Why Your Sense of Smell Is Important
Earlier this week my mom made Korean
marinated short ribs for dinner. She usually doesn’t have time to make ribs, so
it was a relatively rare occasion. As soon as I came downstairs the smell of the
ribs made me feel like I was at my aunt’s house, as she always makes Korean
ribs when we visit. I found this interesting because scents always seem to conjure up memories even though I don’t necessarily try to remember scents. I
forget things I’ve seen and heard, but it seems like I always remember scents I’ve smelled before, and they tend to have a correlation with a particular memory.
It turns out
that my tendencies are not unique. Compared to the other sense, the sense of smell
is most closely linked with memory. As a result, certain smells automatically
trigger past memories in us. The sense of smell is not only closely linked with
memory, but also with emotion. In fact, the perfume industry is built around
this correlation, creating fragrances that evoke a variety of different emotions,
from vitality to relaxation.
While this
is an interesting connection, it also means that the effects of losing the
sense of smell are much more consequential than most people realize. Because of
its correlation with memory and emotion, people who lose their sense of smell
can also find it more difficult to connect with the world as they did before. People
who suffer from anosmia (a disease that leads to the loss of your sense of smell) often
report feeling isolated from the world around them and even feeling as if their
emotions are dulled. The loss of your sense of smell can affect your ability to
make and maintain personal relationships, as well as create sentimental memories.
In the past, whenever I was asked
which of my five senses I would give up, I would choose my sense of smell
without hesitation. After learning about all of this, I’m not so sure anymore.
Losing your sense of smell can affect much more than your ability to smell and
taste.
Source: http://www.fifthsense.org.uk/psychology-and-smell/
Wow. I had no idea the sense of smell was that vital to your emotions.
ReplyDeleteI do remember Bio class though, when we learned that our sense of taste actually does very little and it's just our nose and brain tricking us into "tasting" certain smells. I was shocked.
I remember that too! We only taste a few basic things, and those tastes are what we're evolutionarily driven to crave. Think sweet is good, bitter is bad, sour is horrible, salty is delicious, etc. All the other flavor is from our sense of smell. The closest thing to eliminating flavor is eating when you have a bad head cold and everything tastes weird.
DeleteI have also experienced this strange phenomenon. My emotions can change based on what I smell. Sometimes, a smell can soothe me. In other cases, a smell can make me feel nauseous. I remember one time where the Mac Lab (back when used to have it) smelled awful. For the rest of the day my stomach felt strange and I actually struggled to function. Smell is probably our least noticeable sense, but one of the most important.
ReplyDeleteI honestly felt the same way before reading this blog post. I mean, you never really think of your sense of smell being super important because it just seems that you don't use that much. Clearly though, your sense of smell is way important than it makes itself out to be. Great post ! :)
ReplyDeleteI've definitely experienced smelling a certain place of thing and being hit with a really vivid flashback or even just sense of familiarity, if I can't place the memory. I agree that the sense of smell is underrated; although I don't think about it that much it really is important.
ReplyDeleteI've definitely noticed times where I'm just sitting in class and then I smell something and I get a vivid memory of being in my preschool class room at snack time or something and it blows my mind how much memory is stored with smell. I've always wondered what memories we have that we won't ever be able to access until a certain smell stirs it out of us.
ReplyDeleteI think something that can also weigh in on that just as much is how strong a presence smell has on our perception of taste. Actually the idea of the flavor of something is really dependent on smell. I can confirm both of these, as my Dad has lost all sense of smell since he was 12, and although it doesn't affect him on a day to day basis, whenever his smell does return(It happens very rarely, once when I was born, and then recently when he started taking a special medicine) he seems to be the happiest he's even been. In addition he seems to be able to eat just about anything. It's always been interesting how intertwined the human senses are and just how much it can mean to lose one of them.
ReplyDelete