“I remember it all to well“
- Taylor Swift, All Too Well
What comes to mind when you hear me mention, “lake smell”. Is it a mix of fishy-algae lake water? Or is it that warm feeling of memories of being by the lake?
Smells can trigger emotional experiences, and some say that smell and emotion are stored as one memory. Smell is the most primitive of our senses. The part of our brain that processes the sense of smell (the olfactory bulb) is located in the same area of the brain where we process learning, emotions, and memory. Your other four senses – touch, sight, hearing, and taste, all go through a different part of the brain (the thalamus), which basically helps those senses get to their next destination in the brain, so the sense of smell is much more direct.
Earlier this week I had an early morning meeting in northern Minnesota. It was a crisp dewy fall morning, and the first thing that hit me when I got out of the car was the smell of red and white pine trees. This smell immediately brought me calm because my memories associate it with the feeling of arriving at my family’s cabin at Leech Lake. It’s always the first thing I notice when I arrive. It’s a smell that tells me “you’re in northern Minnesota at the lake”.
There are scents that we encounter often, and associate them with serenity, like the lake, attraction, like perfume, and disgust, like rotten food. There are also rare smells buried deep in our brains – something you’ve experienced only once – that can be remembered only if the smell is encountered again. Like the cologne or perfume of someone you dated in high school, or the smell of orange blossoms on vacation.
Understanding the effects of odor-linked memories can help us use them to positively affect our daily lives, in both the short-term and the long-term. This can include burning a scented candle in your home, or going outside and taking in the smells of nature.
The next time you’re looking out at the lake, close your eyes and take in the smell. How do you feel?
Moriya Rufer is a water quality professional with 20 years experience working with lakes in northern Minnesota.
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