Ilchi Lee

–TOUCH–

In the know: Skin deep
The skin is the body’s largest sensory organ, allowing us to feel touch, pressure and temperature, and even read Braille with our fingers. Within the skin, different types of receptors, activated by various stimuli, trigger nerve impulses. We feel the stimulus when those impulses reach the brain, according to research from the University of Washington . Some receptors, however, are superior to others. Our fingers and lips, for example, are more touchy than our backs because they have more receptors.

Sensory specialist: Sensing with fencing
When a cat is walking near a wall it can feel it with its whiskers, and nocturnal animals like highly intelligent raccoons have a finely tuned sense of touch, according to Fred Beall, general curator of Zoo New England. They love getting their hands wet as they amble along rivers and streams, plunging their paws underwater fishing for food.

Newly blind students in the Carroll Center for the Blind’s fencing program feel their way with foils, which they use to ‘measure’ objects in their mind’s eye as they suddenly find themselves navigating a world without the benefit of vision. They use visual imagery to adjust their mental image to the information they receive mainly with their sense of touch.

Participants also rely on their hearing, sense of movement and balance—an array of sounds tells them whether they are touching the end of the foil, its shaft or its handgrip, for example.

The school launched the fencing program in the 1950’s as a corollary to the use of the long cane in mobility training. “Since blind people have difficulty knowing where straight is, the program helps them develop balance, coordination and discipline of movement,” says Arthur O’Neill, Vice President of the Carroll Center .

Fencing is a back and forth motion. Students ‘measure’ their opponent by purposefully touching them to locate their target, and then they take a step back to know they are a step away from their target, using a straight edge on the floor to maintain a straight line. “People become more confident,” says O’Neill. “Once they get an understanding, they have a great sense of achievement and accomplishment.”

Enhancing Touch
Manifestations of a dulled sense of touch—tingling and num-bness in hands and feet—are related to peripheral nervous system blockages. Stimulating the flow and circulation of your blood, nourishing your muscles and extremities, and releasing stagnant energy will enhance your sense of touch.

Place your feet parallel and shoulder-width apart with knees slightly bent. Completely relax your arms at your sides. Begin to bounce slightly up and down on your knees while gracefully swinging alternate arms up and down in rhythm with your knees. Move your head while following your arms with your eyes from left to right. Relax your body while bouncing. Repeat as desired. The benefits of this exercise will be heightened if you perform it as a graceful, slow dance.

–HEARING–

In the know: Prick up your ears
The ear contains structures for our sense of hearing and balance. Sound waves cause the tympanic membrane or eardrum to vibrate. Whether you are tuned in to the measured 20 decibels (dB) of a watch ticking, or the aural assault of a jackhammer (120 dB), your ear can detect sound waves with frequencies between 20 and 20,000 hertz (Hz). The three bones in the ear—the malleus, incus and stapes pass these vibrations on to the cochlea, in the inner ear. Hair cells or cilia located on the cochlea make contact with the tectorial membrane. When vibration excites the hair cells, a nerve impulse is generated in the auditory nerve that is then shuttled to the brain.

Sensory specialist: Hello, ‘Llo, ‘Llo
When you look at the relative size of a bat’s ears and their uncanny resemblance to satellite dishes, it is easy to guess that this is their most highly tuned sense.

Bats use echolocation—a sensory system in which high-pitched, usually ultrasonic (above the range of human hearing) sounds are emitted and their echoes interpreted to determine the direction and distance of objects—to tell whether an object is something to steer clear of or something good to eat, according to Bats , by Sue Ruff and Don E. Wilson.

An echolocating bat knows what is moving around it while it is moving. But we do not yet know whether the bat receives an image in its brain in the same way an ultrasound machine creates an image on a screen, according to Bats .

Enhancing HEARING
Our ears move least when we exercise. The ear has about two hundred acupressure points correlated with our body’s functions. Boost the ears’ proper functioning (and the rest of your body) by massaging your ears. With your thumbs and index fingers, gently tug your ears in all directions to stimulate the acupressure points. Next, cover your ears with flattened palms. Relax your mouth and keep it slightly open. Apply gentle pressure as you slowly count to three and release quickly. Repeat five times.

–SMELL–

In the know: Fragrant memories
Smell was our first and is our most direct sense. When the olfactory bulb detects something (humans can distinguish more than 10,000 different odorants), it signals the brain’s cerebral cortex and sends a message straight into the limbic system, a mysterious, ancient, and intensely emotional section of our brain. This is the center that is responsible for making us feel, lust and invent. When you bring something to your nose and inhale, odor molecules drift back into the nasal cavity behind the bridge of your nose, where they are absorbed by the mucosa containing receptor cells bearing microscopic hairs called cilia. Five million of these receptor cells, which are unique to the nose, blast impulses to the brain’s olfactory bulb or scent center. Of all the senses, the sense of smell is most closely tied to our memories, a connection that helps to protect us from harm. The memory of what smoke smells like, for example, alerts us to the danger of fire. For the same reason, over time, there is very little loss of odor memories.

Ilchi Lee

Sensory specialist: Super sniffers
A dog’s nose is his greatest sensory organ. His sense of smell is so great he can follow a trail that is weeks old, detect odors diluted to one-millionth the concentration humans would need to notice them, and even sniff out a person under water.

