From Olfactory Enrichment to Olfactory Training
How aroma can become part of a repeatable pathway for state awareness and state transition
By Adora Winquist Soule
Emerging neuroscience is bringing wider attention to olfaction as a sensory pathway associated with memory, emotion, sleep and cognitive health. Tactical Alchemy® translates this growing understanding into structured, repeatable educational practices that pair aroma with breath, touch, focused attention and repetition.
Before Language
Scent can reach us before we have found words for what we are feeling.
An aroma may bring forward the warmth of a childhood kitchen, the presence of someone we love, the atmosphere of a place we have not visited in decades, or a feeling we cannot immediately name. The response can be swift, embodied and surprisingly complete.
This is one of the reasons olfaction has held my attention for nearly three decades. I have never experienced aroma as merely decorative. Olfaction is not simply a sense. It is an access point into relationships with memory, emotion, attention and embodied state.
A recent conversation between Dave Asprey and neuroscientist Dr. Michael Leon brought renewed public attention to this field. Their discussion explored olfaction in relation to memory, sleep, cognitive aging and brain health. It also opens an important next question: What happens when we move beyond simply experiencing aroma and begin intentionally training with it?
What the Research Is Beginning to Show
Olfaction is anatomically and functionally intertwined with brain systems involved in memory and emotion. Human single-neuron research published in Nature in 2024 found distinct odor representations across several brain regions and highlighted amygdala involvement in the emotional processing of odors and hippocampal involvement in odor-related memory.¹ This does not mean that every aroma produces a predictable emotional result. Personal history, preference, context, concentration and expectation all matter. It does help explain why scent can feel immediate, personal and deeply evocative.
Dr. Leon and colleagues have also studied olfactory enrichment: repeated exposure to varied odors over time. In a randomized study of 43 cognitively healthy adults ages 60 to 85, participants in the enriched group received one of seven odorants for two hours each night over six months. Compared with the control group, the enriched group showed a statistically significant difference on one verbal learning and memory measure, along with a change in the left uncinate fasciculus, a white-matter pathway connecting regions involved in memory and socio-emotional processing.
The widely reported figure of a 226 percent improvement refers to the difference between the enriched and control groups on a specific trial of the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test. It should not be interpreted as a 226 percent improvement in overall memory or as proof that aroma prevents cognitive decline. The study was small, and the authors themselves called for larger clinical trials. Its importance lies in what it suggests: sustained olfactory enrichment may influence measurable aspects of cognition and neural functioning, and olfaction deserves serious scientific attention.
Research also indicates that odors can operate as contextual memory cues. In a 2022 human study, olfactory cues supported delayed recall of verbal information, although the effect did not generalize to every type of memory tested. This nuance matters. An odor is not a universal switch. It can become meaningful through association, salience, repetition and context.
From Olfactory Enrichment to Intentional Training
Olfactory enrichment and olfactory training are related, but they are not identical.
Enrichment typically emphasizes exposure to a variety of odors, often to stimulate or rehabilitate the olfactory system. Tactical Alchemy® asks a different applied question: Can a chosen aroma be intentionally paired with a repeatable embodied practice so that it becomes part of a familiar pathway for entering a desired state?
The distinction is important. The aroma itself does not contain calm, focus, readiness or resilience. Instead, it becomes one element within a sensory sequence. The participant notices the present state, chooses the quality they want to practice, and repeatedly pairs aroma with a specific breath rhythm, touch point and focus of attention.
Over time, the aroma may become a recognizable cue that helps initiate the practiced sequence. The mechanism proposed here is associative learning, not magic and not a claim that scent alone controls the nervous system. The meaning of the cue develops through consistent pairing and retrieval.
CUE → PAIR → REPEAT → RETRIEVE
Why Pair Aroma With Breath and Touch
Tactical Alchemy® is multisensory by design. Aroma captures attention and carries associative potential. Breath gives the practice rhythm. Touch brings attention into the body. Focused awareness helps the participant notice what is present before and after the practice. Repetition gives the sequence continuity.
Breathing research provides an additional scientific foundation. A 2021 experimental study found that a single session of deep, slow breathing using equal four-second inhalations and exhalations, followed by longer exhalations, was associated with reduced anxiety and changes in physiological measures in healthy adults.⁴ Slow breathing research more broadly suggests that respiratory pacing can influence autonomic activity, although results vary with the technique, population and outcome being measured.
Touch is used here as an attentional and interoceptive anchor, not as a medical treatment. Placing a hand over the heart or belly creates a clear physical location for awareness. The intention is to bring the practice out of abstraction and into direct experience.
Together, these elements create a coherent sensory pattern. The power of the method is not in adding more stimulation. It is in making the sequence specific enough to repeat.
