Getting back in touch with your senses

Image: Yoann Boyer on Unsplash

Recently I started a new job with a well-known tech company. The culture of this particular company is pretty remarkable, and they’ve been voted the best company in the entire world to work for several times in the last years. I didn’t actually know that before I got the job and was thrilled when I learned about it.

But what is it that brings a company to be the best in the world? It is many things of course, but as an experienced practitioner of many forms of meditation over more than 30 years, it didn’t surprise me at all to learn that the company had what was described as a ‘conscious culture’, and that I could even join a meditation group run by paid, highly professional mindfulness consultants, and regularly practice mindfulness as part of my working time.

Practicing mindfulness is good for most people, of course, and it is also good for developing a healthy, creative, innovative corporate culture. While I’m incredibly privileged to work for such an amazing company, practicing mindfulness doesn’t require courses, expensive seminars or even guided meditations. Some of the most powerful mindfulness techniques I know can be done anywhere, at any time, and involve simply reconnecting with our senses.

Just paying attention to the way you are using your five physical senses, right here, right now, can work as a powerful mindfulness exercise.

Don’t overcomplicate things

A lot of people make mindfulness and meditation way too complicated. Breathing in special way, finding a quiet space, finding the perfect guided meditation, getting up at 4am to meditate and so on. But none of that is actually necessary to start practicing mindfulness. To start being mindful right here, right now, all we have to do is stop paying attention to things (like our phones, bills, news, email, notifications, messages, and so on) and instead start paying direct attention to our physical senses.

Research tells us that shifting from thinking mode to directly experiencing with our senses can reduce stress. An October 2015 study where researchers had 51 college students tackle the chore of washing dishes, instructed some to really focus on the act (scent of the soap, warmth of the water, weight of the dishes) while others were left alone to just do the task.

Afterwards the students completed a self-assessment. Those who primarily focused on the sensory experience of washing reported a 27% reduction in nervousness and negative feelings and enjoyed a 25% increase in mental inspiration. The control group experienced no changes.

Our five physical senses tell us about the world around us

Deliberately reconnecting with our physical senses is an exploration of external consciousness. External consciousness is concerned with our five physical sensory organs and how they enable us to physically perceive the world around us. These five physical senses need little introduction, and are sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. We all learn about them by virtue of being human and interacting with our physical world.

Our external consciousness, physical senses are all utterly intrinsic to the experience of being human, but in our busy lives, we often don’t simply slow down and use these senses deliberately, just for the sheer joy of sensing.

Two of the senses — sight and hearing — are so significant to what we regard as ‘normal’ in society that we label those without them as having a disability. We often struggle to integrate people without these senses into society, because, without sight or hearing, their experience of life is difficult for others to grasp and beyond the familiar shared reference points of the vast majority of the population.

Some of us have developed one physical sense more than others. An inclination towards, or an unusually refined sense may lead to a career that requires a higher-than-normal application of that sense. For instance, people with exceptional sight may be attracted to aviation, someone with an exceptional sense of smell may find themselves working designing perfumes, someone with an exceptional sense of taste may gravitate towards being a chef, someone with exceptional color sense may find themselves an interior or graphic designer.

In general, western society focuses much more on personality than sensory ability when it categorizes people into careers and occupations. This is an oversight in my opinion because doing work aligned with the sense that you are most naturally drawn to will almost always be profoundly rewarding, will likely be a source of creativity and joy, and give you a significant advantage in that field. It’s worth thinking about.

Focus on just one sense at a time

The easiest way to increase your focus on your senses is to simply direct all your available attention to one physical sense at a time, very deliberately. You can do this right now, wherever you are reading this, just follow the prompts below.

Right now, direct all your attention to your sense of hearing. Just hear. Whatever sounds are around you right now, just listen to them. Dive into the experience of hearing fully and completely. Try and pour absolutely all your available attention in your sense of hearing, and listen in an intense, deep way.

Then, direct your attention to your sense of sight. Just look around you. Whatever you see in front of you right look at it in detail. Notice the colors, the textures, the patterns, the light and shade. Dive into the experience of seeing fully and completely. Try and pour absolutely all your available attention into your sense of vision, and see in an intense, deep way.

