Not easy being green but less anxiety inducing?

Non-significant trend towards less anxiety for green-tinted glasses, fibromyalgia chronic pain study.

Why would wearing green-tinted glasses for 4 hours per day reduce anxiety? See: For Chronic Pain Patients, Consider Green-Tinted Glasses? — Mixed results with green light therapy for fibromyalgia (MedPageToday)

Maybe there is something to phototherapy - I don’t know. Green light phototherapy shows benefits for migraine sufferers who tend to be light sensitive. (lighttherapy.org) Hmmmm. (Retinoid Toxicity → light sensitivity, photophobia, histamine excess, and migraines). I do prefer the color green.

New site graphic, coincidentally:

and site icon:

I do know that nature heals or can help. There is a lot of research showing benefits of nature in images or presence of office plants, or is the route to work scenic or urban? Is the walk in a nature setting or urban? Stress and anger seem to be reduced with more nature of whatever type, and particularly on the route to work - lakefront/water/river scenery too. The air quality may be better and providing beneficial negative ions and fragrant and healing terpenes from trees and flowers in addition to being more relaxing visually. See pages: 10. Food helps too/Art - food for the eyes, (effectivecare.info) and DHA & Forest Bathing, jenniferdepew.com.

Spring flower’s fragrance helps us make a better tan - remember long term readers? I don’t remember which post. Eating carrots helps too though. It is in a How Are You Feeling? podcast, an episode in the Love & Forgiveness series, excerpt from Love Flavor and Fragrance (audio):

It turns out that the scent of violets is also a big topic, so buckle up for safety, we are going for a ride in the country to smell the violets.

The aromatic chemical involved in the scent of violets is β-ionone. It is chemically similar to terpenes but is found with carotenoids - the vitamin A group. Beta-ionone is used in the synthesis of vitamin A, vitamin E and vitamin K, (8) and in perfumes. (9) Greater concentrations of the chemical smell like cedar wood and more dilute amounts have the floral scent characteristic of violets. (10) It is so potent of a fragrance that only a very dilute amount is typically present in a flower or fruits like blackberries, peaches, and apricots. (8)

Violets are edible. The purple ones have more flavor, peppery, than the white.

Genetically some people do not detect the floral scent at all however and instead may describe the odor as pungent, (11), possibly more like the strong aroma of cedar wood. The scent of violets - forgiveness possibly, and it turns out, another reminder that while people have many similarities, we also have many differences. That bouquet of violets or violet scented perfume might not smell as good to the person you are giving it to as it does to you, if they don’t have the genes to sense the violet fragrance and you do. It may smell more like cedar wood to them, which is fragrant, but very strong. (11)

Getting angry over our differences separates us from the benefits of teamwork with a more diverse group who could bring a wider range of ideas and skills and genetic abilities to the team.

Whether the beta-ionone smells more like violet or more like cedar wood to you, either way, it may be helping prevent breast cancer (12) or other inflammatory conditions. (13) The chemical can be made within our bodies from other carotenoids and lycopene is a carotenoid, so tomatoes - historically known as a symbol of love (14) and which are a good source of lycopene - might also be a potential source of beta-ionone, in addition to the blackberries, peaches and apricots, or the edible violets served in a salad or on a dessert. (15) Carrots are also a good source, being a good source of carotenoids, beta-carotene, a form of vitamin A.

“Lycopene is converted into beta-carotene by the action of lycopene beta-cyclase (b-Lcy), an enzyme introducing beta-ionone rings at both ends of the molecule (Cunningham et al., 1994; Hugueney et al., 1995).” (Rosati 2000) (16)

Odd trivia - we have the odor receptor for beta-ionone in the retina of our eyes and it stimulates growth of the retinal pigment epithelial cells. (17) Why would we have an odor receptor outside of our nose? It is a chemical receptor, for a chemical that happens to be fragrant. We have a variety of receptors throughout our body for taste, odor, light. It’s helping inform about the environment probably within that cellular small zone. (25) 

Lycopene is a normal part of the retinal pigment epithelial cells (18), and it has been found to help prevent against a form of retinal deterioration that is common during aging. So, it is beneficial for the retinal membrane and growth of the cells. Lycopene levels were also found to be lower on average in the blood of patients with diabetic retinopathy, another disease of the retina that can cause blindness, compared to people without the eye condition. (19). 

