This Overlooked Sense Predicts Your Brain’s Future Health

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club, where we explore what it really means to live longer and better. I'm Dr. Joe Casciani, a geropsychologist focused on the mindset, habits, and science of aging well. Each episode brings you practical ideas and conversations to help you stay engaged, resilient, and purposeful at any age. And now to today's program. What if one of the most overlooked indicators of brain health is something we rarely think about? Our sense of smell. In this episode, I'm speaking with Jonathan Ascombe about the emerging science of olfactory health and its surprising connection to cognitive function, mood, and overall wellbeing. While vision and hearing loss receive widespread attention, Smell loss often goes unnoticed, even as it may signal deeper neurological changes. Jonathan will share insights from recent research showing how olfactory training, simple daily exposure to specific scents, may help strengthen the neural pathways, support memory, and even reduce depressive symptoms. First, a little background. After losing his father to dementia and experiencing firsthand the helplessness that accompanies such a journey, Jonathan is excited to share an empowering and simple practice that you can begin using today. Upon learning incredible scientifically backed benefits to cognition and memory through our sense of smell, what began as presentations sharing this information with families, caregivers, and aging populations grew into memories. Jonathan hosts workshops on wellness and personal development development through his company Happy People. He believes that positive change is possible at any of life's stages and that we each play a pivotal role in our own health and well-being. Jonathan, welcome to our program.

Well, thanks so much for having me on, and I'm excited to talk about this today.

Same here. I'm looking forward to our conversation. So what drew you first of all to the topic of olfactory health?

It came up because of my co-founder Dominika at first. She runs a scent creation business. People loved combining and engaging with smell, and she wants to just know more about how our sense of smell works and came across a systematic review asking the question, does olfactory training improve brain function and cognition? And this took a bunch of studies into account and talked about olfactory training, which we're going to get to. And why this is overlooked is An interesting question. I've been doing presentations and one of the benefits is people ask me questions and then I, you know, have to find out the answer. And someone asked me, why are people's sense of smell weaker than, say, rodents or dogs? And I knew that there's different number of cell receptors, but later on I looked into it. It's actually more or less a myth that got perpetuated since being published in the 19th century just as sort of like a general best guess, not based on any actual measurement or fact. And I tra— you can trace it through the ages for into the, at least the middle of the 20th century, where this just got sort of picked up and perpetuated without being studied, that humans don't have a very strong sense of smell. We focused more, you can trace the amount of studies that we've done on vision, on hearing versus smell over all of these years. And it's only in the last 40-plus years that we've really started to look much more carefully at how our sense of smell works.

Wow. So historically there's been a de-emphasis or it hasn't been under the spotlight very much.

That's right. That gets reflected in the number of studies and it doesn't play out when you start to look at really the facts. And we don't need to get into the anatomy of the olfactory bulb comparing different species, but the fact is that The sense of smell is a key— all of our senses are important, but if you think about how we would have survived for hundreds of thousands of years, we were using it every day for our survival to make sure that food was safe, to be on the lookout for predators, to track other animals, and even to map our territory. Now, of course, these days we don't use smell the same way, and it's been, I guess, in a way de-emphasized, but it is crucial for our survival. And I think because of that is really key to our brains.

I know when you and I spoke earlier, you had shared how much you've immersed yourself in the research here and really explored all facets of our olfactory sense. So from what you've learned, what's that connection between smell and the brain?

Well, right away, and this has been known for a while, our sense of smell connects in the brain unique to our other senses. So for a bit of context, all of our other senses as signals are brought in from the external environment, the signal goes first to an area called the thalamus. It's kind of a central relay hub, and it's sent then from there for further processing, whether it be for memory or what have you. But when we engage with scent, the signal goes, you know, gets processed through the olfactory bulb and other areas. The signal goes direct to the limbic part of our brain and into areas like the amygdala, which we use to process emotion, and the hippocampus, which we use for processing long-term memory. And so everyone listening has had the experience of a smell bringing them right back to a memory, a place and time. It's quite literally because of how it's directly wired in our brain.

Now we can pick up scents that will trigger some earlier memories from our childhood, maybe some perfumes or some smell of candy, and it's closely connected to memory traces.

Yeah, these are experiences that everyone is familiar with, and it can bring us right back to a place in time, better or worse, in fact. A lot of people have experiences with smell that can actually be traumatizing, and there's even smell therapy around reassociating how these are wired in the brain.

