"Odor, oftener than any other sense impression, delivers a memory to consciousness little impaired by lapse of time, stripped of irrelevancies of the moment or of the intervening years, apparently alive and all but convincing."
--from The Sense of Smell by Roy Bedicheck

Smells and Memories

Get a Whiff of This

Our aim is to provide you with a wider selection of essential oils.

HOW ESSENTIAL OILS WORK
Olfactory System

Our sense of smell is our most enduring and powerful of all our senses. It is linked with emotions, which are stored in our limbic brain. Our memory of scent is longer lasting and more accurate than our sight or reasoning memory. Scent triggers our emotions affecting the autonomic system (controls nerves leading to your body's glands and organs). Stress level, heart rate, respiratory and digestive systems are all influenced by our emotional state. Essential Oils fragrant molecules travel to the brain through the breathing process - having the ability to affect the brain immediately through the olfactory system. This is the only place on the body where the central nervous system is directly exposed to the environment.

Our other nerves or senses must travel through our sensory path of neurons and spinal cord before reaching the brain. The oldfactory bulb is lined on both sides with a special tissue consisting of approximately ten million nerve cells covered with a thin layer of mucous. These nerve cells are replaced every twenty eight days. Each nerve cell has six to eight tiny hairs acting as receptors by electrical impulse to the oldfactory membrane (actual brain cells) (All oils are 10ml unless otherwise stated) each 10ml bottle has between 250-300 drops. We also have available larger size bottles 50ml- 100ml-250ml-500ml and 1 liter, let us know what sizes you are looking for and we can get you a ___

The sense of smell is the least understood and perhaps the least appreciated of all our senses, and may well become a key to unlocking many of the body's and the brain's most hidden mysteries.

Researchers have found that even if we soon forget things we see or hear, we remember odors for a lifetime. We all have a unique reaction to particular smells because we've all had a personal history of exposure to aromas with associated emotional connections. Choosing aromas is very much a matter of personal taste. No single perfume will have the same appeal to everyone.

Smell is the most sensitive of our senses, and perhaps the most primitive. We can distinguish literally thousands of odors and fragrances, and somehow remember them for the rest of our lives. Studies have shown that infants can identify their mothers on the basis of smell, and that mothers also can pick out their babies on smell alone (within 24 hours of the baby being born). It requires only four scent-bearing molecules for us to recognize a particular smell, yet scientists still do not know exactly how odors are discerned or remembered.

Much, if not all, of our experience is associated with smell, even when we are unconscious of those smells in our environment. Consequently, memories and their related emotions can be called forth instantly by the right odor or fragrance. We can be consumed by our immediate problems while walking to work one day when suddenly, after passing a bakery or candy store, we are enveloped in childhood memories by the smell of bread baking in the oven, or that of candy wafting innocently before our noses.

The reason that smell evokes such powerful memories and emotions is that our olfactory sense is linked directly with the brain's limbic system, one of the most primitive parts of the central nervous system. The limbic system plays a central role in our ability to experience emotion and retain those experiences. It is literally a storehouse of memories, emotions, and their related odor, any set of which can be released by the right fragrance.

Odorants entering the nose penetrate and dissolve into the mucus, where they encounter the cilia-tipped olfactory neurons located in the odorant, triggering electrical nerve transmission to the olfactory bulb. The nerve signal entering the bulb then travels along the olfactory tract into the brain.

Just as the ear traps sound, the nose draws odors and fragrances to itself by inhalation. At the roof of the nose, just below the eyes, lies a closely bunched set of specialized nerve endings called smell receptors. These olfactory nerves protrude downward into the nose canal. The tips of these nerves are swollen and have tiny hairs, called cilia, extending from them. A mucous membrane covers the surface of the nerves and serves to dissolve molecules that carry scent, thus making the odor accessible to the nerves.

The scent-bearing molecules stimulate the cilia, which pass sensory information onto the nerves. The smell centers in the brain are located in the limbic system, just above the brain stem, and the frontal lobe. So far, scientists have been able to determine any microscopic distinctions in the smell receptors. So, no one knows how smells can be differentiated.

The ability to smell varies widely among people. Some have a talent for smells, while the capacity to smell in others is relatively dull. Neither end of the spectrum is regarded as a disorder, but rather a genetic trait.

