5 Ways to Sharpen Your Senses

Five Senses

Technology brings us instant gratification, but to sharpen your senses, namely sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell, you have to go slow. It is the only way to fully appreciate your senses:

1. Sight: To understand and digest what you have read, you have to read slowly. To observe something is to take your time and look carefully. To appreciate a thing of beauty is to look intently. Be slow to really see what you are looking at.

2. Hearing: To listen carefully is to be here and now. You are not listening when you are physically here and your mind is wondering about. To really listen is not to interrupt but to seek understanding, to be with the person who is talking to you. To appreciate a piece of great music is to pay attention to your mind and soul. Be relaxed and not in a hurry to do something else.

3. Taste: To really enjoy what you eat, you have to sit down, eat slowly, chew each mouthful, and concentrate on your eating. Do not eat and watch TV, read a newspaper or glued to your monitor. It is counterproductive and bad for your health. Your tongue is able to tell what you eat is sweet, salty, bitter, sour, or spicy. Just taste it slowly.

4. Touch: What do you do when you meet an old friend whom you have not met for a long time? You give a warm embrace and touch each other. How do you console another person in grief? You hold the other person tightly. Do you have a cat at home? What does it enjoy? When you stroke the cat slowly, it will purr away. It is enjoying your gentle touch. When you do it quickly, the feeling is not there and the cat does not like it. A sense of touch, to give meaning and to fully enjoy it, is to do it slowly and tenderly.

5. Smell: Life is not to live in a hurry. Go back to nature and smell the fragrant flowers. Breathe in the fresh air and feel the warm touch of the sunshine. How do you get tempted to eat or drink something? You are seduced by the rich aroma when you sniff it, like a warm cup of coffee. What do you do when you order a bottle of wine at a restaurant? You swirl and smell the wine in a glass. Great wine is more than just the taste, the scent matters. To enjoy it you have to drink slowly a sip at a time.


While you go slow to feast your five senses, do you have a sixth sense such as telepathy or premonition?