Usually when someone says, “Stop and smell the roses”, it means that person wants you to slow down, relax, unwind. Well, as a caregiver, you may find yourself agreeing with the idea and wishing you could take a moment here and there to enjoy a quick sniff.

But no, wait! There are other reasons you may want to indulge in a whiff or two.

Recent studies suggest that there is an entirely different reason to pause and take pleasure in the aroma of not only flowers, but coffee perking, popcorn popping, and freshly baked bread.

Pausing to breathe in the lovely fragrance of a favorite flower does more than provide a person with a moment of pleasure. The actual process of smelling helps stimulate the neural pathways in our brain to keep them clear or even encourage new branches.

Alan Hirsch, director of the Smell & Taste Treatment & Research Foundation in Chicago says, “Someone who is colorblind can look at red and green all day but never see it. But with smell, you can actually cause nerve connections to act and smell what perhaps you couldn’t before.”

Ron Winnegrad, director of International Flavors Fragrances Inc.’s New York perfumery school, teaches aspiring perfumers the basics of perfume skills. His first rule of thumb: Be scent-conscious in your day-to-day life. “If you’re drinking a cup of coffee or tea, actually smell it before you drink it, and when eating food, smell it first.” he says. “If you do this on a regular basis, you will increase your sense of smell.”

Of all the senses, the sense of smell is the most closely tied to memories – especially childhood memories. After nearly a half century, I occasionally catch a whiff of something that takes me back to summer mornings when I was a child in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where we spent our summers.

One of the saddest aspects of my Mama’s dementia was the realization that she had lost her sense of smell. Her favorite flower was wisteria. We had a beautiful vine full of lovely lavender flowers growing near our front porch. I tried to encourage Mama to try smelling them, but she wasn’t able to understand what to do when I put a flower up near her nose.

If your loved one has any sense of smell, aromatherapy is worth a try. Even if it does nothing to reverse or delay cognitive impairment, it has been shown to reduce or ease some of the disturbing symptoms of dementia.

Alistair Burns, professor of old age psychiatry at the University of Manchester in the U.K. says, “A whiff of soothing lavender or exposure to bright light may be enough to relieve some of the most disturbing symptoms of dementia.”

The British researcher  says certain alternative therapies may be effective ways to counter the effects of mental decline without the negative side effects of some medications.

So, what are you waiting for? Find a flower, bring to your nose. Sniff. Repeat.