Wow. Wow. So what's the research telling us about the loss of our sense of smell? And our overall brain function, our cognitive function?

So there's lots here, and there are lots of unknowns. And so, as mentioned, smell is, I would say, the least studied, and it is certainly the least understood of our senses. And so smell loss in itself is a really interesting topic because we can lose our sense of smell for any number of reasons, and people will start to lose it as a result of aging. But smell loss is actually associated with at least 68 neurological diseases that we know of. And what we don't know really is how these relationships play out, if they're causal, if one happens before the other. And there's all sorts of unknowns, except that it seems quite obvious that smell health and our overall health are intimately connected. And now it's been sort of acknowledged for a while through studies that smell loss and olfactory dysfunction is a precursor in cases of dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, showing up often 5, even 10 years before any other symptomology. And so when it comes to something like Parkinson's or dementia and potential intervention, things, ways that we can be proactive, knowing about something like smell loss can give us years of time to take more action rather than waiting until it really appears that something is going on.

Yeah, that's good. So picking up on that as an early precursor of some, you know, maybe early stage of some other losses like cognitive change or Even depression, I think you mentioned that it can be a sign of impending depression with their sense of smell, whether it contributes or whether it's what we call correlational factor, the two are tied, but we don't know that one's causing the other. So as you say, that gives us some kind of early views about what can happen down the road.

And there are studies sort of, I would say, substantiating if you lose your sense of smell, depressive symptoms will follow. There is a correlation there of sorts, like a negative correlation in that direction. But it would also appear that losing one's sense of smell could put one at greater risk for all sorts of illnesses or diseases that they may have been predisposed to. The way— so there's interesting studies that you've, you've probably read where people with Alzheimer's, uh, will show neuropathology on sort of brain scans, but outwardly their symptomology, their outward signs of the disease, are not as apparent. And we've chalked this up to a term called cognitive reserve, where someone who's led a really stimulating intellectual life throughout their adulthood, their brain just has more workarounds. So when it's presented with a neuropathology, instead of just succumbing to it, it's able to find alternative routes to not express it as fully. And it would seem the same thing could be said for our sense of smell, and especially as we're looking at how it wires into these key parts of our brain, that having a weaker sense of smell leaves us just at a greater risk for these things to happen. Loss of smell has been used to predict all-cause mortality or morbidity. So it's a very intimate connection here of smell and health.

I know there are other ways to— I remember learning years ago in neuropsych testing that we can pick up early signs of brain dysfunction, say, in in Alzheimer's case, long before the symptoms show up. So it was like an early picture of what was to come, but we didn't necessarily see the symptoms yet, but we did see underlying neuropsychological dysfunction. And what you're saying is the sense of smell can also be one of those precursors even for Alzheimer's. That's fascinating, fascinating research. And again, we don't know if it's probably just an accompanying symptom or kind of sign along the way rather than a cause.

Well, that's it. I think it's careful. It's important to be careful. Just because you're losing your smell does not mean you're getting one of these diseases per se. But because of what we now know about olfactory training, which we'll get into, This is one of the easiest ways that we can be doing intervention on our own. And whether it's because there might be a risk of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or just for better health generally and cognition, it's something that is worth paying attention to.

Yeah, just for quality of life.

Yeah, that's right.

Sure. So at what age does smell typically begin to decline? Why do so many people fail to notice this slow decline?

Yeah, so I'll start there, that studies have been done where they're measuring people's sense of smell, and a lot of people reporting that it's just fine do in fact have measurable declines in their sense of smell. So yeah, it is one of these things where by the time you notice, it's been going on for a while. And it is normal to, like I mentioned, lose your sense of smell as a just part of the aging process. We start to sort of— the number of cell receptors that we have start to decrease, but it's not a one-size-fits-all. Some people will start losing their sense of smell in their mid-50s, even while others can go into their 80s and beyond without much measurable decrease. Men don't have as strong a sense of smell typically and will also start to lose their sense of smell sooner. But the stats on this are that about 50% of people between the ages of 65 and 80 have a measurable decrease in their sense of smell, and 62 to 80% of those 80-plus have a measurable smell dysfunction.

Wow, 50%, that's huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So how does that affect everyday life beyond just food enjoyment. We know we, we have a cold or something is wrong with our sense of smell, we lose our sense of taste too. So how does that affect everyday life for folks?

