As you read this latest refracted sense-ble look at a healthy lifestyle, you may feel warm and fuzzy or possibly turn a cold shoulder. The sense of temperature is not an easy item to describe. How else can I explain why, when I feel cold, someone else feels hot? How does thermoception fit in with weight loss? The sense of…
A SENSE-ble Look at Healthy Living: Sound
The next sense on this refracted journey to a healthy lifestyle is the sense of sound. This will require you to listen closely through all the noise out there on weight loss. It’s hard to focus on what is true, sound advice. I’ve heard there are companies that will provide recordings of binaural beats to help with weight loss. By…
A SENSE-ble Look at Healthy Living: Stretch Receptors
I remember a conversation I had with my director when I was working at the Maine Public Health laboratory. He referenced the time he taught anatomy at Harvard and commented on the complexities of the human body. I replied that, based on all the processes that need to come together, it’s a wonder that we can walk and chew gum…
A SENSE-ble Look at Healthy Living: Touch
It takes thousands of nerve endings (receptors) throughout our skin to process four basic sensations: pain, heat, cold and pressure. The sense of touch is very complex. As with the other senses shared on this journey, I really don’t think about how everything comes together. I just know I can use my senses to better myself and others. Feeling pain…
A SENSE-ble Look at Healthy Living: Equilibrioception
A sense of balance or equilibrioception is important for many reasons. I know just how important it is when I get up too fast or turn around too quickly. That feeling of dizziness, nausea and losing control is difficult to manage. Dolly Parton once said, “Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” Life…
A SENSE-ble Look at Healthy Living: Smell
“Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. The science is very direct behind why this fourth sense is so powerful, bringing forth intense memories. Smells bypass the thalamus and go straight to the olfactory bulb, which is the brain’s smell center. This…
A SENSE-ble Look at Healthy Living: Taste
The third sense we can use for a sensible look at healthy living is taste. I’ve been looking forward to sharing this sense with you, since it’s something I believe you can sink your teeth into. Discussing the sense of taste can be heavy on science or whimsically presented tongue-in-cheek. There are five basic qualities of taste: sweet, bitter, sour,…