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Brain Fact: Smell & why it is the strongest trigger for emotions & memories of all the senses · Do You F*cking Mind?

• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Let's get into the brain factor of today.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: So the brain factor of today is all about smell
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: and why your sense of smell is the strongest sense
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: for triggering a memory. Okay, So I think we can
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: all relate to this. Where you've smelt something that's brought
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: you back to either a childhood memory, or you've walked
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: past someone on the street and you've smelt a cologne
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: that you forgot existed, but it reminds you of a
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: person that maybe you worked with, or someone that.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: You shagged or dated.
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  Speaker 2: These really really strong, accurate emotions that get brought up
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: because of smell and why that is the case, and
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: why it is so stronger than your other senses for
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: triggering a memory.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Now, the reason that I decided to do this brain
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: factor is because on my first day in Paris, I
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: was with my parents and we're walking through Paris and
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: there's on the streets there's these big kind of grates
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: that you walk over, and I think this is not
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: just in Paris. I think they have this in New
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: York as well, anywhere any city that has a metro
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: system an underground system of sorts, so London as well.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: But we're walking over this grate and it's like a
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: vent for the metro system. So this smell comes up
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: from the Metro and it's a very like I don't know,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: it's a mix.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Between like oil and metal and I don't know.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: It's like a very particular smell. It's not an unpleasant smell.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: It's just a particular Metro smell. And it's different in London,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: it's different in New York. It's specific to the Metro.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: And I smelt it and I was about to say, oh, wow,
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  Speaker 2: I haven't smelt this in ages, and it's brought me
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: back to the first time I was in Paris. And
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: my dad says straight away, he goes, wow, isn't smell incredible.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I haven't been to Paris.
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  Speaker 2: In probably forty years, and it's brought me back to
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: the first time I was here forty years ago. And
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, that's really incredible. How smell can
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: trigger such an intense memory from decades ago when you
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: would have even forgotten that that smell existed.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: So there has been so many.
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  Speaker 2: Studies around this and why that is the case. An
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  Speaker 2: Olfactory cues are more effective at triggering emotional memories versus
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: visual cues such as looking at a photo or any
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  Speaker 2: other image, and even older adults. Studies that have been
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: done on older adults can remember older memories with smells
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: versus words or images. So if you can get them
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: to smell something, whether it's like a recipe of something
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: or a cologne ascent, it will actually bring them back
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: to an older memory than what a photo can provoke, okay.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: And the reason for this has to do with locations
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: of circuits and of particular brain a particular centers within
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: the brain. Older linked memories use different pathways within the
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: brain and different areas within the brain than your other
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: senses and memories linked to your other senses.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Okay. So the area of.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: The brain that processes emotion is very closely linked to
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: the part of the brain that processes odor or smells
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: or ol faction however you want to call it. And
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: this is the amygdala, which is your emotional processing center,
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  Speaker 2: that's your fear, that's all kinds of emotions, and the
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: hippo campus. And these areas are within the temporal lobes, okay,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: which is in the middle lower part of your brain. Now,
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  Speaker 2: the hippocampus is also involved in something called associative learning,
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: which is learning that happens when two separate events are connected. So,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: for example, the memory of a smell of something and
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: a person, so cologne and the person, or the memory
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: of the smell of a pastry and the person who
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: used to cook it, like your mum who used to
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: cook something when you're a child.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: So it has this association.
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  Speaker 2: Thing, and that that's what's going on in the Hippo Campus,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: among many other things. And the amygdala and the Hippo
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Campus are neighbors, so it's very easy to have a
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: lot of connectivity between this kind of associative memory and
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  Speaker 2: highly emotional memories as well. So already you've got that
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: going on, and that's really close together.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: But why is smell more linked.
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  Speaker 2: Here versus other centers? So smell enters the brain obviously
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: through the nose, and then it passes through to something
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  Speaker 2: called the old factory bulb, and then information from that
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  Speaker 2: old factory bulb is sent to the amygdala and the
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Hippo campus. And if you look at like an image
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  Speaker 2: of a brain or a drawing of a brain, you'll
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  Speaker 2: see that that old factory bulb sits very very very
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  Speaker 2: close to the amygdala. And the hippocampus and those temporal
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  Speaker 2: lobes in like the lower middle part of the brain.
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  Speaker 2: It is the only sense of the five senses that
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  Speaker 2: gets processed in this location. So when you look at
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: this location at this location, you see that those three
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  Speaker 2: regions are very close together. So because of its location
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  Speaker 2: and area of processing, we know that smell has the
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: strongest trigger of emotion.
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  Speaker 1: And off memory.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, So it all has to do with where the
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  Speaker 2: circuits are, the location of these processing centers.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: Now, older linked memories are also more positive than those
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: memories brought on by other senses, so they have a
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: higher chance of altering and improving your mood. So if
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  Speaker 2: you can find a sent that actually makes you think
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: of something positive, that trigger, because it's so close to
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: your emotional processing centers within the brain, is actually gonna
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: elicit a much better feeling response than if you.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Look at a photo of a happy memory.
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  Speaker 2: A photo will still make you feel good if it
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  Speaker 2: reminds you of a happy memory, but it's not as
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  Speaker 2: strong as a response as if you were to smell
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  Speaker 2: something that then brings on that memory and brings on
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  Speaker 2: those emotions.
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  Speaker 1: So I think it's really important.
