SAFEGUARD
YOUR SENSES
FINE-TUNING THE FUTURE
We all rely very much on our senses
to accomplish our goals each day.
A chef relies on the senses of sight,
smell and taste. A firefighter relies
on sight, touch and smell. A mother
relies on all of her senses. How do
your senses influence you each day?
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Brain Sense
We experience the world around
us through sound, light, smell, taste
and touch. Without your five senses
you couldn’t watch the sunset, smell
the grass after rain, taste those juicy
strawberries, listen to the lapping
ocean or enjoy a calming massage.
Well-functioning senses not only enable you
to have a better quality of life, they promote
longevity by allowing you to remain more active
and independent. Your brain controls your senses,
so by looking after them you’ll be helping your
brain to stay healthy too.
Introduction……………………………3
Seeing is believing…………………5
Sound as a bell……………………7
Stay in touch………………………8
Smell the roses……………………9
A taste for something……………10
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01 | Seeing is believing
The brain uses the eyes to process and determine a host of activities, including seeing rainbow colours,
the smile on a child’s face and the moon in the night sky. What a one-dimensional world it would be
without vision.
Maintaining healthy eyes and therefore vision, is crucial to optimising brain function. There are many things that you can do to look
after your eyes; here’s our top six:
1 Eat fish to reduce your chance of macular (parts of the
eye’s retina) degeneration by 40 percent; cut down on your
intake of saturated fats and sugars – both are linked to the
development of eyesight problems; and eat more green
leafy vegetables to enhance retina health.
2 Stay active. Regular exercise can reduce the risk of agerelated macular degeneration by up to 70 per cent.
3 Have your eyes checked every year or two to screen
for glaucoma and other debilitating conditions. Undergo
regular screening for diabetes and high blood pressure,
conditions that can cause chronic and incapacitating eye
problems if left untreated.
4 Reduce sun exposure and risk of cataracts by wearing
a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses when in the sun.
5 Give up smoking, which contributes to degenerative
conditions of the retina – the “seeing” layer at the back of
the eye.
6 Be careful while cooking. Watch for splatters from
boiling water and oil, and take care when you remove the
lid from the popcorn pot!
Did you know?
Our eyelashes protect our eyes from dust,
dirt and other airborne organisms. Our
eyelashes protect our eyes from perspiration.
Our eyelids protect our eyes from foreign bodies,
exposure to light and help to keep moisture in the eye.
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Your auditory system is not only
responsible for your hearing, it also
helps you to keep your balance
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02 | Sound as a bell
The pleasure of listening to your favourite music, hearing your loved ones speak or appreciating the gentle
lapping of waves is precious. Unfortunately, hearing loss is common and one in three people over the age
of 65 has enough hearing loss to interfere with daily communication. Tinnitus, the sensation of ringing or
buzzing in the inner ear, is a symptom that commonly accompanies many varieties of hearing loss.
It is thought that as much as 50 percent of progressive hearing
loss may have a genetic base. That means that for the other 50
percent, there are positive steps that you can take to protect
your hearing. Here are our top tips for maintaining acute
auditory function:
•Treat ear problems promptly and get a referral to
an audiologist if you develop ringing in your ears or other
hearing deficits.
•Avoid going to loud music venues more than twice
within 24 hours (consider protecting your hearing by
wearing ear plugs if you do!) and always wear industrialstrength earmuffs when using noisy equipment.
•Don’t clean your ears with cotton-buds, as this
may cause infection and push wax on to the eardrum, which
will dull sound.
•Avoid air travel when suffering from a cold as this
may severely compromise your eardrums.
•Turn down your iPod or other listening device and
don’t use them for more than six hours per week.
Hearing is fundamental not only for optimal brain function, but to your whole quality of life. Protect this sense and you ensure
that your brain ‘hears’ precisely what it should.
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03 | Stay in touch
The sensation of touch is experienced all over the body and is arguably the most significant of our five
senses. Touch enables us to interpret the world around us – from the breeze on our skin to the taste and
temperature of the food that we eat – and make choices which help us to survive.
