Ways to Sharpen Your Senses
Our experience of the world – our “reality” – comes from our five SENSES. So, to make your experience better, here are some ways to sharpen each of them, courtesy of Health magazine.
- SIGHT. Your child blows out his birthday candles. The sun sets over the ocean. Fully 70% of the sensory information that defines our world is visual. But by age 40, most of us start losing the ability to see clearly. So, to protect your sight, the basics are: wear sunglasses outside, eat right and don’t smoke. But beyond that, shake up your routine. Finding a new way to work, or rearranging your furniture, will give your eyes fresh stimuli, and strengthen them.
- Your sense of SMELL. Food tastes better when we can smell properly. Also, our sense of smell protects us from things like fire – by smelling smoke, and from eating spoiled food. So to keep your sense of smell strong, bombard your nose with different scents for a few minutes each day. Candles, various wines, essential oils and so on. This’ll help create new receptors.
- SOUND. Each ear has about 15,000 hairs that transmit sounds to your brain to be processed. But thanks to aging and loud noises, we’re slowly losing our ear hair! So, make sure you turn down your iPod and other loud sounds. Normal conversation is about 60 decibels. If you turn your iPod up to just one-QUARTER of full volume, that’s 85 decibels – a danger zone.
- TASTE. We have 10,000 tastebuds scattered all over our tongue and if you want to get the most from them, the best thing you can do is EAT SLOWLY. That gives the molecules in ANY food more exposure to your olfactory nerves, increasing the intensity and pleasure. And keep your mouth moist. Saliva gets those molecules to your tastebuds, so chew a stick of gum or drink some water to get the juices flowing.
- TOUCH. We all lose about 1% of our sense of touch every year, beginning in our 20’s. But thankfully, the outer layer of our skin is renewed continuously, and you can REV UP those touch receptors by doing one simple thing: Slathering on lotion daily. This’ll keep your nerve endings moist, making them more sensitive.
