Good Question: Why Does Smell Trigger Strong Memories?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Ever smell something, like cookies or markers or old hockey gear, and a whole bunch of memories come flooding in? It turns out our sense of smell can really transport us back in time, often better than what we see or hear.
So, why does smell trigger such strong memories? Good Question.
"You definitely have memories associated with when you hear something or seeing something, but the scent is stronger," says Julie Streeter, a registered nurse and aromatherapist with the Penny George Institute for Health and Healing at Allina.
She recounts a time passing someone on the street in New York City wearing Old Spice.
"It would bring me back and I actually remembered my dad standing in our bathroom slap Old Spice on his face," she says.
When we smell, what we breathe in goes through our nasal cavity and hits the olfactory bulb. That bulb happens to be close to the amygdala and hippocampus, the parts of the brain that handle memory and emotion.
The brain does not process sight and sound in the same way.
"We create these scent memories," Streeter says. "When we smell something, we associate a thought or emotion with it."
