Improve Your Senses

By Adam Sinicki



Your senses are another aspect of yourself that can be improved through training. Like anything, it is merely a case of repeated use. 'But I always use my eyes and ears!' I hear you say (that's how good my hearing has become!). It's a good point, but the fact of the matter is that you often aren't really paying attention to your senses.



Here's an experiment for you to try. First go and sit outside somewhere fairly quiet. Now engage peripheral vision (see below). While completely calm and not moving try to focus on your entire field of vision and look out for any slight movement - in the grass, in the trees, in the clouds. At the same time listen for things: your own breathing, the wind, the trees, the birds, the road, distant voices. Now try to feel the wind against your body and the ground underneath you. It should quickly become obvious to you how much you normally ignore.
If you do this for around ten minutes every few days you'll begin to develop better senses throughout the day and become generally more aware.
So that's that, but there are several other cool things you can do with your senses. Here goes:

Improve Your Eyesight

Several techniques exist that claim they can improve the condition of those with impaired vision. They mostly work by relaxing the muscles around the eye and so alleviating tension that can play a role in many problems. This has been studied with mixed findings, but it's got to be worth a try right?
Here are three relaxation techniques to try. Twenty minutes a day using one or all three is recommended.
1. Sunning - involves shining a light on your eyes while they're open (not so bright that you need to squint).
2. Palming - cupping your hands over your eyes so that no light gets to them and concentrating on completely relaxing them.
3. The Long Standing Swing - turning your head from side to side while keeping your eyes looking forward. Repeat 30 times.


Peripheral Vision

Being fully aware of your peripheral vision allows you to focus on your entire field of vision instead of focussing on just one spot. This should enable you to notice small movements at the edge of your sight and so be more aware of your surroundings and ready to react to things other than those directly infront of you.
The opening move from the Karate form 'Kushan Ku' includes a move used to quickly engage peripheral vision. Standing with your hands hanging down infront, palms facing inward (one hand on top of the other), you then raise them directly infront of yourself so that you are pointing at the sky and they are at the top of your field of vision. While still looking forward, but concentrating on seeing your hands, you then bring them down by either side, slowly drawing a large circle and ending up in the starting position but with your palms facing outward. As they come down you should follow them without moving your gaze and so becoming fully aware of the area inside the circle. There you go - peripheral vision.

Smell and Taste

Being good at smelling and tasting won't really help improve your physical performance in anyway ('gee look at me I'm the incredible Tasting Man (and I say gee)' - just wouldn't work). Still they're valid senses and an acute sense of smell at least can give you important cues regarding your surrounding. To improve both increase you intake of zinc, which has been shown to be beneficial in this area. It can be taken as a supplement or found in beef, oysters, baked beans and other foods. It also help you heal wounds and fight infections. So get it in you!
You can also 'practice' taste to improve sensitivity as demonstrated by chefs and food critics who can taste very subtle differences in the ingredients. Again it simply requires you to concentrate more on the sensation of the taste as you eat and try to identify the individual flavours. Every time you eat it becomes a 'taste training' session. It's a tough job but someone's got to do it...



Laser Night Vision

Okay, that title is slightly misleading as the technique doesn't actually involve any lasers... I just really wanted it to. What it will afford you, is the ability to instantly see in the dark. The downside is that you also have to permanently wear an eye patch... that's not a problem is it? This is actually the reason that some pirates wore eye patches so they could immediately see when heading below deck. First they'd shut themselves somewhere dark with only a minimal amount of light. They'd stay there until their eyes adapted to the low light (this usually takes about 20 minutes and works by recruiting the more numerous photoreceptors known as 'rods' which are more sensitive to light (although they can't see colour) than the 'cones' we use by day) then they'd put on there eye patch and head outside. While their visible eye would lose its sensitivity when they were exposed to light, their covered eye would retain its night vision.
Obviously this won't be particularly useful unless you are some kind of ninja or spy. But you never know what's just around the corner. An interesting side effect is that when you return to the dark and open both eyes, the untrained eye will now feel as though it's closed/missing. It's a fun experiment for you to try yourself. Or you know you could... you know, go outside and stuff. Whatever.

Hearing

Hearing is like the unwanted runt of the litter of senses; so often neglected -overshadowed by sight- and kept short of being used to its full potential. For an instant demonstration of how powerful your hearing can be just close your eyes while you're at home and try carefully to pick out the different background noises. Cutting out sight will quickly improve your sensitivity and by hearing traffic, the television, the computer, the radiator etc you should find that you can actually navigate around your room.
The most impressive demonstration of highly developed hearing is 'echolocation'. It's only been developed in several blind individuals, but basically these guys are Daredevil and can 'see' by making clicking noises and listening to the sound bounce back. One guy can even play football with this skill. James Holman the ‘blind traveller’ and Daniel Kish are two known exponents.

DID YOU KNOW
SAMURAI LEADERS (SHOGUN) USED TO SLEEP IN ROOMS WITH CREAKY FLOOR BOARDS SO THAT THEY COULD HEAR ASSASINS APPROACHING.