The Tactical Alchemy Framework
The first movement is:
NOTICE → CHOOSE → PRACTICE → REPEAT
- Notice. Begin by recognizing the current state without judgment or force.
- Choose. Identify the quality you want to practice, such as steadiness, focus, readiness, recovery or rest.
- Practice. Pair a selected aroma with a defined breath rhythm, touch point and focus of attention.
- Repeat. Return to the same sequence consistently so that it becomes familiar and easier to retrieve.
The second movement describes how the sensory pattern is learned:
- Cue. Introduce the selected aroma.
- Pair. Connect it with breath, touch, attention and the state being practiced.
- Repeat. Use the same sequence across multiple sessions.
- Retrieve. Return to the familiar sequence during a transition or when that practiced quality is needed.
A Two Minute Practice for Steadiness
The following REGULATE practice illustrates how the framework can be applied:
- Pause and notice your present state. There is nothing to fix and no need to force a change.
- Choose the quality you want to practice. For this exercise, choose steadiness.
- Bring the selected aroma gently into your awareness, following its directions for safe use.
- Place one hand over the heart and the other over the belly.
- Inhale for a count of four and exhale for a count of four.
- Repeat for four to six comfortable breath cycles while maintaining gentle awareness of the aroma and touch points.
- At the end, notice what has shifted. The change may be physical, emotional, attentional or very subtle.
- Return to the same pairing over time. The objective is not to manufacture a feeling. It is to practice the pathway.
A Portable Framework for Real Transitions
State transitions occur throughout daily life: waking and preparing, moving into focused work, recovering after intensity, shifting from responsibility into rest, or meeting an emotionally charged moment with greater awareness.
In military and other high-stress environments, those transitions can be frequent and consequential. Tactical Alchemy® applies olfaction within a portable, non-clinical multisensory training framework designed to support readiness, regulation, recovery and resilience. Participants learn brief practices that can complement established performance, wellness and clinical resources without claiming to replace them.
The same principle can be adapted for workplaces, caregivers, educators, wellness programs and individuals seeking a practical ritual for focus, emotional steadiness or sleep readiness. The practice is brief, but its value depends on consistency. A cue becomes useful because it has been practiced, not because it is inherently powerful in isolation.
What We Know and What Still Needs Study
The scientific foundation for Tactical Alchemy® is best understood component by component. Research supports important relationships among olfaction, memory, emotion and cognitive function. Human research also supports the potential of odor as a contextual cue and the capacity of paced breathing to influence psychophysiological state.
However, the complete Tactical Alchemy® protocol—aroma paired with prescribed breathing, touch, focused attention and repetition—has not yet been evaluated in a peer-reviewed clinical trial. Its current use should therefore be described as an educational, experiential and performance-support framework rather than a treatment for PTSD, traumatic brain injury, anxiety, sleep disorders, dementia or any other medical condition.
That boundary does not diminish the work. It clarifies the next research questions: Does consistent sensory pairing improve adherence to self-regulation practices? Can a trained aroma cue help someone begin a breathing sequence more readily? How do preference and personal memory affect outcomes? What changes might be observed in perceived stress, transition time, sleep readiness or heart-rate variability?
These are measurable questions. They create a responsible bridge between lived experience, applied practice and future research.
Training the Transition
Olfaction is finally receiving the attention it deserves. Emerging research invites us to recognize scent as more than a pleasant background experience. Yet understanding why scent matters is only the beginning.
The next step is practice.
When we choose an aroma, pair it intentionally with breath, touch and attention, and return to that same pattern over time, we create something deeply practical: a pathway we can carry with us.
Not a promise to escape every difficult state. A practice for meeting the moment we are in and preparing for the state we need next.
This is Tactical Alchemy®. This is how we Train the Transition.
Inhale Nature™. Return to Yourself.
References
Kehl MS et al. Single-neuron representations of odours in the human brain. Nature. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08016-5
Woo CC, Miranda B, Sathishkumar M, Dehkordi-Vakil F, Yassa MA, Leon M. Overnight olfactory enrichment using an odorant diffuser improves memory and modifies the uncinate fasciculus in older adults. Frontiers in Neuroscience. 2023;17:1200448. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2023.1200448
Sorokowska A et al. Odor-based context-dependent memory: influence of olfactory cues on delayed recall. 2022. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9053110/
Magnon V et al. Benefits from one session of deep and slow breathing on vagal tone and anxiety in young and older adults. Scientific Reports. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98736-9
About the Author
Adora Winquist is an author, educator, healer and entrepreneur with nearly three decades of experience in aromatherapy and vibrational medicine. She is the creator of Tactical Alchemy®, Aromatic Neural Repatterning™ and Essential Oil Based Tapping™, and the co-founder of MilSpec Formulas. Her work brings together ancient plant wisdom, sensory practice and emerging science to support greater agency, coherence and conscious state transition.
