don't feel like exercising? it may come down to smell

finding the motivation to jump on the elliptical after a long day can be tough at the best of times, but a new study on mice suggests that smell may help you get moving.exercise is essential for physical and mental health, notes sachiko haga-yamanaka, an assistant professor of molecular, cell and systems biology at the university of california, riverside (ucr) and lead researcher of the study, published in the journal plos one.“some people like to exercise more than others do, but why this is so is not well understood,”she said in a press statement.to answer the question, haga-yamanaka and her team turned to lab mice.scientists studied two groups of mice: mice bred to have high levels of voluntary wheel running (vwr) activity, and regular mice. they gave all the mice running wheels, and found that the high-runner mice developed genetic differences in their sense of smell that made them perceive scents differently than the control group of rodents.haga-yamanaka and her team focused on the mice’s vomeronasal organ, which is the sense of smell organ in amphibians and most mammals. the vomeronasal organ detects pheromones — chemicals released into the environment that trigger a reaction in those who receive them.“we don’t know what particular smells regulate motivation for exercise at this moment yet,” haga-yamanaka tells healthing. this is something the researchers plan to find out in future research.“however, it has been shown that mice change the amount of exercise in the presence of bodily secretions from other mice. so, it is possible that smells from other individuals modulate exercise behaviour in recipient animals.”researchers think that their findings in mice may open new areas of research and be relevant for humans. haga-yamanaka says because people like to exercise in fitness centres and gyms, they receive “many olfactory stimuli from other people” in these settings.“these odours may increase their motivation for being active,” haga-yamanaka says. “if true, then someday we might be able to isolate such odours and use them as ‘air freshener’ in gyms to make people even more motivated to exercise.”the nose, the brain and our genesthe ucr study is not the first to look at possible connections between smell and exercise.previous research from 2014 out of the university of wisconsin found that regular exercise was associated with a reduced risk of developing an olfactory impairment, or a decline in sense of smell, in older adults.researchers wrote that their findings could suggest that exercise may have a “beneficial effect on the areas of the brain involved in olfactory processing similar to the suggested effects of exercise on cognition.”the motivation to exercise and the body’s response to training likely also has a genetic component, research has found, highlighting the fact that humans have variation in things like physical activity levels, cardiovascular and metabolic responses to acute exercise and responsiveness to regular exercise programs.other research suggests you can influence your genes through health and lifestyle choices.but there are also factors outside of genes that affect exercise motivation and ability. income, socioeconomic status, education, gender, age, race and ethnicity have all been reported to “influence physical activity levels, either positively or negatively,” a 2013 study out of the university of alabama at birmingham found.“nevertheless,” the university of alabama researchers wrote, “both animal and human studies have provided evidence that the propensity to be physically active may also be driven at least in part by genes.”laura hensley is a writer with healthing.ca.don’t miss the latest on covid-19, reopening and life. subscribe to healthing’s daily newsletter covid life.