According to the National Geographic News, Larry Myers, a professor of veterinary medicine at Alabama ’s Auburn University , says that with the right training dogs can learn to detect some cancers in humans. James Walker, director of the Sensory Research Institute at Florida State University in Tallahassee , will train dogs to detect cancer in humans. Walker and his colleague and wife, Dianne, hope to demonstrate that dogs can sniff out prostrate cancer in human urine samples. Walker warns that the work is preliminary, according to the National Geographic News. He predicts that it will be a minimum of five years before dogs, or canine-inspired technology, greet people who request cancer screening, according to the National Geographic News.

Enhancing smell
To sharpen your sense of smell, perform this exercise when you wake up. Inhale. Rub your middle fingers against each other to create heat energy. Breathe naturally while you place your fingers on either side of your nose. Press and massage for approximately five minutes.

–TASTE–

In the know: Zesty buds
Our sense of taste detects four basic sensations—sweet, salty, sour and bitter. More recently, increasing consensus has built to add a fifth taste, called umami, to the list. Sometimes described as “savory,” “brothy,” or “meaty,” umami is conveyed by several substances, including the amino acid glutamate. Glutamate occurs naturally in many foods, including fish, cheese, tomatoes, peas, and human milk. As monosodium glutamate, it is often used to enhance the flavor of food, according to the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia .

The actual organ of taste is called the “taste bud.” Each taste bud (and there are approximately 10,000 taste buds in humans) consists of between 50-150 receptor cells, which live for only 1 to 2 weeks before new receptor cells replace them. Each receptor in a taste bud responds best to one of the basic tastes. A receptor can respond to the other tastes, but it responds strongest to a particular taste.

Sensory specialist: Sweet nectar
The monarch butterfly’s sense of taste is approximately 12,000 times more sensitive than a human’s, according to www.EnchantedLearning.com. A butterfly’s feet have sense organs that can taste the sugar in nectar, telling the insect if something is good to eat. Using organs on their legs, some female butterflies also taste host plants in order to find good places to lay their eggs. These receptors, called chemoreceptors, are nerve cells on the body’s surface that react to certain chemicals. We have similar receptors in our noses and tongues, according to the site.

Enhancing TASTE
Association training is most effective in developing one’s sense of taste. Without using any actual food, imagine foods that have a bitter, sweet or sour taste. Imagine putting these foods in your mouth one by one and savoring their taste.

–SIGHT–

In the know: Eye spy
The retina, which is the size of your thumbnail, is filled with approximately 150 million light-sensitive cells called rods and cones, according to the ThinkQuest Library. Rods identify shapes and work best in dim light, while cones identify color and work best in bright light. Rods and cones relay information to the brain via the optic nerve. When they send an image to the brain, the image is upside down. The visual cortex turns the image right side up and then identifies what is being viewed.

Sensory specialist: Eagle eye
Eagles, such as the bald eagle, can see at least twice as far as humans, according to Eagles & Birds of Prey by Eyewitness Books. In one test, a buzzard saw grasshoppers 330 ft. away, while a human could only see them 100 ft. away. The eyes of a Eurasian buzzard can be as big as an adult human’s eyes, although the human body weighs 50 times as much. Birds of prey have such enormous eyes that they cannot move them in their sockets. Instead, they can see all around by turning their heads with their long, flexible necks.

It is difficult to know exactly how far an eagle can see. It is clear, however, that a golden eagle can see a rabbit at least one mile away.

Enhancing Vision
To sustain the strength of your eyes, it is important to supply oxygen and energy around the nerves that nourish them. Rub your palms together until they are warm and tingly. Place both of your hands over your eyes with the center of your palms closest to your eyes. Keep your eyes open and rotate your eyeballs up and down, clockwise and to either side. This reduces redness in the eyes, helps maintain visual acuity, relieves eye fatigue and helps eyes look vibrant and healthy.

The ‘Sixth’ Sense?
Heightened Sensory Perception or HSP
Humans have inner senses that they are not aware of. These senses are part of a heightened sense, and they distinguish human beings from other animals on an essential, intrinsic level. The five senses this article covers are all senses that play a relative role. They are all senses that have a material basis. Heightened sensory perception is the ability to perceive information beyond the reach of the five senses. The sixth sense is a sense of another dimension, not of a material essence, and can only be developed when the human being evolves on a spiritual level.

Our ability to feel energy or our energy sense is part of our sixth sense, which can be developed with mindful concentration. Energy exists everywhere in the universe and is always enveloping and embracing us, but because we are so tied down to our five senses, we are not able to feel it. In ancient times, although people might not have known and understood energy on a systematic level, they knew of the existence of energy experientially and used it in shamanic arts. However, as a material culture centered on the five senses developed, people began to live a life without knowing energy. Even though they were surrounded by energy they could not feel it and thought of the five senses as all there was. Dahn (and other energy-based practices) is designed to reawaken our sense of energy. This reawakening helps us nurture a healthy body, mind and spirit.

Kristen Paulson is copy editor of body & brain and editor of Brookline Magazine . She lives in Brookline , Massachusetts , USA .

About Ilchi Lee

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