Right, so when I do presentations, I do like to do a little demo because we've all, yeah, had a cold where we can't really taste the soup we're eating. So it's a fun experiment. Our sense of smell accounts for 85 to 90% of our experience of flavor. It's actually air coming in and mixing with the food. So I'd invite people to try this on their own where you can take something like a piece of chocolate, and before you eat it, plug your nose to block your sense of smell and eat it for about 30 seconds with your nose plugged to see what it tastes like, and then unplug to notice the difference. But even food enjoyment is not something— not a small matter, because we evolved to enjoy eating and we have to do it every single day. And so what will happen just on the food front is, as we start to lose our sense of smell and we don't taste food the same. We're not able to derive the same enjoyment we did from food. And so people will kind of subconsciously start to change their eating habits to try and find that same enjoyment hit from food. When we're losing our sense of smell, the stuff that we can still enjoy becomes things higher in saturated fats, things higher in sugars. And so it is a nutrition and a dietary concern that we're losing our sense of smell, but Smell plays a role in so many parts of life that, again, because we're sort of not used to engaging with it very directly, we often don't appreciate it until maybe it's gone. Where we're picking up on social cues from other people through scent all the time. Our sense of smell allows us to actually differentiate between kin, people, and what their diets are, and if they're healthy or sick. And we know how important a social life is for healthy aging. And if we are not picking up on those same cues, it decreases our interest in social interaction. We pick up on emotional cues through scent. And there's also studies now with aging populations where if we're losing our sense of smell, we become self-conscious of our own smell. Do I smell to others? This also makes us less likely to engage socially and more you know, self-conscious. They've done studies where doing olfactory training has helped to reduce that effect.

Wow, that's fascinating. So not just our diet, we're increasing more sugar or fats or even salt to compensate for that loss. It also affects us socially, interpersonally, emotionally. Yeah, it's great that you're putting this spotlight on this because I think a lot of people don't really appreciate how broad this sense is in our day-to-day life. I think this is really good conversation. Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. It is certainly in our sort of modern and affluent day, not something that we rely on as much as we have. But certainly when you ask people, and they've done surveys now too, where they've asked people, if you had to get rid of one sense, which would it be? And Far and away people say smell. I don't really use that one all the time. There was a survey with US college students where they said they'd rather give up their sense of smell than their hair or their cell phone.

Wow.

And so this is where it's at with smell. But if you ask someone who's lost their sense of smell, they'll kind of give a very different story because it drains a lot of color out of the day. Any listeners who have had someone in their life who doesn't feel like eating anymore, that becomes a really depressing thing. When you don't feel like eating. And this is happening largely because of smell loss, which is treatable.

Yeah, yeah. If we lose our enjoyment in eating, we're going to kind of retreat, pull back, feel more depressed. What's the use? Yeah, so that's powerful. That has a real strong impact. Before we continue, I just want to mention to our listeners, as we're talking about ways to stay mentally and emotionally engaged as we age, I'm reminded of something I often share with listeners and community members. If you're looking for simple, meaningful ways to spark conversation, reflection, and engagement, whether for yourself or a group or senior living setting, you might take a look at my Better, Longer, and Happier card series. 12 modules. Each module offers thoughtful prompts, practical ideas, and discussion topics designed to support healthy aging from a psychological perspective. You can learn more at my website, livingto100.solutions. Now let's get back to our conversation. Jonathan, you mentioned the olfactory training. Let's jump into this. What exactly is olfactory training and how does it work?

Right, so I actually skipped over at the beginning something— another— there's several really interesting things about our olfactory system and our sense of smell, one of which is that the cell receptors that we use— this is what we use to sort of translate stimuli into a signal, they renew about every 4 weeks. And this happens throughout the lifespan. And this is unique to our sense of smell. Our other senses don't have cell receptors that renew in this way. The reason, as far as I can tell, for this is that if you were to go far enough up your nose, your cell receptors for your sense of smell are actually exposed. And so they're the only part of our brain, if you will, that is in the open air. And of course that if we were to just leave them like that, they would just, you know, the environment would have its way with them. And so they renew. And so olfactory training is intentional engagement with odor. And there's specific ways that we do this. And it dates back to a study in 2009 when A scientist named Hummel did a first study using olfactory training, and he used 4 different odors based on the fact that we sort of can detect from 4 different categories of smell. And so they would be a floral, a citrus, an aromatic, and a resinous. Those translate to rose, lemon, clove, and eucalyptus. And there's also all of the odors that we can detect will fall within those categories, kind of like we have our different things that we can taste. Olfactory training is taking an odor in usually kind of like a nasal inhaler and engaging with it directly. And so it's intentional smelling of a single molecule odor that's strong enough. And the practice of olfactory training as done in that first study and copied in the majority of them was smelling each scent. And I recommend doing it about 3 or 4 slow breaths for each one in any order and doing that twice a day. And so, you know, for Memories, we— I'm making smell kits based on what they're using in most of these studies. And so in one of these kits, you have 4 scent inhalers. You would take each one in turn and engage with the smell. You would do it for all 4 of them. And you do that preferably morning and night.

