We navigate the world successfully using 5 Senses.
Tastes, sounds, smells, sights & touches can be stress antidotes
Did you know that music listening affects us biologically by modulating the stress response? Or that placing your hand on your heart may lower cortisol levels after becoming stressed and lightly massaging and looking at your face can improve not only microcirculation but raises oxytocin levels and can reduce stress?
5 Senses Lab is banking sensory actions for relieving stress that have been scientifically validated. Like, the rapid effects of colour illumination on heart rate variability and significant stress-reducing effects of music.
Our senses evolved as a key part of self-regulation and adapting to our surroundings. We’ve forgotten this in the shift to sedentary work and digital leisure, not least because both can dull and override our senses. Now, neuroscience is reminding us we can increase positive emotion and decrease stress on a rapid and relatively effortless path by strategically activating each of the five senses (Rodriquez and Kross 2023).
Smell something earthy to relieve mental strain. Spend a couple minutes in moonlight to calm the gut-brain axis. Tune out all but ambient sounds for 1-2 minutes while cradling the back of the head with interlocked fingers to free sticky thoughts that won’t settle. Watch the sky on a walk during golden light to build up a spark that’s run low.
We are sourcing sensory actions from peer-reviewed science (RCTs of stress mitigations) and from classic texts of traditional knowledge (Japanese Kampo, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Ayurveda). The connecting line across knowledge bases is joy.
“Try cooking with rosemary while listening to Mozart for a mental boost.”
The wind, it was so insistent
With tales of a stormy south
But when I spied two birds in a sycamore tree
There came a dryness in my mouth
For then without rhyme or reason
Two birds did rise up to fly
And where the two birds were flying
I swear I saw you and I
I walked out this morning
It was like a veil had been removed from before my eyes
For the first time I saw the work of heaven
In the line where the hills had been married to the sky
And all around me
In every blade of singing grass
And inside every turning leaf
Is the pattern of an older tree
The shape of our future
The shape of all our history
And out of the confusion
Where the river meets the sea
Came things I’d never seen
Things I’d never seen
I was brought to my senses
(Sting, 1996)
Activating our senses relieves stress because its effortless and fun.
Smelling the roses
Zest and verve make for a cheerful and long healthy life. We laugh, dance, eat tasty food and smell the roses because it feels good and balances out life’s hard bits. Our senses are crucial for longevity. Our five senses are powerful anti-stress agents helping us adapt to our surroundings.
Reach us at Relief@5SensesLab.com.