The Sense of Smell – Part 1
Understanding the Sense of Smell
photo credit: Dennis Wong via photopin cc
I had dinner with an old friend the other day. He brought me authentic English tea, fresh from his Europe trip. Upon checking out the gift, I was immediately brought back to my childhood and my grandmother. She used to serve this kind of tea every afternoon, right when I came home from school. This recent experience reminded me how the sense of smell affects us. It is, after all, considered one of the most powerful senses.
As an advocate of aromatherapy, it is important for me to share how the sense of smell works. Most of us may never thought of how smelling affects our day-to-day life. The next three blogs will all be about the sense of smell and why it matters.
How the Sense of Smell Works
Just like the sense of taste, smelling is a chemical sense. This means the sense of smelling uses the body to detect chemicals in the environment. In comparison to the sense of taste, the sense of smell travels further into the body, making it highly effective for introducing healing chemicals into the body.
The sense of smell is 10,000 times more powerful than any other senses; its processes takie place immediately. The sense of smelling follows these steps:
- Vaporized chemicals that float in the air reach the nostrils and dissolves into the mucus.
- The olfactory epithelium is located right under the area where the mucus is. Within the epithelium olfactory receptor, neurons detect the odor.
- These olfactory receptor neurons transmit the information to the olfactory bulbs, located at the back of the nose.
- From the olfactory bulbs, signals are sent directly to the brain – to a specific area known as the limbic system.
- Within the limbic system, different processes take place to help us remember about certain people, places, things, and events associated with the smell.
Scents and Memory
In a note from Robin Reineke, via the Monell Chemical Senses Center:
“Studies have even shown that recall can be enhanced if learning was done in the presence of odor, and that same odor was present at the time of recalling. Although the accuracy of the memory is not affected by the type of sensory cue (olfactory or auditory), the intensity and vividness of the memory are increased when the cue is olfactory.”
Our ability to smell is directly related to our memory, experiences, and emotions. This is why traveling to a different country for the first time always creates an exhilarating feeling. Cultural differences are very obvious when it comes to the sense of smell. For example, food that we consider nasty, may invoke a totally different reaction from people who are used to a different cuisine. In short, every experience, whether positive or negative, we unconsciously relate to smelling.
How Smelling Affects Our Body
To put it mildly, scent is an integral part of our everyday living. It plays an enormous role in our evolution that we rely on it so much. Dozens of industries are earning millions because we are able to smell. From perfume to pharmaceutical companies, scents allow us to make better sense of the world around us.
In the world of medicine and wellness, scents are used for healing and promoting better health. Aromatherapy is a supplementary therapy that helps the body recover faster or promote total well being.
In our next blog, I will be sharing how smell and scents affect our daily lives, and how we can harness this amazing sense to our best advantage.