Using your senses to enhance your mental health: It’s just common sense

Over the Christmas holiday season, I derived enjoyment from various activities I engaged in by myself and with friends and family. On reflection, my enjoyment typically was the result of activities which had positive effects on one or more of the five senses.

For example, my sight was positively stimulated by gazing at a beautifully decorated Christmas tree and at the lights on people’s homes; my sense of hearing was treated to carols and other songs associated with this time of year; I enjoyed hugging friends and family to stimulate my sense of touch along with the relaxation I felt when I sampled a portable neck massager which someone got at a gift exchange I attended; the smell of scented candles and of incense at Christmas Mass along with the aroma of the Christmas meal which I enjoyed brought me pleasure through my olfactory senses; and last but not least my sense of taste was treated to pleasure from the food at the Christmas meal and at many other holiday gatherings.

The holiday season reminded me of how important it is to use our five senses—or as many as we have in working order—to benefit our mental health. In the following sections, I will discuss ways to incorporate your five senses into your mental health routine.

Grounding when you’re over-stressed

When you’re feeling stress so intensely that your emotions are hard to manage, it is important to have reliable grounding strategies. Grounding strategies help you to reduce the level of intensity of your emotions quickly and effectively to manageable levels.

Activities in which you engage your senses are excellent grounding strategies. A commonly used grounding strategy is ‘5-4-3-2-1’. This entails viewing five stimuli with your sense of sight, followed by hearing five sounds with your sense of hearing, then feeling five tactile stimuli with your sense of touch and repeating the sequence with four, three, two and one using each of the senses of sight, sound, and touch. When you are feeling emotions at an intense level, practicing this exercise allows you to quickly switch your attention onto sensory stimuli which facilitate a reduction in the intensity of your emotions to manageable levels.

Recharging your emotional batteries

When you have been dealing with high levels of stress, engaging in activities to recharge your emotional batteries is essential to preventing burnout and other negative outcomes. A myriad of activities involving each of the five senses will allow you to relax and feel rejuvenated.

Examples include taking a bath or getting a massage (sense of touch); listening to your favourite songs or to an app with calming sounds like ocean waves (sense of hearing); gazing at a work of art or focusing on nature during a walk (sense of sight); savouring one of your favourite foods or drinks (sense of taste); and having the pleasant aroma of scented candles or flowers in your living space (sense of smell).

Targeting the senses to elicit positive conditioned responses

Research on classical conditioning pioneered by Pavlov indicates that we are more likely to have positive responses to neutral stimuli if such stimuli are paired with stimuli to which we have natural positive responses. Therefore, if you are seeking to elicit positive responses from yourself or others in situations to which your natural responses are neutral or even negative, introducing stimuli which naturally elicit positive responses from one or more of the senses can bring about a positive response in the neutral or negative situation with which it is associated.

For example, if your work or home environment features stimuli which are pleasing to one or more of the five senses, you and the people who interact in those environments are more likely to experience positive emotional reactions while in those environments. This can lead to significant positive effects on factors such as enjoyment and productivity at work and in your relationships.

Using your senses deliberately and planfully

Some of life’s most fulfilling moments are when one or more of our senses is stimulated positively when we are not expecting it. This happened to me recently when I was attending Mass with my sisters in Winnipeg on Christmas Eve. To my pleasant surprise, my favourite melody of the Lord’s Prayer was played. It was a version I had not heard in several years and I enjoyed it immensely through my sense of hearing.

We all have spontaneous moments like these when we are treated to an unexpected positive striking sight, sound, smell, taste or feeling. These moments should be appreciated and treasured. However, these spontaneous moments of positive stimulation of our senses are necessarily unpredictable. As such, if we rely on them exclusively to enhance our emotional well-being we risk them not occurring often enough to do the job consistently enough to be effective.

As a result, I recommend that you be deliberate and planful when using your senses to take care of your mental health. This entails making it a habit to engage your senses positively in the ways I have discussed in this article. Doing so will enhance your mood to the point that the spontaneous moments of sensory pleasure will be exciting complements to an already enjoyable and fulfilling routine.

May you use your five senses to benefit your mental health,

-Dr. Pat