"As a typhoon approaches, even the air in my room somehow feels heavy."
"I've just kept the windows closed, but the inside of my home feels gray and stagnant."

If this sounds familiar, it may not be entirely in your head. The human nose is actually so sensitive to a compound called geosmin, the source of rain's characteristic smell, that its sensitivity is said to rival or exceed a shark's ability to detect the scent of blood. The sense that even your room's air feels heavy as a typhoon approaches may involve not just pressure changes, but this mechanism of smell too.

Why the Air in Your Room Feels Heavy as a Typhoon Approaches

The distinctive smell that rises from soil and asphalt right before or right after rain has a name: petrichor. It was named in a 1964 paper published in the journal Nature by researchers Isabel Bear and Richard Thomas of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), a coined term combining the ancient Greek word for stone (petra) and ichor, the word for the blood of the gods.

One of the main compounds behind this smell is geosmin, produced by soil microbes called actinomycetes. The human nose is remarkably sensitive to geosmin, said to detect it at concentrations far lower than what's needed for typical scent compounds. In 2024, a team at Germany's Leibniz Institute announced they had identified, for the first time in humans, the olfactory receptor that detects geosmin, called OR11A1. There's no clear answer yet for why humans are so sensitive to the smell of rain, but one idea is that it may be a holdover from a time when quickly sensing distant rain or a water source was useful for survival.

The "heaviness in the room's air" felt as a typhoon approaches is thought to involve not just this kind of unconscious olfactory response, but the change in air pressure itself too. We have another article that covers, in more detail, the mechanism by which pressure changes place a load on the autonomic nervous system, centered on the inner ear's pressure sensor — worth reading too if you're concerned about how it affects your body. Here, we'll focus mainly on what you can do from the "space" side, your home itself, rather than the body.

The Idea of "Warding Off Negative Energy at the Change of Season," Seen in Setsubun

Most people picture the February bean-throwing when they hear "setsubun." But setsubun literally means "a day dividing the seasons," and is said to have originally been an event held 4 times a year, on the day before each of risshun, rikka, risshu, and ritto (the start of spring, summer, autumn, and winter). Under the old lunar calendar, risshun was considered the start of the year, so the February setsubun that fell the day before it alone came to be treated as a special day equivalent to New Year's Eve, and it's said to be why that particular occasion has remained so prominent to this day.

In other words, the idea of throwing beans while saying "demons out, fortune in" to ward off negative energy wasn't originally limited to February — it was wisdom aimed at the change of season itself. The idea of deliberately taking a moment to tend to your space during a period of shifting, unstable pressure and air quality, like this stretch of repeated typhoons, overlaps with this ancient Japanese idea of warding off negative energy at the turning of a season.

Caring for Your Space During Typhoons and Unstable Pressure

1. Open Windows Briefly "Before" the Typhoon Arrives

As a typhoon approaches, windows tend to stay closed for longer stretches, making indoor air more prone to stagnation. Opening windows in 2 directions for even just a few dozen minutes before the wind and rain intensify, to refresh the air, makes it easier to avoid feeling that heaviness even during the long stretch of staying closed up afterward.

2. Use Dehumidifying and Ventilation Fans to Release Trapped Humidity

Humidity also tends to rise during periods of low pressure, contributing to mold and odors in the room. When you can't open windows, use a ventilation fan or dehumidifier to keep humidity from building up indoors.

3. Deliberately Create Time Away From Your Phone or Computer Screen

During periods of unstable pressure, your health can waver too, and it's easy to end up spending your time indoors continuously looking at your phone or computer. On days you're staying in because of a typhoon especially, deliberately creating time away from screens helps reduce the load from your digital environment.

4. Use Scent to Mark a Transition

Just as the setsubun bean-throwing marked a turning point at the change of season, the act of burning a scent once a typhoon has passed can itself carry the sense of a turning point: "the air has been refreshed now."

Reset With Scent

During periods of unstable pressure and humidity, No.10 Clean Energy, made for resetting a space itself, and No.18 Field Reset, for when you want to restore a sense of calm to your home, settle in naturally. If the load from phone or computer work is on your mind, also try No.17 Deep Reset. If you're curious, take a look at the Reset Series to check out the character of each scent.

Summary

• The heavy feeling in a room's air as a typhoon approaches may involve not just pressure changes, but the human nose's sensitivity to petrichor, the smell of rain
• The olfactory receptor that detects geosmin was only identified in 2024, and this remains a field still being worked out
• Setsubun was originally an event held 4 times a year, warding off negative energy at each change of season
• Around a typhoon, being mindful of ventilation, dehumidifying, and distance from digital devices, along with a scent habit that marks the return of fresh air, is an approach that's easy to build

Worth reading too: Why the Air in Your Room Feels Heavy | Causes and a Scent-Based Self-Care Habit and Weather-Related Illness and Low-Pressure Discomfort Self-Check | The Inner Ear's Pressure Sensor and How to Reset, each covering the relationship between pressure, your space, and your health from a different angle.

References: Chemistry and olfactory receptor research on the smell of rain, and general knowledge of Japanese seasonal events and the 24 solar terms.