Hmm. Each smell 2 or 3 times. 2 or 3.

Yeah. I mean, in some of these studies, they were just asking participants to smell them for 5 seconds each, but a little more engagement is a good idea. And I should add, like, olfactory training in its sort of first instance is to rehabilitate our sense of smell. And so people who have had like long COVID or sinus infections, the main sort of prescribed treatment is to do olfactory training. Even if you've had like traumatic injury through something to your sense of smell. And so actually Dominika, who, who first read this study, thought, well, this is a great idea. I'm going to do this. She was already working with scent. And so she ordered some tubes off of Amazon and made herself a smell training kit. And had been using it. And one day a woman came in to make a custom scented candle. And as she was sort of testing the different scents, was saying, well, I can't really smell this one, or not, not, there's nothing really here. And this was a woman in her mid-40s. And she shared that when she had been a teenager, she went with them to her mom's work where they were doing like steam pressing of clothes. She was hit in the face with steam and it damaged her sense of smell. And it had never come back the same way in the decades since. And so of course they got to talking and Dominique asked, "Has anyone suggested you try olfactory training?" And she said, "No, what's olfactory training?" "Well, you take each of these, you smell it, you know, this many times, you do it twice a day." And so she gave her her kit and this woman came back after 3 or 4 weeks because she had started to notice changes in her capacity to smell these odors after a few weeks. And that was kind of what set this all off, was no one told this person about it. And then as I started reading more and more studies, there are studies specific with aging populations. Of course, there are studies with healthy older adults showing benefits. There are studies with middle-aged adults showing benefits. There are studies with dementia patients showing benefits. I started asking, who's talking about olfactory training? It's the kind of thing where If there was a pill that showed the promise that sort of olfactory training does, it would be deemed some kind of a magic pill that everyone would start taking. This is simply smelling. And so when I do presentations, you know, it's almost a quote, tough sell in the sense that it seems too easy. You're telling me I just smell this a couple of times a day and I'm going to do better on like memory scores go up, cognition scores go up, I'm going to feel better.

Yeah.

But the way I liken it is, again, we're accustomed to not using our smell for most of our life, unless you are a cook or a wine sommelier. Most of us don't engage with smell that readily. And as most of us know, our brain is kind of a use it or lose it mechanism. So if we evolved using our sense of smell as a primary way to survive, and these days we don't really use it for most of our adult life. And then we start to directly stimulate both the capacity to smell, which gets stronger with olfactory training. And as we're smelling, we're stimulating a neural connection that goes directly to our amygdala, to our hippocampus. This is a remarkably easy way to, quote, train your brain.

That's so fascinating. You're probably reestablishing those memory skills too as we build up that olfactory sense. So 4, 4 scents typically in the kind of range, clove or some kind of floral, citrus, lemon, and then resinous, which is eucalyptus or mint would fall in that category. Yeah, right, right. So should the person always do it full strength or Should the person— can you kind of tone it down? Can you power it down or close off some of the scent? Not full strength.

Yeah, good question. Well, for anyone who's going to go DIY on this, I would caution that we shouldn't be smelling essential oils right from the bottle. So if someone at home is going to try this, you want to put sort of a cotton ball in a closed container that you soak. That allows a bit of air to mix in. So that's one thing.

Sure.

