SCENT & REMEMBRANCE: Emotional Experiences and Our Olfactory Channel

A single scent picked up by the human olfactory system can instantly flood an individual with feelings, memories - even the need to flee, fight, or freeze.

A single scent can be a form of time travel - taking a person back to a time and place with people and things long since forgotten. All in the time it takes to get a whiff of something cooking, an old book, linens neatly folded in grandma’s closet - the smell of a particular thing or place not visited in many years, even decades, can deluge the endocrine and nervous system with messages that communicate something deeply profound. This cascade of functions is unique and distinct to our olfactory system - a primary learning channel.

The human brain must process visual and audio input through multiple layers - scent processing is different. The olfactory channel is a direct route from the nose to the area of the brain responsible for emotions, memories, and our innate survival instinct. This area of the brain is the limbic system. The limbic system is a grouping of brain structures that govern emotions, memory and learning,  

As we know, when we smell something, we are taking in molecules of whatever that is: fragrant roses in a vase, sweet sugar in a candy shop, or the smell of wet foliage after a rain. When we inhale a scent, those molecules advance through what is, anatomically, our olfactory bulb - it resides behind the bridge of the nose. This bulb sends signals directly to two significant brain structures:

- The amygdala -  where emotion, fear, and arousal are governed

- The hippocampus - the memory center 

This distinct pathway is unique to scents and odors. It is a shortcut to accessing autobiographical memories quickly and with surprising detail - more so than any other sense. Neuroscience has identified this experience as “The Proust Effect,” named after Marcel Proust, the author of “In Search of Lost Time.” A fitting title, don't you think?

Perceptibly different from visual and auditory stimulation, a deluge of memories set off by an olfactory experience are often reported as being far more emotionally amplified. They don’t just remind us of a person or an event - they reignite the emotional experience of people, a place, and a time. This experience can present as a sort of neurological time warp. Neuroscience is also known for coining a saying: “The brain doesn’t know the difference between what is real and what is imagined.” Assuming that is true, the whiff of a scent or odor can not only generate memories, there can be a biochemical response that results in measurable shifts in heart rate, respiration, gastrointestinal function, perspiration, etc. - leaving the body with the very real somatic experience as if the event were happening all over again.

Our relationship to scents and odors are so personal. What attracts one person will repel another. We’re not just drawn (or repelled) to certain scents because they are “sweet” or “musty.” This happens, because scents are mirrors, echoes, and lost pages to a diary of the past. Our olfactory system has the ability to show us glimpses of forgotten images, whispers of forgotten voices, and even visceral sensations of forgotten emotions.

There was a study back in 1987 that indicated that if women are able to spend 10 minutes to 1 hour of time with their newborn (aka “the golden hour”), 90% of these women were able to identify the scent of other newborns among the scent of other newborns. If the women were able to spend more than one hour with their newborn, 100% of the women were able to identify the scent of their newborn. Amazing, isn’t it?

We also know that scent can help reduce pain. In a study in 2003, healthy preterm newborns demonstrated significant early memory and olfactory competence when observed during routine venipuncture. This indicates that even preterm infants, humans in the earliest stages of life outside the womb, have the ability to remember familiar smells that can mediate their response to painful stimuli. The olfactory channel may not be a primary channel for learning; however, its influence on pain reception is significant.

It gets even better. More recently, in 2020, there was a study written about in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. This study indicated that mothers are able to detect the clothing worn by their own children (ages newborn to 18 years), worn overnight, and the mother’s olfactory system was also able to detect the developmental age of the child in 64% of the test subjects. “This study reveals that children’s body odors ... are an important factor affecting the mother-child relationship, and hints toward its importance for affection and caregiving,” said Dr. Laura Schäfer, lead author of the study. A mother’s nose, knows!

When we are touched, this seemingly solitary kinesthetic act, can generate a cascade of sensory input that is often bundled with all the other sensory experiences in the environment: visual, auditory, gustatory, and, of course, olfactory.

The eyes are visually mapping and tracking the non-verbal communication. The parent and child are speaking, and their ears are recording the nuances of each other’s voice, cadence, frequency, tone, resonance, pitch - all of it, and registering the emotions behind the sounds. Parents and their children are physically close enough that they can smell one another’s natural essence or associated essence from the environment.

Assuming the olfactory systems are functioning, then details in the gustatory experience are present with touch - as parents and infants and young children share their love and affections through hugs, cuddles, kisses, playful nibbles on fingers and toes, exchanging enough close and intimate contact that there is actually an association with how the other tastes in relation to how they smell.

Scents and odors elicit a very real awareness associated with all the emotions humans experience. Nurturing and compassionate touch practices can lay down layers of safe, predictable, and reliable love with lifetime access through a simple whiff.

Scent is merely one learning channel through which the brain and the body work in conjunction to create connections to people, places, and things; storing memories for a lifetime. From infancy, parents and children are imprinting deeply seeded memories that, in an instant, can bring a sense of comfort in later years - serving the heart long after a member of that dyad is gone. Scent and remembrance can be, in essence, an olfactory generated reminder of all the beauty nurturing and compassionate experiences hold. The body remembers what is stored in the heart and the mind. Scent can be the light needed to remember it all again.

So what does this have to do with nurturing and compassionate touch practices between parents and their infants and young children? It has everything to do with it. 

With every touch exchange, parents and babies are weaving these experiences into a fabric that will carry them throughout life. Scent is part of these exchanges, because we are organic beings carrying and sharing our own essence. Our very nature, this essence, nurtures the very senses that feed and create our memories. Touch shared by family members are threads woven into each family’s quilt that becomes uniquely theirs.  

If scents can help an individual recall memories, let us imagine the power that scents have in conjunction with the positive, safe, predictable, and reliable experiences had through nurturing and compassionate touch exchanges. It’s as if every sensory exchange has been a deposit in a memory bank. Later in life, this account is drawn upon. Given this, a single scent can not only take someone back to a certain place and time, but it can take someone back to a certain touch in time…a touch that reminds them they are seen, heard, valued, cherished, and are loved beyond measure. What a lovely thing scent can be. Combined with touch, it helps form the fabric of our very identity, colorizing our personalities, our sense of significance, our sense of self worth, and our place in the world. 

The next time we catch a scent, let’s notice what happens…in our body, in our mind, and in our heart. What do we see? What do we hear? What do we feel? How surface or how deep do the memories go? 

Scent and remembrance…at Infant Massage USA, we aim to help families and babies bank these memories so that they be drawn upon and enjoyed for a lifetime.