Do you struggle with anxiety and focus? Did you know that spending a few minutes a day training your senses can help you relax and improve your intuition at the same time? By focusing on improving your sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, balance, movement skills you are better able to hone in on the world around you. Being better connected to your universe calms your nerves and allows them to react when they need to and remain chill when you want to relax. In this episode Dr. Jannine Krause discusses how a conversation about getting out of an active shooter situation led to her researching how your senses can protect you and calm your fight or flight response at same time to heal your anxiety over time.
What You’ll Learn In Today’s Episode:
• Why dialing in your senses benefits your nervous system
• Why those with sharp senses prevail in dangerous situations
• How to train each of your senses in a few minutes a day
• Why training your senses improves your intuition
Resources from the Show:
• Sight (opthalmoception) train your eyes to focus better with ‘pencil push ups’ and following your finger with the “H” in space.
o Take a pencil or use your finger and move it to the nearest point where your vision blurs. Then move it away from you slowly till your arm is fully out-stretcheed. Do 15 reps and 3 sets a day. Or play with switching focus from things in the distance to things closer to you or trace the horizon line – 15 seconds for 3 reps.
o Check out The Bioneer’s Post on this type of training!
• Hearing (audioception) – play with closing your eyes and trying to figure out where certain sounds are coming from
• Taste (gustaoception) – put words to the taste and what it feels like on your tongue; conscious eating training helps considerabley with improving digestion and weight loss as most of us can’t truly describe a meal that we just consumed. Play with this at your next meal and subsequent ones – see if you can taste multiple flavors and what do they feel like on your tongue (also training touch here as the tongue feels)
• Smell (olfacoception) – put words to what you smell and if it goes with a taste; smell and memories are linked – seek out smells that feel good – I like leaves in the fall and salty air in the morning
• Touch (tactioception) – close your eyes and feel your surroundings. Crawl on the ground, dig I a junk drawer or clothes drawer or your closet and see if you can guess what article of clothing you are touching, take off your shoes and socks and go barefoot to feel your world differently. Walk on all 4s doing a bear crawl to feel your world differently.
• Temperature (thermoception) – body temp and how different areas feel – yes you can tell hands and feet but what about core, areas of inflammation? Don’t touch them focus on them at first then touch – a lot of folks carrying a bit of extra weight will notice the belly and bum are cold.
• Kinesthetic awareness (proprioception) = when trained subconsciously body more confident in movements triggers you to feel more confident in movement. Moving with eyes closed – great for this and balance.
• Pain (nociception) – feel if this is connected to temperature of areas of the body
• Balance (equilibrioception) – when balance is trained body is more confident in moving move better – as soon as I close my eyes on the bosu ball I struggle to balance – check out my podcast Ep 103 for more information
• Detect salt and carbon dioxide concentrations in your blood (chemoreceptors) – you can keep the carbon dioxide in check by taking deep breaths – 5 count inhale and exhale for 10 rounds twice a day.
There are 9 main senses and many can be combined on the same day of training such as kinesthetic awareness and balance, taste and smell OR smell and sight. I like to practice hearing and balance together with my eyes closed.
There’s no one way to do this and there’s no wrong way to do this. The idea is to get in touch with your body and become more aware of your senses by practicing a little sensory training each day. So that when it counts to be on point with these you are prepared!
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If you maintain your senses you’ll develop a nervous system that is sharp and reacts appropriately to calm anxiety and improve focus. Want to learn how to be as healthy as you can be as you get older? Click Below Now!
