Some people go to great lengths to remember important tasks or information, whether it’s through memory training exercises, memory-enhancing medication, or piles of calendars and to-do lists. While technology has given us many tools we rely on, most of them don’t train your brain to remember better. Instead, they make it easier to forget, knowing full well that these tools are storing information without us having to use our brains to do the work.
And yet there is a better solution, and it starts in your pantry.
Rosemary in remembrance
Rosemary has been used for thousands of years to increase alertness and improve long-term memory. In fact, there are reports of its use in the universities of ancient Greece. Even Shakespeare references its properties in his play “Hamlet.”
As early as 2003, researchers at Northumbria University in Newcastle showed that smelling rosemary was associated with “improvement in performance for overall memory quality and secondary memory factors” ( 1 ).
In 2012, researchers finally succeeded in scientifically explaining the herb’s cognitive abilities ( 2 ). This is what they discovered…
The new study followed twenty people who performed subtraction exercises, visual information processing tasks, and other tests. Their mood was also assessed before and after exposure to the rosemary scent at their workplaces, and blood samples were taken.
A total of 66 people participated in the study and were randomly assigned to either the rosemary-scented room or another room without any scent.
The results showed that participants in the rosemary-scented room performed 60-75% better at recalling events, completing tasks at specific times, and recalling things more quickly than participants in the unscented room. So, it definitely shows a memory boost for many people.
Traces of rosemary compound found in blood
See next page
