Try to remember this!
Scientists studying how sleep affects memory have found that smelling a familiar scent while you are sleeping, can help a tired brain better remember things that it learned the night before.
One study done back in 2007, was the first rigorous test of the effect of odor on human memory during sleep.
Researchers have long known that sleep is crucial to laying down new memories, and studies in the 1980s and ’90s showed that exposing the sleeping brain to certain cues could enhance the process.
Scents have the amazing ability to trigger memories because smelling is the only human sense that directly connects to the part of the brain that stores emotional memories, and research suggests that they also may consolidate new knowledge and facilitate learning. The study published in the March 9, 2007 issue of Science, showed that during certain phases of sleep, odors can sharpen memory and improve student performance on a test of recalling newly learned information.
The Results: German researchers worked with groups of medical students who memorized the location of card pairs on a computer screen. As they learned the location of each pair of cards, the students, who were wearing masks, got a burst of rose fragrance. A half hour later, the students went to sleep. The researchers monitored the stages of sleep through electrodes attached to the students’ heads. During deep sleep, the phase when the brain is believed to process newly learned facts and figures, the researchers released the rose scent again. When they awakened, the students said they had no memory of the fragrance, but when they were tested, their memory of the card pairs was excellent: 97 percent compared to 86 percent when no scent was released.
A smell can bring on a flood of memories, influence people’s moods and even affect their work performance. Because the olfactory bulb is part of the brain’s limbic system, an area so closely associated with memory and feeling, it’s sometimes called the “emotional brain,” smell can call up memories and powerful responses almost instantaneously.
Because we encounter most new odors in our youth, smells often call up childhood memories. But we actually begin making associations between smell and emotion before we’re even born. Infants who were exposed to certain smells like cigarettes in the womb show a preference for them after birth. To them, the smells that might upset other babies seem normal or even comforting.
Over time, all of this research might lead to treatments that could pair particular learning activities with aromatherapy to improve memory during deep sleep!
Just another reason to try out Sleep Scentsations’ Aromatherapy Pillow Liners! Our super soft pillow liners are adhesive backed and can easily be placed on your pillow beneath your pillow case, making for the perfect sleep experience enhanced by some really awesome aromatherapy scents!
Research has proven that smelling the scents of aromatherapy while sleeping can and will effect your brain in a positive manner. You’ve got nothing to lose except your memory!
Scientists studying how sleep affects memory have found that smelling a familiar scent while you are sleeping, can help a tired brain better remember things that it learned the night before.
One study done back in 2007, was the first rigorous test of the effect of odor on human memory during sleep.
Researchers have long known that sleep is crucial to laying down new memories, and studies in the 1980s and ’90s showed that exposing the sleeping brain to certain cues could enhance the process.
Scents have the amazing ability to trigger memories because smelling is the only human sense that directly connects to the part of the brain that stores emotional memories, and research suggests that they also may consolidate new knowledge and facilitate learning. The study published in the March 9, 2007 issue of Science, showed that during certain phases of sleep, odors can sharpen memory and improve student performance on a test of recalling newly learned information.
The Results: German researchers worked with groups of medical students who memorized the location of card pairs on a computer screen. As they learned the location of each pair of cards, the students, who were wearing masks, got a burst of rose fragrance. A half hour later, the students went to sleep. The researchers monitored the stages of sleep through electrodes attached to the students’ heads. During deep sleep, the phase when the brain is believed to process newly learned facts and figures, the researchers released the rose scent again. When they awakened, the students said they had no memory of the fragrance, but when they were tested, their memory of the card pairs was excellent: 97 percent compared to 86 percent when no scent was released.
A smell can bring on a flood of memories, influence people’s moods and even affect their work performance. Because the olfactory bulb is part of the brain’s limbic system, an area so closely associated with memory and feeling, it’s sometimes called the “emotional brain,” smell can call up memories and powerful responses almost instantaneously.
We make most of our olfactory memories as children.
The olfactory bulb has intimate access to the amygdala, which processes emotion, and the hippocampus, which is responsible for associative learning.Because we encounter most new odors in our youth, smells often call up childhood memories. But we actually begin making associations between smell and emotion before we’re even born. Infants who were exposed to certain smells like cigarettes in the womb show a preference for them after birth. To them, the smells that might upset other babies seem normal or even comforting.
Over time, all of this research might lead to treatments that could pair particular learning activities with aromatherapy to improve memory during deep sleep!
Just another reason to try out Sleep Scentsations’ Aromatherapy Pillow Liners! Our super soft pillow liners are adhesive backed and can easily be placed on your pillow beneath your pillow case, making for the perfect sleep experience enhanced by some really awesome aromatherapy scents!
Research has proven that smelling the scents of aromatherapy while sleeping can and will effect your brain in a positive manner. You’ve got nothing to lose except your memory!
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