Did My Nursing Career Train Me To Not Smell?

It was with some interest that I read on the BBC website this morning about a ‘smell’ study.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15770361

The sense of smell can be improved through training, a study on rats suggests.

The study, published in Nature Neuroscience, also suggests if we do not use our sense of smell, we begin to lose it.

The New York University Langone Medical Center team says their work also raises hopes of reversing loss of smell caused by ageing or disease.

All very interesting but it got me thinking about my own smelling issue.  I can smell some things.  The good thing is that they are the more pleasant smells in life – food cooking, perfume and flowers for example.  Whereas the more unmentionable human smell emitting activities pass my nostrils by.  How good is that?  Well I can’t smell gas either so perhaps it is not all good news.

However – here is the thing – when I was young and just setting out on a career in nursing – my olfactory system was firing on all cylinders and I was as prone as anyone else to the stenches and foul odours that accompany a lot of the work.  You get the picture I am sure!  But by the time I was a trained nurse I had more or less blanked out (or trained away) my mind to accept the foul smells.  Very useful for that career.

Is that another example of the power of the mind or did something physical happen.

Perhaps someone can enlighten me.