Using common “sense” to recharge
by Tom Buckley
Over the past two decades the technological around the clock competitive society has resulted in a “sink or swim” philosophy. Indeed, many would suggest we are experiencing a time of crisis within opportunity. Significant advances in communication have made it harder to slow down and “recharge”, coupled with increased need to be super productive, all of which leads to the “toxic human”.
In my opinion, prevention of environmental intoxication is about gaining back control. But, how do you get control and prevent becoming intoxicated? Unless pointed out to you, you are probably unaware of just how powerful our senses are and secondly just how easy it is to make very small changes in our every day environment that have massive benefits. I call this call Sensory Manipulation, although it’s less about manipulation and more about awareness.
Our senses may be broadly divided into two categories as follows:
• Special Senses: vision, hearing, taste, smell and balance (equilibrium)
• Somatic senses: touch, temperature, pain, and
• proprioception (muscle movement and position).
One of the most understated of these senses is sight (I will focus on the others in forthcoming articles). Light receptors found in the retina of your eye are one of the major contributors to the setting of your day/night body clock. These receptors send messages to your brain which then interprets the messages and passes them onto on to the pineal gland (a pea-like structure found behind the hypothalamus in your brain) to control your sleep/wake patterns.
Recent studies have consistently associated exposure to morning light with not just high day time energy levels but also with better quality sleep. So initially it may not seem like common sense to get more daylight in the morning to recharge better at night - but it works – try it – but be committed.
Tom Buckley a University lecturer and researcher in the field or Health Sciences whose doctoral studies focused on physiological responses to stress. Author of several peer reviewed publications and supporting author of Flip the Switch, his current research interests are in human factors related to performance and wellbeing