Beta-ionone is more likely to be found with beta-carotene, the main carotenoid commonly found in carrots, and which is also found in the inner germ of a corn kernel along with β-cryptoxanthin, and zeaxanthin (20) which also have been found beneficial for protecting vision. They are other carotenoids. It is a group of antioxidants that help reduce inflammation and increase beneficial immune function of the body and antioxidant production within our cells. We can make our own antioxidants. We would have to eat like 300 oranges a day to get the vitamin C equivalent antioxidant power of what our normal metabolic production is capable of, when we are healthy and nourished.

~Comment: Since we don’t eat 300 oranges a day (for normal health, illness would require more) - we do need Nrf2 promoting foods in our diet and adequate protein foods to provide the glutathione amino acid precursors - cysteine, glycine and glutamic acid. (Noctor, et al, 2011/Glutathione) For people without Retinoid Toxicity - carotenoids are on the Nrf2 promoting list.

Wear green-tinted glasses and eat more carrots - unless sun sensitive and tend toward migraines, then consider trying a vitamin A elimination diet instead. It may be more complex. I wore dark glasses for a year and a half on the Marshall Protocol - to reduce vitamin D while taking Benicar/olmisartan three times a day and low dose antibiotics every other day - and it got rid of my severe migraine problem. Low level infection intracellularly may be involved in chronic inflammatory conditions.

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Excerpt continued:

Lutein is a carotenoid that has been found to increase the anti-inflammatory Nrf2 pathway within retinal pigment epithelial cells. (26) The Nrf2 pathway also can stimulate or overstimulate cell proliferation, cell growth, and can be beneficial to health, or occasionally a problem in some types of tumor cells. (27)

More odd trivia - the beta ionone odor receptors are also in our skin, in the melanocytes which make the pigment of skin color and the darker tones from a sun-tan. More needs to be learned about the function of the beta-ionone odor receptors within the light sensitive skin cells. (21) There seems to be a role for them in stimulating melanin production, the dark pigment of skin color, and also nerve growth and it may be protective against the overgrowth of skin cancer cells. So use of beta-ionone in medications against skin cancer, or as a preventative in suntan lotions may be a future role for the fragrant chemical. (22) 

Whether violet is the scent of forgiveness is still unknown however we have learned that either violet or cedarwood may be the scent of your next bottle of tanning lotion, due to the tan promoting and skin cancer preventing potential of beta-ionone. Whether it would smell like violet or cedar wood would depend on your genetics.

Forgiveness is also anti-inflammatory so it may be true that forgiveness is for ourselves. Now we also know not to get in an argument over whether the scent of something is a delicate floral violet or a pungent woody cedar aroma - it may seem like either, depending on the genetics of the people who are smelling the fragrance of beta-ionone. 

Love the skin you’re in, and treat it and your nose with a bottle of lotion or soap made with a beta-ionone source such as the essential oil of violet, rose, or carrot - or boronia oil, (23), an essential oil recommended on an essential oil website, which I am not affiliated with, to be helpful for the broken hearted, and to help calm and clear the mind of obsessive thoughts (24) - so maybe violet is the scent of forgiveness - letting go of something. 

• List of titles in my How Are You Feeling? podcast series. The excerpt is from an episode in the Love & Forgiveness series - Love Flavor and Fragrance (audio).

• Terpenes provide aroma and flavor to foods or the air of a forest or a garden. (page Phytonutrients, jenniferdepew.com)

Disclaimer: Opinions are my own and the information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes. 

Reference List

(Noctor, et al, 2011) Noctor G, Queval G, Mhamdi A, Chaouch S, Foyer CH. Glutathione. Arabidopsis Book. 2011;9:e0142. doi: 10.1199/tab.0142. Epub 2011 Feb 18. PMID: 22303267; PMCID: PMC3267239. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3267239/