References: Wellness trends

The key studies and reviews behind these pathways – organised by page, so you can see exactly what each claim on the site is based on.

Gattefossé, R.M. (1937). Aromathérapie: Les Huiles Essentielles, Hormones Végétales. Girardot. Gattefossé’s own account of coining the term “aromatherapy” after the lab accident this page describes.
Herz, R.S. & Engen, T. (1996). “Odor memory: Review and analysis.” Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 3(3), 300–313. Research from this page’s own recommended author, behind its claim that scent has a genuine, well-documented link to mood and memory through direct neural pathways.
Kaptchuk, T.J., Friedlander, E., Kelley, J.M., et al. (2010). “Placebos without deception: a randomized controlled trial in irritable bowel syndrome.” PLOS ONE, 5(12), e15591. The evidence behind this page’s account of the placebo response as one of the best-established effects in medicine, relevant to why the ritual itself appears to be the active ingredient here.

McMains, S. & Kastner, S. (2011). “Interactions of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Mechanisms in Human Visual Cortex.” Journal of Neuroscience, 31(2), 587–597. The evidence behind this page’s claim that visual clutter competes for attention in ways that measurably tax cognitive resources.
Roster, C.A., Ferrari, J.R. & Jurkat, M.P. (2016). “The dark side of home: Assessing possession ‘clutter’ on subjective well-being.” Journal of Environmental Psychology, 46, 32–41. Direct evidence behind this page’s claim that a cluttered space is a source of low-grade mental effort, linking possession clutter to measurably lower subjective wellbeing.

Elhai, J.D., Dvorak, R.D., Levine, J.C. & Hall, B.J. (2017). “Problematic smartphone use: A conceptual overview and systematic review of relations with anxiety and depression psychopathology.” Journal of Affective Disorders, 207, 251–259. The evidence behind this page’s claim that frequent phone-checking is linked to elevated background anxiety, worse sleep and fragmented attention.
Radtke, T., Apel, T., Schenkel, K., Keller, J. & von Lindern, E. (2022). “Digital detox: An effective solution in the smartphone era? A systematic literature review.” Mobile Media & Communication, 10(2), 190–215. The source behind this page’s caveat that anecdotal reports of relief from a digital detox are strong and consistent, but the harder clinical evidence remains comparatively modest.