spectrum line 53 Senses : International edition : Wednesday, 2 December 2009 15:11 GMT : a service of The Public Press -- 53 Senses -- "We have fifty three senses? But I can barely handle five!" This comment from one of my workshop participants got me thinking. How did -- The root of the misconception lies in how overwhelming our lives are when we operate with just a few dominant ungrounded senses. That workshop participant assumed the more senses used, the greater her exposure to stress via over stimulation. -- Think of each of your five senses (taste, touch, smell, hearing, sight) as a rock in the foundation that supports your home. Five -- support the weight of a second story. A storm might push your home off such a minimal foundation. The more senses you awaken and use the more support you will have in all your endeavors. More is better. The more sensory support you have, the less stress you'll experience. When stress does sneak up, your sense-ability's wisdom naturally helps you understand the source of your stress and guides you to what is needed -- quality of human life is directly linked to the quality of one's relationship with nature via the senses. Michael Cohen, Ed. D., has devoted 40 years to the teaching and researching sensory -- you took a hike and forgot your water bottle, or maybe you were stuck on line somewhere after eating a bag of salty chips. That sense of thirst is real, just as real as the water that will satisfy it. This is a sense, the sense of thirst. You can't see, taste, touch, hear, or smell it, but it is real. Without this sense we would not know when our body becomes dehydrated. Healing our senses is not only essential to life, but to our happiness as well. Our exquisite sensory nature -- Dr. Michael Cohen, a leader in the field of ecopsycholgy, breaks down these fifty-three senses and sensitivities into four categories. Just to give you a quick idea as to your vast sensory potential I've listed a few senses under each category below. You can find the full list in Cohen's book Reconnecting With Nature. FOUR CATEGORIES OF OUR SENSES 1. The radiation senses: sense of color, sense of moods and identities associated with color, sense of temperature. 2. The feeling senses: sensitivity to gravity, air and wind pressure, and motion. 3. The chemical senses: hormonal sense, such as pheromones, hunger for food, water or air. 4. The mental senses: pain, external and internal, mental or spiritual distress, sense of self, including friendship, companionship and power, psychic capacity. These many senses are the real stuff that feeds our body, mind and soul. Senses and sensations usually feel alien to a modern person brought up closeted from life's sensory connections. Reason is a sense unique to our species; however it is no more valuable than the other 52 senses. In fact this sense alone can be our own worst enemy and the guard at the door of our closet. It might be scary to venture out, -- That winter night I was able to honor my senses by acting on them. I sensed the freezing temperature on my skin as I got into my car, the quality of the street lamp's light reflecting on the road, and my car's motion felt a bit different than expected, affecting my sense of balance as I steered. I might have sensed stress hormones (adrenaline, -- adrenaline before stopping the car. The adrenaline alerted me to my sense of fear and dread of injury. Acknowledging the fear, even though I had no logical reason to be experiencing it, heightened my sensitivity to the subtle cues and I made a good decision. Once stopped, my sense of reason put some of the sensory input together and I confirmed my suspicions by placing my foot on the black ice covering -- Take time to honor your senses. Experience the senses nature designed for our survival. See how you can ally your dominant cognitive senses of thinking and reason with the true sustenance only your multisensory -- Thinking Process here, a simple and powerful method used to awaken the senses). International Community for Ecopsychology www.ecopsychology.org www.anaturalsense.com -- Litchfield, CT. She conducts workshops, and publishes a quarterly e-zine NaturalSense. Her specialty is the healing connection between humans and the natural world. marlowshami@sbcglobal.net. You may subscribe to the free NaturalSense e-zine at www.anaturalsense.com.