Senses and Sensibility

There are more than the main five senses.

Senses+and+Sensibility

Alyssa Quinones, Staff Writer

The five senses; as a child we all learned about the basic five senses and never thought anymore of it. Taste, smell, sight, hearing, and touch are all the senses we as humans know and only think of. These are everyday senses that we all use, without the realization the others we know nothing about. For instance, have you ever tried closing your eyes and touching your nose with them remaining closed. Yes? Well that right there is another sense. You knew the direction and where about of your nose without having to actually see it.

There are many other senses that people don’t really consider as a sense or don’t realize are senses. A couple of these lesser known senses but that are important to humans are:

  1. A Sense of Fullness: We all know this feeling. Whether on Thanksgiving Day or just any other day, we all feel a sense of fullness. This surprisingly is another sense that gets lesser attention than the others. When one has had enough to eat or drink, your body seems to let you know that it cannot handle anymore. This turns out to be a separate sense within your body. The stomach sends your brain certain signals as the feed you eat gets digest. This is when the saying eating slower makes you feel more full comes into play. When someone begins to eat the same amount of food at a faster pace, the brain cannot keep up with the body’s movements which often leaves people feeling still hunger, because the brain could not process what was being done when it was occurring. Without the sense of fullness everyone would just continuously eat without ever feeling satisfied.
  2. Thermal sense: Some people may consider this a part of the sense touch, because in fact in order to feel if something is hot or cold you must be touching it, but that isn’t entirely true. Feeling hot or cold is in fact a separate sense itself. The thermal-receptors inside of us let humans detect both hot and cold, letting out bodies adjust to the different temperatures in the environment.
  3. Magneto-reception: This is the sense that your body can figure out its direction based on the sense of the earth’s magnetic fields. Some people seem to have a great sense of direction because they are employing magneto-reception on a more advanced level than other people. Because of this sense it’s even possible for some people to know exactly which way they are facing without the use of a compass. This sense is the most common in animals.
  4. Itching: Itching is actually completely separate from the sense of touch, serving more important functions. Itching sends a message to your body that something is not entirely right with the certain part that is itching. Sometimes the skin may be just dry and other times that itch may mean there can be microscopic bugs in your hair follicles that can only be removed by scratching. Basically an itch is a sense that sends a message to your brain saying that that certain area needs to be looked at.
  5. Pain: Many would say the pain would actually be a sense of touch, though it is actually its own separate sense. The sense of pain is extremely important because without feeling pain one might not know if something is wrong with their body. They might not know if they are sick or in a lot of danger. The sense of pain lets your body know that you are in trouble and there is something wrong that needs to be taken care of.

The lesser known five sense are extremely important. Without these certain senses we would not be able to figure out if something was wrong with our body or how to handle certain situations. The more hidden five senses allow us as humans to open up our minds to more than just the basic touch, sight, hearing, tasting, and smelling.