The secret of aromatherapy lies in human experience—that is, how we relate fragrance to specific experiences. The odors present in a forest, a meadow, a room, or anywhere else are recorded, often that odor again will recall the emotions associated with the specific experience, even if we cannot recall the details of that experience. Aromatherapists maintain that within the fragrance lies the conditions under which the plant grew, as well. Each plant grows in specific geographical locations; it has specific characteristics; it responds to the sum, the moon, the earth, and the rain in different ways. These characteristics are also implicit in the essential oil and fragrance, say proponents of aromatherapy.

We have learned that essential oils known for their antidepressant, sedative, or tranquilizing characteristics trigger the release of endorphins and enkephalins (neurochemical analgesics and tranquilizers) and, by other studies of odorant effects upon mood, how they may also influence other endogenous opiates within the brain.

There is an intimate physiological, historical and financial connection between fragrance and memory. This is an important concept in the fragrance industry since companies which make perfumes, colognes, toilet waters, etc. depend for marketing success not only upon product loyalty by name for their success but also upon odor recognition so that the user will remember their specific product. The economic, social and hedonic concepts of this relationship are discussed in an article in the December 2002 issue of Self whereas the scientific aspects of the concept of fragrance and memory are discussed by Dr. Robert I. Henkin in ____?

In practical terms there are many examples of this intimate connection between fragrance and memory, both positive and negative. In terms of positive reinforcement if a fragrance once worn resulted in a successful intimacy a young woman and her lover then that fragrance stuck in her memory as the one she would like to wear on any date or socially important occasion. The odor of a fir tree at Christmas or the odor of a turkey cooking at Thanksgiving may engender memories and feelings of each holiday and bring satisfaction related to the holiday based upon memories of these powerful odors. On the other hand, in terms of negative reinforcement if you were to drink coffee for the first time before having and life threatening car accident the odor of Starbucks brewing may engender the olfactory memory of fear, embarrassment, discomfort, pain associated with the accident.

Physiologically, odor and memory are linked anatomically and functionally. Once fragrance enters the nose the odor is perceived through three major initial brain pathways-(1) the prefrontal cortex, (2) the temporal cortex and (3) olfactory pathways leading to the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus can be thought of as a "mind/body laboratory." It takes thought/emotion impulses from the storage banks in the brain and transforms them into the chemicals we need for response. The chemicals that are thus formed determine our perceptions.

Each of these systems contributes to the general functional anatomical brain region called the limbic system. It is this general limbic system, which is intimately involved with memory.

Indeed, 80% of the brain is the so called paleocortex or "old cortex" whose major function in the primitive world was to perceive odors in order for animals to (1) seek and find food, (2) seek and find an appropriate mate and (3) stay out of trouble by avoiding enemies who smell different and who could injure them.

By using this distance sense, which could assist in performance of these three important activities animals, could expend the least amount of energy, conserve their precious endogenous resources and survive in a hostile world environment. However, in order to accomplish these tasks and survive successfully the organism had to "remember" the character of these odors since if they were forgotten, each of these critical functions could not be performed successfully.

In practical marketing terms there are many examples of this intimate connection between fragrance and memory, both positive and negative. In terms of positive reinforcement if a fragrance once worn resulted in a successful interpersonal interaction-e.g., between a young woman and her beau--then that fragrance stuck in her memory as the one she would like to wear on any date or socially important occasion.

The odor of a fir tree at Christmas or the odor of a turkey cooking at Thanksgiving may engender memories and feelings of each holiday and bring satisfaction related to the holiday based upon memories of these powerful odors. On the other hand, in terms of negative reinforcement if a patient were to drink coffee before having powerful chemotherapy for a cancer treatment the odor of coffee brewing may engender the discomfort of the chemotherapy and its odor would engender the negative association of the unpleasantness associated with the medical treatment.

The important physiological, anatomical and functional connections between odor and memory have been used to engineer fragrance products which take advantage of these connections and serve as a foundation for an entire industry which uses fragrance and memory to generate ambiance, style and income.

Julia Lawless points out in her article "Scent, Soul and Psyche " it's interesting to note that the olfactory cells are also the only place in the human body where the central nervous system is directly in contact with the external environment. "