Today I am going to share about our fifth sense – “Sense of Touch”. Why our sense of touch works and how to use it to de-stress.
We have over 500,000 touch detectors and 200,000 temperature detectors which helps us to feel, and also make us aware of our existence. After birth, we learned about our surroundings and safety by the way we were held by adults around us, at least for the first few months (parents and grandparents pay attention). Later of course in school; college; work, we have to learn new (appropriate) ways to touch.
We naturally crave for a gentle touch! However due to our individualistic life styles and certain man made laws with (due respect), physical proximity among people seems to have decreased over the years. As a result, we have become habituated to not to be too close to people, even to our near and dear ones. Mostly we no longer notice other’s touch. We seem to have become numb.
How it works
Its reversible, to the point where we can feel the touch and also use this sense to de-stress ourselves in daily life.
When stressed and feeling low (even while having low BP), simply rub hands together for few minutes until they are warm, while breathing normally. Now we can use the touch of warm hands in two ways – a) by crossing them in front of our chest and hugging ourselves, or b) by gently pressing our hands on our face for few minutes with our eyes closed. However, if we are feeling anxious or having hyper/racing thoughts or high BP, we put our hands under cold water and then either hug ourselves and/or press hands on our face for few minutes with our eyes closed.
We may use hot or cold hands to help our dear ones – by gently hugging them; by holding their hands with a moderate grip; by putting hands on their shoulder (if they allow of course). Like I mentioned in the beginning, with a gentle touch we get the same feelings that we had after birth, the feeling comfort and our existence.
Few other ways of using sense of touch for comfort – touching soft toy, pet, holding a baby, flowers, plants, soft piece of cloth, clean sheets etc.
When we are less stressed our brain function improves; our bodies perform and appear better; our skin become radiant. Quality of our brain and body chemicals improve, and our energy/vibrations also change.
Don’t we want that? So let’s start paying attention to these five senses and start using them to de-stress ourselves and our loved ones!!
Feel free to write to me, I will be happy to answer your questions.