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Can Sniffing Rosemary Improve Your Memory?

With so much going on in our lives each day, it’s easy for small things to slip our mind. For hundreds of years, rosemary has been linked to memory. For example, Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, says: ‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.’ Researchers at the University of Northumbria, decided to carry out a study to test this theory, and they found that the scent of rosemary does actually have the ability to improve our memories – even more the reason to surround ourselves with this lovely smelling plant.
 
The StudyCan Sniffing Rosemary Improve Your Memory?

In this study, Dr. Mark Moss, head of the department of psychology at the University of Northumbria, and a team of colleagues gathered 150 people over the age of 65, and randomly assigned them to sit in 1 of 3 rooms – 1 of these was scented with rosemary, another with lavender and one was unscented.

In the three rooms, the elderly participants took tests which were designed to test their memory functions. These tests included remembering to pass along a message at a specific time during the experiment and to change tasks when a certain event occurred.

 
The Results
Can Sniffing Rosemary Improve Your Memory?

Upon analyzing the results, Dr. Moss and his colleagues concluded that those who were in the rosemary room performed a lot better than those in the other two rooms. In fact, it was found that short-term memory retention increased by about 15% among those who were placed in the rosemary-scented room. 15% may not seem like that much, but researchers claim that this increase is enough to remember better small tasks that can make a huge difference, such as remembering to take medication.

Dr. Moss declared that when “you inhale rosemary its compounds are absorbed in the blood through the lungs and then are sent to the brain where they can actually act on your brain chemistry.” One of these compounds is known as 1,8-cineole – as well as smelling wonderful, it may also act in the same way as the licensed drugs used to treat dementia.

The implications of this research are huge, but it doesn’t mean that you have to spend your days smelling rosemary or your nights sleeping on a pillow of rosemary. The effects of rosemary on memory were measurable and this gives us a clue that more research could yield therapeutics and contribute greatly to our understanding of brain and memory function.

For more information on this, please watch the short video below:

 

 

Sources: shareablynorthumbria 

and naturalsociety

Photos from depositphotos

 

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