We Can Communicate by Smell – often without knowing it

We Can Communicate by Smell – often without knowing it

Countless studies have shown that recall can be enhanced if learning was done in the presence of an odor and that same odor is presented at the time of recall. 

Work by Walter Freeman (Freeman, 1991) has shown that smell memory is context-dependent and can be modified in the light of new experience, implying that our olfactory sense is continuously dynamic, updating as we live and experience new things. We can, in fact, work with our sense of smell to shift moods and feelings deliberately. Odour memory falls off less rapidly than other sensory memory and it lasts a long time, providing a strong foundation within which we can embed our increased perceptive ability.

Smell and Memory

We have all experienced the powerful effects of smell and memory in combination. Smells retain an uncanny power to move us. A certain food smell, cigar smoke or a long-forgotten scent can instantly conjure up scenes and emotions from the past.

In 'The Remembrance of Things Past', French novelist Marcel Proust described what happened to him after drinking a spoonful of tea in which he had soaked a piece of madeleine, a type of cake:

"No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me," he wrote. "An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses...with no suggestion of its origin...

"Suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was of a little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings...my Aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea....Immediately the old gray house on the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set...and the entire town, with its people and houses, gardens, church, and surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being from my cup of tea."

Just seeing the madeleine had not brought back these memories, Proust noted. He needed to taste and smell it. "When nothing else subsists from the past," he wrote, "after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered...the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls...bearing resiliently, on tiny and almost impalpable drops of their essence, the immense edifice of memory."

Proust referred to both taste and smell—and rightly so because most of the flavor of food comes from its aroma, which wafts up the nostrils to cells in the nose and also reaches these cells through a passageway in the back of the mouth.

Smell is the most underrated

Although all of the senses help us to create the full experience of life, smell is often the most underrated and underused sense. Some estimates suggest we can distinguish around 10,000 different smells. How we smell, why we smell and the impact of smell on our everyday life is poorly understood by the scientific community as yet but in Ayurveda, we believe that our sense of smell can be trained and enhanced through attention and focused effort.

Unconscious smell memories create powerful links to emotions and to critical elements of our underlying senses of who we are, and taste and smell are powerfully linked. Without smell, taste is lessened considerably.

Changing moods

We can work with this sense to shift and change moods and feelings deliberately. Even at a mundane level, it is a recognised fact that a sale is more likely if the smell of freshly baked bread permeates a house, such is the power of that “homely” signal.

Childhood memories are triggered instantly by certain smells, with all the emotions they contain. We underestimate the importance of smell to our well-being and although mainstream science is only just recognising that smell can influence mood, memory, emotions, mate choice, the immune system and the endocrine system (hormones), within Ayurveda the influence of smell is intrinsic to the development of the individual. We know that we can communicate by smell – often without knowing it - and that the sense of smell is at the mind-body interface.