Welcome! We stayed for a week in the station of the senses. What have you seen, heard, smelled, tasted or felt this week?
I had a hard time last week! People call it the February dip! The days are too short, too grey, cold and not sunny enough. I miss the new nature, the sun on my face, the spring colors in my wardrobe. I'm tired of the thick sweaters, I don't want to have to put on a coat and gloves and a hat and a scarf every time I go out. I love spring and summer and miss them so much… You too?
I refreshed the living room with some new plants that are tinted pink, I got white tulips, my favorite flowers and a nice picking bouquet on the table. So it is already spring inside. It makes me happy when I look at the flowers. They also smell fantastic!
Yesterday I had to prepare the booklets to send, I was sitting at the table with the flowers, this gave me a spring feeling. So everyone who suffers from the February dip… go to the flower shop! Enjoy the colours, the scents and the spring feeling in your home. My children come for breakfast on Sunday morning. I also try to get something on the plate that spring by choosing colorful fruits, using summer jams and napkins with a spring color.
Last week we talked about different senses. Because not everything had been covered yet, this time I will go a lot deeper into other senses, namely taste, smell, touch, but also your gut feeling.
The next sense we'll talk about is the taste sense † So through the mouth..
The taste buds lie on your tongue and ensure that you can taste different flavors. Taste cannot be separated from the sense of smell. When the smell is limited, you taste much less. You will only be able to perceive the flavors such as sweet, sour, bitter and savory without the smell.
By being able to identify the smells, you are able to enjoy flavors such as menthol, cinnamon and fruits.
We can assess tastes objectively because you perceive salty, creamy or sharp flavors, but taste can also be subjective. Then we are talking about something that you will like or dislike. It is now also about your mouthfeel and structure.
Pure and unprocessed food is important because then you can discover the natural flavors again. You learn again how the food should taste. Due to the addition of chemicals, flavors and colorings, we eat more than is desirable. The taste buds have become less sensitive as a result.
Eating is a necessity, mindful eating is an art!
The sense the smell determines your lifestyle choice more than you think. Scents are attached to our emotions, memories and associations. Smells are linked in our brains to feelings and experiences from the past. Just think about your grandma and grandpa… I'm sure you can immediately bring up the specific scent associated with them. The specific perfume that grandma wears, the smell of apple pie when you go for coffee. A scent that refreshes the toilet,… But maybe also that annoying smell of grandpa's cigar. There is a chance that this will ensure that you do not smoke because you are always reminded of that smell.
I often give the students at school the tip to evoke a smell that they evoke when they were studying a subject. This usually makes it easier to remember that subject matter.
As a human being you can certainly perceive thousands of different smells. But our dog, for example, can do this much better. That is why they are used by the police to, for example, detect drugs. My son is a police inspector and is now training his dog. It is unbelievable what he can already observe and look up.
Some people can practice their profession with their sense of smell, just think of perfume makers. It is impossible for the cook to cook well if he or she cannot perceive the taste or smell.
One sense that is often forgotten is our skin. Or the sensory sense mentioned. This is actually our biggest sense!
It is a network of nerves that are just under the skin and these transmit stimuli to the brain.
These stimuli are then processed into physical sensations. Our sense of touch works very closely with our other senses, making the perception complete. So you can feel by touching the sense of touch. This ensures that pleasant sensations arise such as connection, comfort and eroticism.
But these sensations can certainly also be experienced as unpleasant and we are talking about pain, fear or irritation. Some people are much more sensitive to touch than others.
I myself am a chronic pain patient with a nerve injury and can therefore say with certainty that nerve pain is very difficult to live with!
Finally, I want to dwell on the sense of intuition or popularly called the gut feeling !
You perceive something inwardly, but you actually do not know what this perception is based on. You have the feeling that something is right or wrong. It's a hunch, but we don't know where this comes from.
Sometimes this is also referred to as a spiritual sense. What can and do you want to do with your gut feeling? Does this also affect your lifestyle? You cannot trust your intuition without more, but you learn from your mistakes and that is positive!
Due to our unhealthy lifestyle, the senses are finding it increasingly difficult. The eyes are overstimulated by looking at the screens for a long time.
The hearing is so often exposed to noise, headphones and earphones that are too loud, this often causes hearing damage. We also listen less and less during a conversation, which makes it less easy for us to make contacts.
The senses of taste, smell and touch have a hard time because we use too much salt and sugar. The excessive use of perfume. And by frequently wearing gloves.
Skin hunger is a chapter in my new book 'I think I think too much' We hug too little because of corona!
Try to spoil your senses extra this week because they make life very beautiful.
So you can tackle the February dip by using your senses extra 😊
Kind regards,
Pedrouchka
