Sunday, July 22, 2012

Lesson# 5: The world is sensational!

July 14, 2012.

Learning about the diferrent ways in wich people process the sensory information they recieve every day changed my way of seeing others. I spent a while classifying everyone into "seekers", "bystanders", "avoiders" or "sensory sensitive". Although there are different theories about sensory processing, the thing that surprised me the most is the big difference that can exist between the reactions of two individuals upon receiving the same stimulus. Some can enjoy the feeling of  sand in their feet, of a very colorful room, or strong smells and flavors; while others might not even bear them.

Learning about this helped me understand better the people around me and myself. Although I scored "normal" in the sensory profile I discovered that for a lot of things I am an "avoider" and for others a "bystander". (If you have no idea of what I'm taking about, I recommend the book by Winnie Dunn: "Living Sensationally" in which she explains this in a way that anyone can understand). This topic is very broad and it goes from cell biology and neuroscience, to individualized sensory diets. However, I think the most important thing I have learned until now about the topic is that sensations and how we process them have a lot to do with our behavior and that we have to learn to have respect for those who process them differently. They are not picky or capricious, they just feel the world in a different way!

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