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Heighten your memory recall through smell? Yes, it's true; olfactory and memory are integrally linked.

How do I use this?:
Here's a scenario: You have a hard time remembering peoples name when you first meet them. Most people have difficulty with this. It takes practice, skill and effort to remember them later. Now enter smell.. Would you be willing to put a carnation in your pocket (or some other scented object) and then sniff it before/during/after you are meeting someone for the first time? (think of Peter in 'the Monkees' episode introduction) - Sure sure, you can also be discreet about it.. but studies have shown there is a strong connection between scent and memory, so you may just want to flaunt it.

Here's a brief synopsis on how it works:
"Sensory memory is a short-lived persistence of a sensory stimulus in the nervous system, such as iconic memory in the visual system." Source | Electrical signals from smells are generated to receptor cells in the brain through the nose into the olfactory bulb. In addition to receiving nural transmissions in the frontal cortex, which is responsible for your smell perception, signals are also sent to the limbic area of the brain. Source Source Source | "The primary olfactory cortex, in which higher-level processing of olfactory information takes place, forms a direct link with the amygdala and the hippocampus." Source | The amygdala and the hippocampus which support "a variety of functions including emotion, behavior and long term memory" are both in the limbic system. | Studies have shown: "When an odor is paired with an emotional event, perception of that odor was altered to fit that association." Source and "..odor hedonic perception and odor-related behavior result from a learned association between an odor and the emotional context in which the odor was first encountered. Source

Now for the 'Readers Digest' version:
Thank God for Teacher Workshops and Online Classroom Explanations.

What does all this mean?
If you are sniffing and the person you are meeting is unpleasant.. you may wind up not liking the smell and also the later events associated with that smell. This is so powerful it may just be dangerous. Good Luck!

The original inspiration for this article was spawned by the CNN Source listed at the bottom of this post.

Labels: memory, success