Then, direct your attention to your sense of smell. Take a slow long sniff, and pause to sense what you can smell right where you are just now. Smell the air, your clothes, the room you are in, or the scent of nature if you are outdoors. Dive into the experience of smelling fully and completely. Try and pour absolutely all your available attention into your sense of smell, and smell in an intense, deep way.

Then, direct your attention to your sense of touch. Pay attention to what your hands are touching. Maybe it’s your mouse, your phone, or your desk. Are you fingers dry or moist? Run your fingertips slowly along some surfaces around you, taking in every detail, texture and temperature variation you can. If you like, touch your own skin, hair, clothes or face. Dive into the experience of touching whatever is around you fully and completely. Try and pour absolutely all your available attention into your sense of touch, and touch things in an intense, deep way.

Lastly, direct your attention to your sense of taste. Can you still taste some of the last meal you had in your mouth? Does your own saliva have a taste? Pay attention to whatever taste you have in your mouth right here, right now. Dive into the experience of taste. Try and pour absolutely all your available attention into your sense of taste, and taste in an intense, deep way. Remember to do this one in particular the next time you eat too!

Cycle through the senses a few more times, noticing if the perception of your senses has changed, or if you feel calmer or more relaxed.

Sensuality is about sensing, not sexuality

Consider the word sensuality. Do you have only a sexual or intimate connotation for that word? Why? When we use our senses very deliberately, life very quickly becomes more sensual, in the sense that we are just more connected to what we are sensing, more often. Using as many of your senses very deliberately, as often as possible, gives you a completely free quality of life upgrade. Just a few rounds of the exercise above can make colors seem to ‘pop’ or seem brighter, sounds appear sharper and more distinct, and enhance our sense of touch and taste. It’s the fastest way to become more present to the world around you, and to bring more sensuality into your life. Of course, you can also combine more sensuality with your sexuality if you like!

In our high stress world, with inflation, wars, violence and cultural cancelling dominating every news and social media channel, just tuning in to your senses can provide enormous, near instant relief. You can do it just as easily in a noisy bar as a quiet park. It’s completely free, and incredibly easy. In fact, noisy places full of bustling energy and lots of people can be one of the most rewarding places to do this exercise. That’s because using your senses more deliberately automatically connects us to others. When we focus on someone else using all of our hearing, or all of our vision, or all of our touch, you can easily imagine how connected we can become. Just by listening intently to others, we convey connection that people immediately feel. By seeing them with our full attention, they feel seen and acknowledged.

When we use our senses more directly while in a group, people feel it too, and enjoy being with us more, because we are more attentive of and connected to the shared sensory experience being together. Just remember to always use your sense of touch appropriately!

Sensory Self Reflection

It’s worth spending a little time reflecting on the physical senses after you've done the exercise above. If you keep a journal, note down your answers to the following questions:

• Which physical sense are you naturally strongest in: sight, hearing, taste, touch or smell?
• Which is your weakest physical sense: sight, hearing, taste, touch or smell?
• Are any of your physical senses a ‘super-sense’, meaning they are distinctly more accurate or sensitive than most other people around you?
• Does the work you do utilize the physical sense you are strongest in?
• Which physical sense are you most interested in improving?
• Have you ever had one of your physical senses unexpectedly break down? If so, what was that like?
• When you are tired, what happens to your external consciousness senses?
• When you are excited, what happens to your external consciousness senses?
• If you use recreational drugs, alcohol or prescription medication, does it affect your physical senses? Which senses? Are you aware of the effects when it happens?
• Have you ever had one of your physical senses sharpen or diminish dramatically for a time? How long did it last? How did it make you feel? Do you know what caused it?

What can I learn next about consciousness?

Once you have had a chance to practice using your external consciousness physical senses more deliberately than before, I recommend you read A Model for Mindfulness, in order to learn about the other types of consciousness senses. These are the five internal consciousness senses of thinking, memory, imagination, emotion and interoception, and the five abstract consciousness senses of instinct, intuition, abstraction, creation and the psychic.

This article is adapted from Peter Hill’s upcoming book ‘Reality Check — How Meditation moved from Mysticism to Neuroscience’, which is scheduled for release in 2023.

About the Author

Peter Hill loves to take time to think and feel deeply. Over more than thirty years, he has studied dozens of meditation, self-development and spiritual techniques. Guided by neuroscience rather than mysticism, his mission is to demystify consciousness and teach people to live better lives by using their brains more effectively.

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