Smells Of Childhood: The Doors Of Our Emotional Past

Colored pencils, chocolate cake, freshly mowed lawn in summer, grandparents’ room we couldn’t enter and our mother’s scent when she hugged us.

The smells of childhood inhabit our brain like doors ajar, like powerful anchors to an emotional past that we access to remember those happy days.

Psychologists call them “Fragrant Flashbacks” and they show us the intimate link between memory, smell and our childhood.

Up to the age of 5, how a child integrates their memories is intimately linked to smell, but as we grow older the senses of sight and hearing begin to take up more space.

Childhood has its own way of feeling and understanding the world. We cannot replace it with our own, children must fill their own “trunk” with experiences of positive stimulation, affect and wonderful discoveries.

The theme of smells and their link with childhood memory is a fascinating aspect that has not been greatly explored.

However, scientists like Dr. Maria Larsson tell us that, in reality, the nose is the “physical entrance” to our emotional world.

In him, enter wonderful processes that we are going to tell you about here …

Childhood smells, a direct link to our emotions

Helen Fields, writer and medical expert for the Smithsonian, tells us through her book “Fragrant Flashbacks” that during our early childhood, smell and taste are our most important “chemical channels” to understanding the world..

After 5 years, we no longer have to put everything in our mouth and our nose stops being so receptive.

We could say that smell was, until recently, that “sense” that only sommeliers or noses used when in reality it is the most powerful sense in terms of connection to the brain. and that he is able to activate very concrete emotions and memories.

We explain this interesting process to you.

Mechanism by which a smell activates an emotion

When the scent molecules of a flower or the petrichorium of wet earth, for example, unite with the epithelia of our nose, it sends a direct signal to the olfactory bulb, a sophisticated structure, located slightly above our noses. eyes.

From there, begins a fascinating journey that will take the signal to two very concrete channels:

• First of all, down to the primary olfactory cortex so that it can identify and classify this odor.

• Later, this olfactory signal will go from the amygdala, an area linked to emotions, to the hippocampus, which is also responsible for our memory.

• This data is undoubtedly even more surprising: according to a study conducted in the 90s in the “Monell Chemical Sciences Center” in Philadelphia, babies are receptive to odors even before birth.

• Through amniocentesis, it was discovered that the mother’s diet was also perceived as “smells” through the amniotic fluid, and that the fetus therefore began to learn very early as well. Fascinating data, without a doubt.

As we can see, for a very concrete reason smell always goes hand in hand with emotions.

A pleasant smell that not only gives us well-being or evokes positive memories, but which can also make us “consume more”.

Hence the fact that many stores use neuro-marketing by taking advantage of the power of smell over our emotions.

Olfactory memory as therapy

We have all experienced those childhood smells that come unexpectedly, when we least expect it: when we open an old book, feel the sensation of “déjà vu” or associate it with the scent of cinnamon in a pie that our grandmother made …

You should know that there comes a time when we can lose this “magic path” that connects smells to emotions.

Indeed, in cases of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, the gradual loss of smell is one of the different symptoms. 

• There are some very interesting therapies that seek to stop the loss of olfactory memory through stimulation.

• It is known that in the case of Alzheimer’s, the emotional aspect remains very alive, very active, hence the fact that using the sense of smell to activate memory through emotion is undoubtedly an interesting way.

Taking them for a walk after a day of rain, letting the smells of the kitchen or the scent of freshly washed clothes diffuse are daily exercises that can slow down the disease a little, and offer well-being to the patient who can then relive significant moments from his past.

Moments from childhood, for example …