How to Celebrate your Senses

This Friday, June 24, is Celebrate Your Senses Day.

We all learned about the five senses in grade school, vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell.

But did anyone explain to you that the only information our brain, sitting in our small, dark skull, has about the world we live in comes from those senses.  Every thought and movement are a reaction to the information received from our senses.  An abundance of   accurate information leads to excellent movement and thought process.  Vice versa is also true.

Our sensory system is vital to survival, success and happiness.  Do you celebrate it?

Our Lifestyle Confines Our Senses

Think about day to day living and the confines it places on our sensory system

Touch – from the time we are toddlers we have been told not to touch things, they are: dirty, someone else’s, breakable, valuable, have “germs”, etc…  When is the last time you touched random items out of curiosity and paid attention to the texture, temperature and size?

Smell – We put artificial scents into our laundry, cars, homes and on to our bodies.  Complex air freshener systems are at work in our kitchens, restaurants and stores.  Food is packaged, vacuum sealed and has been picked too early eliminating the natural scents.

Taste – Food that has been harvested before being ripe and shipped in refrigerated compartments loses it’s flavor.  Processed foods contain so many chemicals that it is hard to know what the food originally tasted like.

Sound – More and more we have “buds” in our ears.  Not only does this limit the tone of the sound, but it eliminates the depth and distance perception.

Vision – how many hours a day are your eyes focused on a screen?  This is like putting your eyes into a cage, limiting their range of motion.  Unfortunately, this causes the muscles which control our eyes to weaken reducing our ability to scan our environment or even maintain good posture.  (Your eyes are the steering wheel of your body, if they droop downward, so will your head.)

This Friday, June 24, Celebrating Your Senses.

Practice moving your eyes side to side, up and down.  Pay attention to how much more you can see.

Remove the ear buds and listen to vibrations and sounds which surround you.

Smell and taste real food.  Stop and smell the roses and other flowers and trees as you walk.

Touch, touch, touch.  Touch things and actually pay attention to how they feel.  Is the texture soft, rough, bumpy?  Is it cold, hot or in between?  Does it give you pleasure (like bubble wrap)?

As you engage your senses, don’t be surprised that you actually start to move better, have less pain and feel happier.  Increasing the amount and accuracy of information your brain receives from your senses will improve your brain’s overall ability to function on every level.

Celebrate Your Senses, Celebrate Your Life!

See, hear and  feel the clouds, water and sand intermingle