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Posts Tagged ‘senses’

Enjoy Fall with All Your Senses

Posted in Healthy People, Mindfulness, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Fall is a beautiful time of year to get out and enjoy all the sights, colors, and sounds of nature. All of this can be a treat for our senses. Connecting to your senses can be a simple way to reduce stress. Tapping into all five senses can immediately provide calming and healing powers.  Incorporate one of these sensory experiences into your day and enjoy finding something new about fall to love:

people walking in woods

Vision:

Have a scavenger hunt: look for items found in the woods or at a park, in your neighborhood, or stay in your own backyard.

Create some art: make a nature rubbing with paper and crayons. Collect interesting items such as bark or leaves and place them under the paper and rub them on top with a crayon.  Consider placing interesting leaves in a bowl or vase and enjoying for the season or arranging them in a frame.

Smell:

Pay attention to the new smells that come with the season. Bring your attention to the grass, flowers, and air of fall. Notice the difference between a sunny and rainy day and talk about these with your children or grandchildren noting the differences they perceive.

Taste:

Fall offers a variety of new taste experiences, including pumpkin, cinnamon, and more. Pay attention to how these seasonal flavors make you feel.

Touch:

Fall can provide new and exciting textures to explore. Grasses have different and new textures as the season changes. Acorns, leaves, bark, moss, pinecones, feathers, and more can all have interesting textures to explore.

Sound:

Crunching leaves, new bird sounds, and others can contribute to the exciting sounds of fall. Take some time to simply sit and observe the unique sounds of the season.

Try taking a sensory walk incorporating all these senses and enjoy the multi-sensory benefits of fall. Using all our senses to explore a new season can greatly enhance the experience of fall and provide fall memories that last!

Written by: Alisha Barton, Family and Consumer Sciences Educator, Ohio State University Extension Miami County.

Reviewed by: Dan Remley, Field Specialist, Food, Nutrition and Wellness, Ohio State University Extension.

Resources:

Globokar, L. (2020, November 27). Learn how reconnecting with your senses helps you to manage stress. Forbes. Retrieved September 29, 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/lidijaglobokar/2020/11/30/learn-how-reconnecting-with-your-senses-helps-you-to-manage-stress/?sh=32696bec1544

Whitney-Coulter, A. (2022, January 26). Use your five senses to connect with nature. Mindful. Retrieved September 29, 2022, from https://www.mindful.org/sense-the-benefits-of-nature/

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Candy to track COVID-19 symptoms?

Posted in Healthy People, tagged , , , , on March 25, 2021| 1 Comment »

A little over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic and we are all probably familiar with the symptoms of this disease. According to the CDC, fever, cough, body chills, muscle soreness are some of the symptoms of COVID-19. Many of these symptoms are the same as the common cold or seasonal flu, expect for one… the loss of taste and smell.

About 86% of people who test positive for COVID-19 report losing their ability to taste or smell. Scientists are looked for an inexpensive and consumer-friendly way to track our sensitivity to taste and smell to measure COVID in the community.

Researchers at Ohio State University have found a potential solution- candy! In a new study, researchers plan to distribute candy that is the same size and color but is actually eight different flavors. Each day the participants will smell and then eat one piece of candy. Participants will track the smell, taste, and flavor strength of the candy in an app. If there is a difference in the participants report, the app will ask them to quarantine and to schedule a COVID test. The hypothesis is that the candy could be used as a useful tool to capture the loss of sense of smell or taste.  

A sense of smell is often overshadowed by other senses, we do not even have great words to describe different smells! Unless you have experienced a sudden loss of smell yourself, you may not even have realized how much it colors the world around us.  Those who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 later express a newfound appreciation for a sense of smell.

Before going to work my partner and I must track symptoms like temperature and sense of smell to report it to our employers. In addition to taking our temperatures, we have also started smelling things with a distinct scent, like coffee or kimchi to test our sense of smell. Have you started checking your sense of smell? Would you be willing to add “eat a piece of hard candy” to your to-do list if it could predict early signs of COVID infection?

Written by: Courtney Woelfl, Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Educator, Cuyahoga County, woelfl.1@osu.edu

Reviewed by: Dr. Roseanne Scammahorn, Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Educator, Darke County, Scammahorn.5@osu.edu

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