Reminiscent Therapy - The Power of Scents And Smells - HealthSurgeon - Healthy Living and Fitness

Ever wondered how you actually smell? When there are odor molecules in the air, odorants, and we breathe them in, they bind to smell receptors that are in the back of our nose. There is a specific receptor for each type of odorant. The receptor will then send an electrical signal in nerve cells to the brain. The first stop for these electrical signals is the olfactory bulb which is just above the nasal cavity. The olfactory bulb processes the electrical signals and sends them to two places. The piriform cortex and the amygdala. The piriform cortex is in charge of telling you what you know as a smell. The amygdala is your emotional center. If you have a strong emotion with a certain smell the amygdala signals the hippocampus where memories are formed. This is different from how your brain processes other senses, which is why sometimes smells can bring you back to a certain memory.

Smells can sometimes be a better trigger for your memory than sight. It is most likely because of how your brain processes smells. Other senses stop at the thalamus before being passed along in the brain, the thalamus is like a center depot that processes things before passing them along in your brain. Scents can evoke memories of a loved one, special event, or a significant place in your life. A lot of the time when we smell something it transports us back to our childhood, or a time when we were much younger. This might be because of the rapid brain development in early life. These memories may also be in childhood because it is the first time we are experiencing smells for the first time.

Any smell can cause a memory. It could be a certain perfume that reminds you of your grandmother. A smell of a certain food that you used to love as a child. Even the smell of freshly cut grass can transport you back in time to a specific memory. These olfactory cues are more effective at triggering clear and strong emotional memories than visual cues like looking at a picture.

Smells can invoke happy memories, it can also invoke memories of uncomfortable or painful memories as well. Some scents may be triggers for people who have PTSD and can make symptoms worse after a scent is smelled. There are ways to help combat this as a trigger if you suffer from PTSD and have scent triggers. In the same way smells can be linked to someone’s trauma. If you were in a bad car accident and you smelled gasoline, smelling gasoline again may bring you right back to that car accident, sometimes years or decades later.

Your brain can even develop associative memory with smells. If you are studying for a test and you put on peppermint lip gloss while studying. When it is time for your test, putting on the same peppermint lip gloss may cause your brain to remember what you were studying. Don’t use the smell for more than one class or your brain won’t know what it is supposed to help you remember.

Smell induced memories have been shown to have some health benefits. Smell induced memories are more emotional than other memories. Usually in a positive way. So having a smell induced memory may help boost your mood, lower stress, boost self-esteem, improve social interactions, and give you a sense of optimism. After having a smell induced memory it has been shown that it can help decrease markers of inflammation. They also improve memory recall in people with depression. Slower breathing after a smell induced memory has also been shown to occur.

There is a new reminiscent therapy. Which is being used in helping patients with dementia or Alzheimer’s in remembering things from smells. Some facilities have been known to have sentimental smells to help provoke nostalgic memories. In recent studies it has been shown that one of the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s is that a person’s sense of smell decreases or starts to go away. This can also show how closely connected smell and memory are in the brain.

We sometimes rely on our other senses to help us recall memories or memorize certain things. Humans rely more on their sight than any other sense. The brain areas that process smells are more closely connected to those responsible for memories and emotions. Which makes us have a more emotional reaction to certain smells then we would have a picture trying to get us to remember the same thing. How our brain processes smells allows us to have these memories that remind us of a loved one, a special event, or a significant place in our lives.