When you watch a movie that makes you cry, or watch a game that makes you excited or moody, or sight an enemy that causes you anxiety and a faster heartbeat, or perceive a smell that makes you cover your nose, or hear a sound that makes you cringe or exclaim, or remember a thought or experience that makes you sad or happy, have you ever wondered what is happening to your body or how the body manages to coordinate these sensations?
Let’s go back to our Biology class. If you did Biology, our textbooks say we have five senses. The eyes, nose, ears, skin and tongue. It is through these five senses that we perceive our environment. Without these senses, we will be completely unaware of our environment and unable to perform any function.
The skin which is the largest organ in our body, has many receptors that receive information anytime it is touched. The information is then changed into signals that can be understood by the nervous system and the brain, which then enables you to perceive pain, temperature, pressure, friction, or stretch.
Anytime your eye looks at anything, a light hits the retina of your eye. That’s a light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eye. Then special cells called photoreceptors turn the light into electrical signals. These electrical signals travel from the retina through the optic nerve to the brain. Then the brain turns the signals into the images you see.
In a similar manner, when you smell any odor, you’re actually breathing in tiny molecules from the air. These molecules stimulate specialized nerve cells, called olfactory sensory neurons, high inside the nose. These neurons are equipped with different types of odor receptors, enabling them to selectively capture specific sets of odor molecules. This combination of activity forms a coded message that’s sent to the brain which then interprets any particular odor.
We perceive taste through thousands of tiny sensory organs called taste buds, which are located mostly on the upper surface of our tongue. Each taste bud contains taste cells, which contain receptors, that can detect sweet, bitter, sour, salty, or savory taste. These taste cells then relay this information from the tongue to the brain for interpretation.
The task of the outer part of the ear which is visible to us, is to direct sound waves through the ear canal to our eardrums and cause the drums to vibrate. These vibrations move through our middle ear into our inner ear and to our brain, which interprets them into what you hear.
Every second, as we relate with our environment, these five senses bombard our brain with millions of messages and perceptions to interpret. Our brain is the central processing hub where all the signals are interpreted. Anyone whose brain can no longer accurately interpret these perceptions is regarded as a mad person. After interpretation, the information is stored in the top most part of our brain called the cerebrum. The cerebrum is the source of our conscious thoughts and actions. It holds our memories and allows us to plan, imagine, and think. It allows us to recognize friends, read, and play games.
So as we go about our daily activities, whether we end the day happy or sad is dependent on what our senses perceive and send to our brain to interpret. And whatever comes in from the five senses, comes along with potent energy and ability, not just to create happiness, sadness, or anxiety within us, they also have dire impact on our physical organs and our health. Agree that living a life without pain and sadness is impossible in mortality, it is even more agreeable that life can be lived very peacefully and joyfully when we become conscious about what we allow into us.
It is for this reason that we must guard our actions and thoughts. We must mind what we hear, what we see, what we smell, what we taste, and what we get involved with. We must do the much we can to constantly avoid perceptions that will damage our well being. While it is practically impossible to do without absorbing negativity, we must consciously work to ensure that we take in more positive, ennobling and soul lifting impressions that will give us the mental serenity and equanimity to live a balanced life.
Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo is the Publisher of CrossRiverWatch and a rights activist, a Cross Riverian, and writes from Lagos.
NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Agba Jalingo, and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch or any other organization the author works for/with.
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