How Scent Captures Our Emotions
Have you ever had a smell transport you to another place? Perhaps a good memory of something you did or a place you visited.
Our limbic system AKA our Emotional Brain Center, is responsible for the ability for a scent to capture us and bring back memories in such detail.
“It is the home of our emotions, sexual feelings, memory, learning, and with olfaction these can be evoked-even subconsciously.” –
The Fragrant Mind, by. Valerie Ann Worwood.
It is how we connect with the world around us and imprint on memories. Scent can drive us to make decisions. Plant essences have the capacity to generate changes through our olfaction and mental bond in which scent memories and emotions are all connected.
Aromas have the power to instantly awaken memories or experiences of the past. Every person has a series of different experiences in their life and Aromatherapy can bring back life to feel those experiences as if it just occurred yesterday!
When I first started practicing Aromatherapy I shared a bottle of Rosewood Essential Oil with my dad. When he took a whiff of the opened bottle he just paused and said “Wow, this smells amazing. It reminds me of when I was a kid, my dad bought a new Spanish guitar and my brothers and sisters and I would stick our noses in the base and smell the wood.” My grandfather was a musician and played the Spanish guitar. The smell of rosewood brought my dad back to those enjoyable memories of his childhood.
These memories can vary from person to person as we all have different experiences.
The link between aroma and emotion is deep.
Our sense of smell has the ability to act directly on the the mind’s limbic system, which is the powerhouse of our state of mind and emotions.
Aromatherapy can be used intentionally to imprint on new memories and encourage emotional balance.
What aromas have captured you and brought back memories? Please share!
