The five senses considered are well known. I count the 6th sense too because I’m learning to respect mine.
All of our senses are connected to our brain. The brain receives the stimulus through the senses and converts the “data” into thoughts, feelings, memories, information.
- Hearing#
- Taste#
- Touching#
- Smell #
- Sight or eye vision#
I find it rather disturbing that of all five senses (or maybe 6 senses, to be more accurate) the ones that we use more frequently when using the web are sight or eye vision, followed by and hearing. But mainly the sight.
I find it challenging to live without the web, that’s a certainty. Everything else is uncertain. This is not. At least for me.
But using your eyes on that blue light of the computer or cellphone is mentally exhausting, especially during the dark phase of the circadian cycle (between 11 Pm and 4 AM). Messes with it.
Messes up with your regulating system, especially the ones related to dopamine regulation (so-called happiness hormone), quality of sleep, weight control, blood sugar rate.
Nowadays we can’t escape the computers and the cellphones.
The least we can do to give propper use of all our senses, is stimulating them. With purpose. With presence.
Because if we don’t, in the long term-run, we might be dooming it to the disappearance. Becoming a little less being (animals have all those senses too). A little less human.
That is what happens with the brain, when parts of it aren’t being used.
When we learn new things, new paths of neurons are created. When we stop doing things we use to: the path might erase.
In the road of progress, we should keep the good habits, improve them if we want. And if we have to replace something: let us replace the bad habits.
Let us go back to the senses.
I find meditation a powerful way to stimulate our senses. All six of them. It literally accurate all of them, while the eyes over-stimulated by the exterior world when opened, turn this time to look inside.
But if meditation isn’t your thing and Its benefits don’t make you curious, you can still stimulate all of your senses in different easy ways…Just requires full presence.
Stimulate Your Sense of Touch…
….Embrace, embrace, embrace. For your health: embrace.
See the benefits of embracing on the following link: Hugs can make you happier
Stimulate You Sense of Smell…
Prime yourself every day with a smell you enjoy. Might be your favorite person’s smell in the whole world. Might be your facial cream. It might be your favourite fragrance, the smell of coffee, the smell of cinnamon…
(Cinnamon = Sinne’man?
Sinnerman By Nina Simone https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sinnerman+nina)
(Personal Small Talk About Cinnamon)
Angolan and a descendant of people from S. Tome e Principe (by my father’s side). The first time I went there I landed at night so, my eyes weren´t to register a visual memory with impac. But the smell of cinnamon, as coming out from the plain, the air filled with that pleasant smell: I just can’t get over it).Certainly many cinnamon trees among all that green. Cinnamon island. I’m my memory archive
Stimulate Your Sense of Taste…
… Chew your meals with full presence.
One of the things I remember I improved when I stopped smoking for the first time (I’m smoking again now) was the taste of food: everything was more intense. Almost seemed like I was in a new me, old flavours seemed renewed. What a pleasant surprise.
Most of the time we eat talking, and thinking of other things: try to do it with focus on food. My morning coffee is more than a habit: it’s a ritual. The other coffees of the day are ok: needed, the force of habit. But the morning coffee, is my donation to myself. In taste.
You can exercise taste with what ever it gives you joy: just do it as a Ceremonial of Taste. You might eat in auto-pilot on other occasions: but prime your self with ”taste” a least once a day.
Stimulate Your Sense of Hearing…
… For me is music, is my addiction. Like Jimi Hendrix would say: “Music is a kind of high”.
But, with the risk of sounding repetitive here, I must confess: meditation Is amazing here. Sometimes, when I meditate in silence, I can hear the electricity – yes, electric energy – passing. Still not sure if it’s the electricity that is less silent or if my hearing sense more accurate.
But if you’re fond of birds sound: go ahead and listen to them. With full presence and you’ll feel it too. Through all your body.
(Once we’re talking about hearing….Stop, look, listen to your Heart by Marvin Gaye: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzg8Vm8rYrs)
If you prime yourself, every day, with little things to delight your senses: Your All Being Will Appreciate.
