Written by Charlie Behm, LMT, Trager® Practitioner, and Debbie Freund, RN
During these challenging months, as the world has slowed down, many of us have had a bit of time to reflect and reminisce about significant experiences and the impact they have had on our lives. We can look back at some events with fondness and gratitude as we march on through a pandemic and find some wisdom and solace. Our brains have an intricate system of recording memories which allows us to sort and evaluate incoming information so that we may reasonably make decisions about what to do and how to go about doing it. Many of our memories are encoded and anchored in the brain with the sense of smell, or olfaction, and emotion. Without a doubt, some of our most vivid and pleasant memories are those that involve eating. We know that the pleasing aromas of foods greatly add to their enjoyment.
The mystery of how olfaction works was not understood until scientists began to devote time and resources to solving this misunderstood sense. In 2004, Axel and Buck were awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering odorant receptors and how the olfactory system is organized. Our sense of smell serves us so well, and most of the time we only notice if we like or dislike a certain odor. It plays a role in enjoyment of food and can change mood for the better. It helps us detect hazardous chemicals, spoilage, and danger· (smoke) in the environment. Some canines, our amazing olfactory super friends, can even detect COVID-19 in humans (Glatter, 2021 ). Olfaction can add emotional variation to visual input and can play a role in mate selection and healthy offspring via pheromones (Wyatt, 2015; Schaal et al., 2020). Wearing or smelling certain scents can literally boost or soothe emotional and mental outlook. A little help from the available array of essential oils is invaluable when we need it (Hongratanaworakit, 2009;Tanu and Harpreet, 2016).
In this article, we explore the concepts of memorable meals and essential oil experiences. Contemplating the scrumptiousness of a meal with an unforgettable memory of aromas seems like a worthy lesson. We invite you at some point, now or after reading this article, to take a little time and recall, as we did, highlights of some great meals you have partaken of as well as memorable times with beloved oils.