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  Speaker 2: To start looking at how you can include you know,
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  Speaker 2: this sensory experience within your own home, Like, are their
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: sense that make you feel really good? Are there things
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: that you can cook that make you feel really at
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: home or really you know, safe, or you know warm inside.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: There's certain things that you can do to actually help
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: boost your mood through the use of memories, emotions, and
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: odors or smells.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: They call it odor. Sounds like a bad thing.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: I'm calling it odor, but in every study they refer
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: to smell's sense as odor.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: But I think in mainstream we look.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: At oda as being a bad thing, but I'm not
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: referring to it as a bad thing. And interestingly, you
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: can also use smell to your advantage to help you
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: remember things and to retain information if you're studying.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: So there's a bunch of studies.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: That show that people who will smell something, and ideally
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: it's something that's intentional, so not like a smell that
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: you're exposed to all the time with a million other things,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: but a particular sense when you're learning something, if you
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: then smell that thing when you're trying to retrieve that thing,
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  Speaker 2: you are more likely to recall more things when you
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: were learning it. And these studies have been done on
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: like remembering a whole list of words, for example. So
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: what you want to do is you want to pick
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: a cent that you are exposed to during the encoding
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: of the memory, and coding is the learning. It's when
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: it's going into the brain for the first time, and
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: then again during the retrieval, so that's when you're at
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: the exam, or that's when you're studying something for the
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: second time or whatever. And it's been shown that if
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: you have a specific scent that's very different to the environment,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: not something that you're smelling all the time, it may
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: help in your ability to retrieve something because of that
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: link with scent and memory and retrieval and emotion.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: So fucking very interesting.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: And recently I was actually gifted a hand cream that
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: smelt like rose.
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  Speaker 1: And marshmallows specifically.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, it's a very specific scent and I hadn't smelt
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  Speaker 2: this scent for fucking ever and this hand cream actually
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: it took me back to my seventeenth birthday. I was
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: having a house party for my seventeenth birthday back in
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: nur So good times, and a friend of mine gifted
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: me this body mist with the exact same scent.
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  Speaker 1: It's probably the same brand.
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  Speaker 2: And I dowsed myself in that body mist that night.
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  Speaker 2: Fucking you know how much we used to love our
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: body mys when we were in high school.
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  Speaker 1: And smelling this hand cream.
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  Speaker 2: Brought me right back to that night of my seventeenth
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  Speaker 2: birthday party, and memories that I hadn't remembered or even
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: thought about for years came up. Like I could remember
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: where people were making out in different locations at the backyard.
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  Speaker 2: I can remember people from my grade that I hadn't
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  Speaker 2: thought about in years that were at the party, that
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  Speaker 2: I could remember what certain people were wearing like it
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: was such a clear, clear memory, it was unbelievable. So
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  Speaker 2: definitely try and use sense to your advantage to lift
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: your mood, to help with your memory, to trigger positive
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: memories as well. And yeah, now you have a really
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: good understanding as to why it is that they that
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: that happens. And then fun facts very quickly before we
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: move on to the topic of today's episode, is that
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  Speaker 2: the idea of smell in your dreams because dreams rarely
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: involve smell, so for people that are born with sight,
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  Speaker 2: dreams are mainly visual people that are born blind are
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: actually more likely to report other senses within their dreams,
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  Speaker 2: like taste, touch, and smell. But for the population of
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  Speaker 2: people that are born with sight, the reported smell that like,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: the levels of reported sense of smell within the dreams
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  Speaker 2: are around one percent or less than one percent, okay,
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  Speaker 2: so it's very, very very low, a lot less than
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  Speaker 2: you know. Obviously, visual is the highest. Touch and movement
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: and sound is a lot lower than visual and smell.
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  Speaker 1: It's rarely the case. Now, why is that.
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  Speaker 2: It is believed that the reason for that is because
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  Speaker 2: smell circuits are very ancient compared to the other circuits
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  Speaker 2: within the brain. And you can also look at just
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: looking at the anatomy of it, because if you look
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: at where smell is processed and located, it's in the
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  Speaker 2: middle part of the brain, which is the most primitive
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: of the brain.
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  Speaker 1: The more exterior you go in the brain, the.
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  Speaker 2: More higher functioning, the more kind of modern if you
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: want to call it, like the newer the neocortex is
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: the newer part of the brain. So smell circuits are
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  Speaker 2: pretty ancient and dreams are believed to be more modern.
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  Speaker 2: In the scheme of the brain's development through history, and
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  Speaker 2: there's not much overlap with smell and vision and auditory
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  Speaker 2: networks either. And if you look at vision, vision is
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: a much more advanced circuit within the brain when you
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: look at how the brain has developed, and the visual cortex,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: which is a huge part of the brain the back
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: of your head, a huge chunk of the back of
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: your brain, which obviously takes care of all kinds of
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: visual processing. That visual cortex area takes up nearly fifty
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: percent of the cortex and the brain. So all of
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: this is for processing visual information. It's very advanced, it's
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: very modern, and this is one of the theories as
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: to why dreams do not have smelled different circuits versus
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: new etcetera, etcetera.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And also for.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: People that are born blind, this is an interesting random fact.
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  Speaker 2: The brain areas that normally would be dedicated to vision
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: often get re kind of redirected to take care of
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: other senses. That's why visually impaired people normally have heightened
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: senses in other areas, Like their touch is very good.
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  Speaker 2: It's a lot more advanced than someone who has their
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: vision because that energy and all those resources are used
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: in other areas of the brain. So there's neuroplasticity for you.