But no, we do want to be using a high concentration. As you know, the sort of gold standard for doing a study is the double-blind placebo test. And, you know, olfactory training doesn't lend itself to this kind of test very well. If I had a group that I gave something that doesn't smell at all and told them, go home and smell this for the next 5 months, they'd think, you know, they're pulling my leg on this. So what they have done is some studies where one group gets sort of the, the strong smelling scent sticks, and another group gets ones that are weaker. And the ones who smell the weaker smelling items don't show the same improvements. So I would suggest using stronger odors. And I would also suggest— this comes up a lot, like, can't I just smell things around my house? And I would absolutely encourage listeners to start engaging more and more with scent. This is a great idea just across the board. But when it comes to something like doing olfactory training itself, consistency is key. So although it's only minutes a day, it really only takes about 5 minutes in a given day. We want to be doing this every single day for months at a time. We're using the brain's capacity and especially our olfactory system's capacity for neuroplasticity. It changes the structures of your brain. This is come through in fMRI studies. That takes time, it takes consistency. And so, as opposed to just smelling spices out of the cupboard, I'm unlikely to be doing that 3 months from now and remembering 2 times a day. So the benefit of having something like a kit that either you purchase or that you even make yourself, you have something dedicated to the purpose. When you see it, you associate it that, oh, this is really great for my brain. This is if you will, the hardest part of olfactory training. It's remembering to do a new thing every single day.

You need some memory training to go along with that. Right.

So having it in the bathroom, on the counter, somewhere you're going to remember.

Yeah. Yeah. I know you're very knowledgeable about this, and I know you're not a licensed healthcare practitioner. And my concern was, are we kind of crossing the line into providing something medical or advising? Some, you know, kind of, I don't know, medical recommendations, and we're not, as you say. It's, you know, offering these 4 cents or whatever the package is and just making the suggestions, and it's not a medical procedure, right? Help me.

That's right. Well, there's a lot that I really like about olfactory training. One is It's really simple to do, and it's also very accessible to do. I have people in their 70s, 80s. I have a gentleman who's 102 years old doing olfactory training, and it's also incredibly safe unless a person has a specific allergy or is already hypersensitive to scent. There's really no potential side effects to this. We're just engaging a sense that we already have that is kind of going underutilized. I'm always really cautious to not make promises about results, because all of the studies actually, which now I've read, yeah, dozens of them, they're showing statistically significant changes in things like verbal fluency, semantic recall. These aren't sort of like— I'm sure there's lots of studies to be done in this area, but these are things that are pretty legit. And when I'm suggesting that people do this, it really is a great idea because you don't know what might happen. I would say that instead of treating it like this is going to help my fill in the blank, treat it like just a new wellness practice and enjoy the process. I now hear from a lot of people who just enjoy this being part of their day, its own mindfulness exercise, this smell good. And so it's a nice thing to start doing and you might get some incredible benefits as a result.

That's a beautiful concept. It's another wellness exercise or wellness approach like any kind of physical activity or dietary or social activity. It's another approach that we can adopt. And why— I mean, just stepping back a little bit, why hasn't big business understood this and incorporated this into, you know, kind of brain health guidelines? What are we missing here?

Yeah, I mean, there's— it's funny you should mention big business because Other retail businesses have started to recognize the power of scent, or places like big, um, luxury hotel chains create their own custom scents that they pipe in through the HVAC systems so that when you're there, you start to feel a certain way. Uh, retail stores, if they know as much, start to scent their stores because people stick around longer and are more likely to buy. So people who have— where there's money to be made, and this knowledge is being utilized. Frankly, I am baffled at sort of the lack of public health information on this topic. You've read the Lancet report on dementia prevention and intervention as well as I have, and I mean, it has its gaps. It doesn't mention sleep at all, but for it not to mention our sense of smell at all anywhere in there, to me is— I really have no idea how that could even happen. Because the research on this isn't— it's, it's not very questionable. There's lots that is actionable for people and shareable without sounding any alarm bells or saying things that are sort of untrue or not substantiated enough. And yeah, I've had to sort of, instead of trying to get involved— I live in Canada— instead of, instead of trying to get involved on a public policy sort of crusade where I keep getting met with sort of frustrations, I've decided to just take this as my own kind of mission of outreach to share with as many people as possible, because why it's not in some places or many at all still as of today, I don't know. The studies with— so there's, as an example, because you like to talk about dementia a fair bit. When I've looked at what's been researched recently, there are people promoting virtual reality. And when someone is having like an, you know, they're escalated, to use virtual reality to help de-escalate them. Well, if you work in long-term care or like a memory ward of a care facility, having people trained on using goggles and putting, putting something on someone's head when they're having an escalated episode, the studies have been done on using just scent through a diffuser, which costs next to nothing. And how that can be such a simple way to de-escalate and help with mood. And it also just is better for the staff. There are so many applications that frankly, I'm amazed we're not using yet.

