Why Sense of Smells can trigger Strong Memories

Do you know the feeling when you smell a perfume which you wore years ago or you use a shampoo which your mother used to wash your hair with when you were little and this smell brings back old memories ? 

I realized that a few weeks ago I smelt something which I smelt before…. 

I had a trip to L.A. where I bought a nice curl shampoo smelling like hibiscus and coconut. When I opened the bottle at home I saw the bathroom from California around me and thought about all the nice things that happened to me at that time. I also remember that I bought a nice perfume in Dubai while I was waiting for my connecting flight to Thailand. I wore it every night when we went out for dinner and I have so many great memories from that time. These two smells represent two of my best moments I had in my life…. 

Today I visited one of my best friends @mrs.steemit . I told her that I want to right about this topic tonight and a few moments later she made her signature hot tea…  While she put fresh basil into the drink, she smelt on the plant and said „Oh this smell always reminds me of Spain“… A few seconds later she said „This is exactly what you want to write about! It brought my memories back!“ 

And yes it´s true. 

The sense of smell can bring back memories even if you forgot about them! 

It´s known as „odor-evoked autobiographical memory“ or the „Proust phenomenon“ named after the french writer Marcel Proust. The storyteller of his famous novel In Search Of Lost Time dipped a Madeleine cookie into a cup of tea and this transported him back into the time of his childhood.  

Research shows that odors are especially effective as reminders of past experience, much more than cues from other senses, such as sounds or sights. This might has to do with how your brain processes odors and memories.  

Smells get routed through your olfactory bulb, which the smell-analyzing region in your brain. It’s closely connected to your amygdala and hippocampus, brain regions that handle memory and emotion.  

The close connection may explain why a scent might get tied to vivid memories in your brain, and then come flooding back when you’re exposed to that particular odor trigger. As noted by Psychology Today.
 

“Interestingly, visual, auditory (sound), and tactile (touch) information do not pass through these brain areas. This may be why olfaction, more than any other sense, is so successful at triggering emotions and memories.” 

 By Dr. Mercola  

I believe that the smell instinct is one of the most important instincts of humans and animals. It brings not only great memories back, it also protects you from dangerous situations, it tells you what you can eat, it can change your mood into happy or sad and it has many other benefits. 

The psychological impact of smell loss
 

The sense of smell clearly plays an important part in our psychological make-up which I mentioned above. Its one of the five ways how we connect with the world, the people, the nature around us. Its absence can have a profound impact. Anosmia suffers often talk of feeling isolated and cut-off from the world around them. Its so hard to imagine not smelling anything anymore. Not being able to smell your partner, blossomed flowers, fresh baked bred, roasted coffee beans, fresh laundry and everything we do not appreciate in our daily lives anymore. Smell loss can effect close personal relationships and can lead to depressions as well. A very important issue is that smell loss is invisible. Unless a patient tells you about it, you are never able to see who is suffering from Anosmia which is the reason why it never received much attention. 

So, our fifth sense is more important as you may think! I want you to wake up tomorrow and appreciate everything you are able to smell. If you have someone who cooks for you, try to guess which dish will come to the table. Or take a walk outside and smell different plants in the nature. 

Thank you for reading 

Stay focused

Love, Soldier