Wellness - The Essential Sixth Sense
Proprioception, often called the "sixth sense," is crucial yet often overlooked when it comes to physical wellbeing. It enables us to perceive the position, movement, and action of our body parts without needing to look at them. As a sense, it integrates inputs from muscles, tendons, and joints, playing a fundamental role in our ability to perform everyday tasks and complex activities.
Body Balance
Proprioception is essential for virtually every physical activity, from simple tasks like walking and picking up objects, to more complex actions such as playing sports or performing intricate dance routines. It allows us to move efficiently and react quickly to environmental changes without constantly needing to visually monitor our limbs.
Think about reaching for a glass of water; a simple exercise pretty much all of us do daily. Proprioception enables you to extend your arm accurately, grasp the glass with just the right amount of force, and bring it to your lips without spilling.
Strong proprioceptive awareness is critical for injury prevention. It helps us detect potentially harmful joint positions and react promptly to avoid injury. For instance, when stepping on uneven ground or rock-hopping while at the beach or hiking, proprioception allows for immediate adjustments to prevent ankle sprains or falls. Rehabilitation programs for injuries, particularly those involving the musculoskeletal system, often incorporate proprioceptive training to restore normal function and prevent future injuries.
How can you improve proprioception?
The simplest option is to add more movements to your everyday life that challenge your balance, hand-eye coordination, or sense of movement – or embrace opportunities as they arise. Standing on one leg while brushing your teeth or chatting on the phone is one of the easiest things you can do. Incorporating movements that include reaching, bending, or twisting is important too.
Yoga and Pilates are excellent for enhancing proprioception, as they require precise control and awareness of body positions and movements. These practices not only improve proprioception but also contribute to overall physical fitness, flexibility, and mental focus.
Try these simple tests:
Heel-to-toe walking is like tightrope walking but without the risk. Find a straight line on the ground – or mark one out with tape – and walk along it, touching your front heel to your rear toe at each step. Try not to wobble or step off to the side. Wall bounces are great for hand-eye coordination. Grab a small, bouncy ball – a tennis ball will do – and throw it underhand into a wall, then catch it with the other hand as it bounces. Repeat as many times as you can.
Ball pickups use the same ball. Put it down either in front of or behind you, then pick it up again with the other hand. Repeat, trying to get more creative with the ways you lower yourself to the ground, like squats, lunges, and splits, or the spots where you put the ball. Jumping turns involve bending your knees slightly and then jumping, aiming to do a quarter, half, or even full 360-degree turn in the air. Land as softly as you can.
Try these parkour-inspired exercises:
Walking along a thin surface such as a curb or a low railing in the park is a great start. Use your free leg as a counterweight and keep your knee slightly flexed. Try to keep your upper body relaxed – this will improve with practice. Once you get the hang of walking, try turning or even squatting on the object you’re balancing on.
Practice small, accurate steps or two-footed jumps onto a target like a curb. Work on taking off and landing softly, using an arm swing to build momentum before your jump and to control your body afterward. As you improve, try jumping for distance or height, or putting more than one jump together.
Understanding and enhancing proprioception can lead to better performance in physical activities, quicker recovery from injuries, and improved overall body awareness. This sixth sense is fundamental to our daily lives, so let's not take it for granted.