Well, that's very insightful there that you can see the advantages in our environment. Some of the businesses are adding the fragrances. I've been in hotels where you can smell it. It's very soothing, relaxing. Beautiful smell. So the stores too. Maybe we're just at the beginning, right? Maybe we're just at the kind of forefront of what's to come in 5 years or 10 years where it will be kind of more accepted that this is a good, healthy daily practice to help restore. I know you've talked about the research when you do this olfactory training. You do benefit in a lot of different ways. Our sense of smell is not the only increase, but our mobility and our memory recall and a lot of other benefits. So it's just the beginning, that's my hunch.

Yeah, absolutely. I think there will come a time when, of course, people's family doctor will ask and be checking about their sense of smell, but it's also one of these things where, for anyone who wants to be aging healthily, healthily, it's what I would, pardon the pun, call a no-brainer. It's so simple and easy to do. And again, unless you've spent a lifetime in the culinary arts or something, you've probably understimulated your sense of smell. And so when we do this, when we make a habit of it, we're going to change our brain over time, and it's going to be for the better.

Yeah, yeah. Tell our listeners about the kit that you have available and your website.

So I started doing presentations because I thought I would have wanted to know this when my dad was was sick. He's now— he died 8 years ago. And I'll just reflect a bit here. Of course, when someone gets dementia, you start to look back on signs and things like that. And he had been losing his sense of smell in his 50s, well before any other symptomology showed up. And that wasn't known as anything to pay attention to at that time. To me, now almost 20 years later, for us still not to be paying attention to these things is almost ignorant. We should be sharing this, you know, medical professionals should know better by now if I, just some random person reading a bunch of studies, do. And so I started doing presentations to share this because I would have wanted to have this information for my father, and I want people to have this. There's so many more applications for people on a journey with Parkinson's, diabetes. The COVID stuff is itself its own episode. There are so many ways we can be benefiting from this information. So I started doing presentations and I made little sample kits so we could try smelling along the way. And right away, you know, people said, well, this is really interesting. I want to try it. Can I keep the kit? And I said, well, no, I know I've got another presentation I'm going to do. And I started looking online. And of course, you can buy different scent-based things online and some are better than others and some had mixed reviews. And I thought, well, no, if I'm promoting something called olfactory training, I want to be able to, you know, promote and encourage people as close to what's done in these studies as possible. And so I started making kits myself, and that sort of branched into Memories. For people at home, it's spelled M-E-M-O-R-E-A-S-E, Memories.care. And so I've started firstly by making kits, and then I'm also— I do outreach and presentations, but I also have programs for retirement communities because it's been really exciting having a group of people at one of my presentations start doing olfactory training. But it would be especially exciting when there's a group of 20 or 40 people at one of these communities and literally taking their brain health into their own hands. People get excited. Like, as I've been sharing this, I've found it so motivating. There is a desire for wellness. There's a desire for interesting things. And the feedback that I'm getting from the populations I'm sharing this with has been incredibly positive. I think we have sort of messaging and reality is what it is, but we think of aging as a one, a unidirectional trip. And to think that in your 70s or your 80s, you could start a small practice and start to change how you taste food and start to change how you feel cognitively. I think it's so exciting. I love sharing it with people and I love hearing back from people's experience.

Yeah, I think people are really very welcoming to these ideas that have some evidence-based research behind them, and they feel better with it. And it's not a difficult practice, as you said, it's a no-brainer. So a few minutes in the morning, a few minutes in the evening. So your kit is available on your website, Memoreze, M-E-M-O-R-E-Z-E. E-A-S-E dot care. That's right. Yeah, great. So what's one simple takeaway you'd like our listeners to apply today?

Well, we can all just engage with smell. We have option, you know, the opportunity every day before a meal, when we open the door and step outside. And engagement is key. There are papers about all of our senses. They're all important. And knowing when they start to change and doing something about it is key to living a healthier, longer life. And so smell is the same way. We want to be engaging and noticing it more. That's going to already be a great start for a lot of us.

Yeah, good point. Well, that's what's all behind mindfulness, right? As we stop and really be aware of what we see and hear and taste and smell and touch. So the more sensory awareness we have, the better for us. But let's put our attention a little bit more on the smell, right?

Yeah. Who knew that stopping and smelling the flowers would also improve your memory?

Yeah, of course. Well, that's great, great information. Thank you so much, Jonathan. So I want to thank you for joining me, and if today's conversation gave our listeners something to think about, you'll find more ideas, tools, and discussions at my website livingto100.club and inside my Living to 100 community. Until next time, keep moving forward with purpose, curiosity, and a commitment to living well at every age. See you next time.