Often spoken about and just as often misunderstood, scent’s connection to memory is nonetheless incontrovertible. This guest post by Jackie Edwards explains some of the details of this unique phenomenon.
The Power of Scent
Exploring the Connection Between Fragrance and Memory
by Jackie Edwards
“Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years. Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth.” – Diane Ackerman
Do certain spices remind you of Christmas, a special bottle of perfume of your childhood, or a bottle of suntan lotion of a treasured vacation on the beach? For many, few things quite conjure up memories of all kinds, quite as quickly or suddenly, as smell. And there’s a science behind this phenomenon. Brain scans have revealed that odors do in fact help us recall memories from years before. It all has to do with the fact that the group of brain areas that process emotions, learning, and memory, also process odors. By harnessing this connection, there is plenty you can do in your daily life to benefit your mood both in the short- and long-term.
How Your Sense of Smell Influences You
Olfactory cues abound in our daily lives, but until very recently, there was little understanding of how they affected our cognitive functioning. Studies have shown that smells influence consumer spending, product quality judgments, language, attention, and general cognitive functioning. It can even impact the extent to which we pay attention to something, and can lead us to behave in a specific way without conscious awareness of its influence on our lives.
Odors and Childhood Memories
One 2017 study published in the scientific journal, Memory, focused specifically on olfactory memories in children. It found that olfactory cues yielded richer autobiographical memories than visual clues. In the study, typical smells encountered in childhood (including cinnamon, VapoRub, lavender, and peanut butter) were used, with VapoRub being the most easily recognizable of all the scents!
Boosting Memory
A 2023 study published by University of California-Irvine researchers showed that when a fragrance is left to waft through the bedrooms of older adults for two hours every night for six months, memories skyrocket. Participants in the study saw an impressive 226% increase in cognitive capacity compared to a control group! Researchers sought to tap into the well-known link between smell and memory and harness its power to strengthen memory and potentially keep dementia at bay in an easy, inexpensive, non-invasive way. In fact, scientists have long known that losing your sense of smell can predict the development of nearly 70 psychiatric and neurological diseases—including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, alcoholism, and schizophrenia. In other studies, researchers found that exposing people with moderate dementia to a myriad of odors twice daily for a period of time enhanced their memory and language skills, reduced symptoms of depression, and sharpened their sense of smell. The University of California-Irvine scientists noted that diffusing essential oils while people are asleep is a handy way of exposing them to these smells, without expecting them to open and close bottles of essential oils various times a day.
Memory and Mood
There is also a strong link between scents, mood, and memory. Research published in Chemical Senses showed that specific scents can impact our state of mind, emotions, and psychological wellbeing. In part, this is because how quickly scents act. Olfactory signals travel very quickly to the limbic system, with odors directly connecting with crucial parts of the brain—including the hippocampus (which is involved in long-term memory formation and memory retrieval) and the amygdala (known as the emotional center of the brain). Both the hippocampus and the amygdala play key roles in emotions and memory.
How Scents Take on Meaning
Research by scientists at Ruhr-University Bochum found that scents are processed not only by the olfactory center, but also by the parts of the brain responsible for emotions. In lab studies, they used electrophysiological stimulation and functional magnetic resonance imaging to study whether neurons store smell stimuli. They found that stimulating the olfactory bulb in the brain led to altered gene activity in the nerve cells of a part of the brain that is responsible for processing emotions. Overall, the study showed that the olfactory system works closely with the brain’s reward centers in learning and memory formation. The findings explain why the sense of smell plays such a key role in memory formation and recall.
What Essential Oils Should You Try?
The University of California-Irvine used a diffuser that rotated seven scents, one for each day of the week: lemon, rosemary, lavender, rose, orange, peppermint, and eucalyptus. If you would like to try this experiment at home, you can easily access these scents, using one each night. When buying your oils, ensure they are therapeutic-grade and contained in a dark bottle. Sunlight can destroy the quality of oils, which is why most serious essential oil companies house their products in dark glass. The researchers stated that using these oils for a couple of hours a night is worth trying, as it can help enhance sleep quality while also having a positive effect on memory They add that people should not expect fast results, as even among participants who tried this method, the half who saw an improvement in their memory did so after about six months.
As found in the studies discussed, scent has a powerful effect on memory. In fact, it can connect people to memories in a much more powerful way than visual stimuli. Research indicates that smells can also help boost memory, though this approach takes at least six months and results are not guaranteed.
About Jackie Edwards
In her former career Jackie was a freelance artist and was lucky enough to work on some great private commissions. To supplement this practice, she decided to pursue a sideline in writing. She now has a pretty OK work/life balance and in any free time she has, she gets taken for walks by her beloved dog, Bamber – and spends time at home with her partner.
Image by William Bout, on Unsplash
