burning a few sticks of incense as a teenager themselves but more as just a novelty or neat thing to try.

This is quite a shame because the sense of smell is perhaps the most intimate of the five human senses, after the sense of touch. Unlike the other senses, the sense of smell is directly wired to the brain. The right half of your brain controls your left hand, but your right nostril is connected directly to the right side of your brain. The human nose can detect as many as 10,000 different smells, with many of these smells being a very pleasant experience. Therefore, the huge variety of smells and combinations of smells that can be released by incense can be quite an indulgence for the nose.

Not only can incense be used as an indulgence, it can also be used to mask unpleasant smells such as cigarette smoke, cat litter, or stale fish. Unfortunately, most Americans turn to artificial air fresheners that release unnatural chemicals. Incense is a natural deodorant that has been used for thousands of years and, with the proper precautions, is perfectly safe.

With its odor masking abilities and the huge variety of pleasant smells it can release, incense can be used to “redecorate” a room in seconds. It would take you lots of labor and possibly days to paint a room to change how it looks, but you can change how it smells simply by lighting a stick of incense.

Incense is also a wonderful assistant for meditation. It clears the air which helps to clear the mind and covers up any bed smells that could be distracting or bring negative thoughts. The pleasant smells of incense help one achieve inner peace and calmness. Also, smells can trigger old memories as well as help capture new memories. Burning the same type of incense every time one meditates will also condition the mind to go into a meditative state upon detecting that smell.

Aside from these few rather obvious uses of incense, there are many more uses of incense that you probably never knew about. You may also be surprised to learn that there are many health benefits to burning incense. There has been little research into this, but recent studies have confirmed what practitioners have known for thousands of years; that incense keeps you happy and healthy!