1. Smell
Practicing what is known as “scent therapy” can engage new receptors in your nose, increasing your sense of smell over time.
Choose several strong smells that you find pleasant and spend a few minutes each day sniffing each one. After a couple of weeks, your nose should be able to pick up these smells more easily. When you start noticing this difference, choose some more smells.
• Essential oils are great when it comes to scent therapy. Choose 3 or 4 oils with smells such as cedar, vanilla, lemongrass, and geranium rose.
• You can also use raw materials to conduct scent therapy. Collect a few jars and fill each one with a different strong-smelling substance, such as ground coffee, a few drops of floral shampoo, or dried basil leaves.
• When you’re carrying out scent therapy, you should sniff quickly rather than deeply inhaling each scent.
Describe Smells Out Loud
When you identify and describe a smell out loud, your ability to perceive it is increased. Make a practice of talking about smells as you experience them. Describe them out loud using specific language, much like the way a wine connoisseur would talk about the characteristic of certain wines.
Work up a Sweat
Getting some exercise can enhance your sense of smell. Take a walk, then pay attention to the smells around you. It’s possible that the extra moisture in your nose that accumulates during exercise helps to increase your ability to smell.
Eat More Zinc
Having a zinc deficiency can lead to a decreased sense of smell as well as taste. Take supplements or consume foods that are high in zinc, beef, pumpkin seeds, scallops, sesame seeds, and oats.
Certain medications have the side effect of decreasing the sense of smell. For example, medication prescribed for Parkinson’s, antibiotics, and blood pressure can affect your sense of smell. If you’re on a medication that is known to have this side effect, talk to your doctor to make sure you’re receiving the right dosage.
Stop Smoking
Smoking is a huge culprit when it comes to dulling the senses, especially your sense of smell. If you can cut back or quit smoking altogether, your sense of smell will greatly improve.
2. Tasting
Cut back on Salt and Sugar
Foods laden with these ingredients can mess with your sense of taste. They mask subtler flavors and make it more difficult for you to taste your food. When you first cut back on salt and sugar, you might feel that your food has no flavor, but after a couple of weeks, you’ll begin to notice the complex flavors you were missing before.
• Try to reduce salt and sugar by 1/3 or ½ in all your recipes, including your baking recipes. You could also substitute sugar with a less intense sweetener such as honey.
• There’s no need to cut out salt entirely. A little salt can actually enhance the flavor of your food.
Avoid Casseroles and Stews
Dishes in which all the flavors are mixed together aren’t the best for stimulating your taste buds. It’s hard to distinguish the flavors from one another, and dishes such as these often end up tasting bland. Keep the components of your meal separate from one another to help maximize taste bud stimulation.
Stimulate your taste buds by mixing things up in your diet. If you eat bland meals, your ability to taste may deteriorate. Use herbs and spices that you don’t normally use. Steam your veggies instead of boiling them, and choose foods with different textures and colors, so that every meal is a banquet of new tastes for your tongue.
Smell Your Food before Tasting It
Your senses of taste and smell are linked; when one is sharpened, so is the other. You’ll enjoy the taste of your food a lot more if you inhale it before you begin tucking in.
3. Seeing
Eat Foods That Make Your Eyes Healthier
Foods that are rich in vitamins A, C, and E are important for good vision. You should also strive to eat foods that are rich in beta-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin, since these antioxidants protect the eyes from sun damage.
• Eat dark leafy greens, sweet potatoes, peppers, carrots, and pumpkin.
• Blueberries, garlic, grapes, and onions also contain antioxidants that protect your eyes.
• Foods with DHA, a fatty acid, are also essential for healthy eyes. Eat Salmon, cod, sardines, and mackerel.
Don’t Stare at a Computer All Day Long
It’s very important to take a break, so that your eyes don’t get strained from staring at the lights on your computer screen. Every hour or so, stand up and look out of the window. Gaze at an object several miles away, if possible. Keep looking until your eyes adjust to the view.
Having dry eyes can cause your vision to go blurry. Therefore, you should drink at least 8 glasses of water every day. If you wear contacts, be sure to clean them properly and change them frequently. Use saline drops to lubricate your eyes if you have trouble producing your own tears.
You can sharpen your vision by performing a few simple exercises on a daily basis. Do these exercises when your eyes are a little tired and you feel like you need a break from whatever task is at hand.
• Roll your eyes around. Look up, then to the side, then down, then to the other side. Repeat ten times.
• Focus on an object. Hold the object close to your face, then move it slowly backward, keeping your eyes focused on the item. Move it close to your face again, maintaining focus.
4. Hearing
Eat an Ear-Friendly Diet
Foods containing certain nutrients can enhance your ear health, increasing your ability to hear outside. Add the following foods to your diet:
• Foods rich in omega-3, such as fish, improve blood flow to the ear canal and improve hearing.
• Foods rich in zinc, such as lamb and sesame seeds, can decrease inflammation in your inner ear.
• Apples contain quercetin, which is an antioxidant that repairs free radical damage.
Stay Away from Loud Noises
Attending loud events really does decrease your ability to hear. The same goes for experiencing other sustained loud sounds, like the sound of traffic or heavy machinery at a construction site. When you can’t help but be around loud noise, protect yourself by wearing earplugs.
Red wine contains resveratrol, an antioxidant that has been shown to improve hearing in mice. Therefore, drinking a glass of red wine every evening may enhance your ability to hear over time.
5. Touching
Look at What You’re Touching
Research has shown that tactile sensation and vision are related, so looking at the object you’re touching will enhance your ability to feel it. When you’re touching something that is interesting, pay attention to what it looks like too.
Exfoliate Your Skin
Soft skin is a lot more sensitive than rough skin. If you have callouses on your hands and feet, you’re limiting the sensations that you can feel. Use a pumice stone to remove rough edges, then moisturize with oil or lotion to keep your skin soft and sensitive.
Pay More Attention to How Things Feel
Our sense of touch might be the one that we take for granted the most. Deliberately paying attention to how things feel can awaken your brain so that your sense of touch gets stimulated. Therefore, start being more aware of what your skin is touching.
• When you’re out clothes shopping, run your hands over the different fabrics. Identify the difference between cotton and polyester, silk and satin.
• Make it a point to touch different textures throughout the day. Let your fingers graze a tree as you walk by, and stop to touch beautiful flowers. Run your hands through your hair and feel the cold tiles under your feet.
Source: wikihow
Images: depositphotos
