01/23/2024

How Your Five Senses Can Help You Stop Worrying

Give your mind new information to consider

Food foraging seems to be all the rage these days. Travelers can set out to forage in forests and oceans for unique culinary experiences, gradually coming to appreciate how much the natural world has to offer.

Foraging, at its core, is about sensory exploration. Its pleasure comes from noticing new tastes, shapes, or textures that we would ordinarily overlook and inhabiting a state of mind that is open to surprise. This seems logical when it comes to enjoying food and drink, but our work shows that our five senses can do much more. They can also support greater mental health.

In one of the largest neuroimaging studies of formerly depressed patients, we observed that negative emotion robs people of their ability to sense—it literally turns off the sensory parts of the brain. In the absence of sensation, brain networks for self-judgment and rumination run unfettered—a neural recipe for worry and hopelessness.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Time.