Nerve receptors in the skin send electrical messages through
the central nervous system to the cerebral cortex in the brain,
which interprets these electrical codes. Damage these nerve
receptors and you compromise the brain’s ability to recognise
pain and pressure; to discern hot and cold.
To safeguard your sense of touch and the brain’s ability to
correctly interpret the outside environment, you need to
protect the sensitive nerve endings and touch receptors
located in your skin; particularly in your hands, lips, face, neck,
feet and tongue.
There are about 100 touch receptors in your fingertips, so
take care to avoid accidents. Simple measures include using a
chopping knife carefully, wearing thermal gloves when handling
hot food, placing safety guards on saws and closing heavy car
doors with care.
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Adopting strategies such as wearing a mouth guard when
playing sport and putting on protective shoes when mowing
the lawn will help protect your touch sensation in the lips, face,
neck, feet and tongue.
There are five types of touch sensation: cold,
heat, contact, itch and pain.
As we age, our skin becomes more delicate and less
supple. This change reduces our sensitivity to pain and
temperature. Our sense of touch can also be affected
by poor circulation and some medications, so care
needs to be taken to avoid injuries such as burns or
cuts that we might not respond to as quickly as we
did when younger.
04 | Smell the roses
An impaired or loss of sense of smell is known as anosmia. Smell – and taste – determine flavours, and
loss of sense of smell and of taste will mean you cannot determine what is salty, sweet, bitter or sour.
Although loss of smell can be a symptom of a serious condition – it is one of the earliest symptoms of
Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and some other neurodegenerative diseases – it can be temporarily caused by the
common cold, hayfever or irritation of the mucous membranes in the lining of the inside of your nose.
Our sense of smell is also one of the first things to be eroded
when impacted by a head injury or stroke and can be dulled
by smoking and nasal congestion.
There are a number of simple things that you can do to
maintain a keen sense of smell. Did you know that eating foods
which are high in zinc is crucial to maintaining your sense
of smell? Zinc is an important mineral that can be found in
oysters and other seafood, lamb and yoghurt.
Always protect against nose impact injuries by wearing a
seatbelt and use a helmet with a mouthguard when playing
such sport as cricket.
Also, when you eat stimulating foods like curries, horseradish,
cinnamon and spearmint, you arouse the trigeminal nerve
which affects smell.
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05 | A taste for something
Taste begins in the mouth, where each of us has between 5,000 and 10,000 taste buds. Each taste bud
contains 50 to 100 taste receptor cells — brain cells called neurons that transmit taste information.
Taste and smell are inextricably linked. Our olfactory system
works in tandem with our sense of taste to provide us with
the flavours of foods and beverages. If people lose their
sense of smell, they often feel that they have also lost some
of their ability to taste, even though their taste buds are still
responding normally.
If a person perceives less flavour in their food while chewing
and swallowing, that usually reflects a problem not with taste
but with smell. Much of what we “taste” in food is actually
odour sensed in the back of our noses. The sense of taste
affects individual food choices and eating habits. It may
therefore play a significant role in overeating and in the rising
incidence of obesity, diabetes, and related disorders.
Dental health is significant when considering your sense
of taste, as teeth and taste work together to feed vital
information to the brain. Therefore, for healthy teeth brush at
least twice a day, treat gum problems, visit your dentist every
6-12 months for a clean and check-up, limit acidic and sugary
foods, and use salty rinses instead of mouthwashes.
Be mindful of very hot foods and fluids. A burnt tongue can
damage your taste buds.
IT MAKES SENSE
Today is the day to start looking after your senses. We have outlined the simple tips in this booklet so that you may
begin a lifelong practice of safeguarding your senses to enhance your future sensory health.
The Neurological Foundation acknowledges wellbeing.com.au and writer Stephanie Osfield for their permission to
reproduce content for this brochure.
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THE NEUROLOGICAL FOUNDATION is an independent
body and charitable trust that raises funds to
ensure this country’s top neuroscientists and clinical
researchers can continue leading-edge research into
neurological disorders.
The Foundation shares a noble vision with these researchers:
to progress significant advances in the prevention and cure of
neurological disorders; one day, this will greatly reduce the level
of suffering and premature death from diseases of the brain
and nervous system – Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s
diseases, migraine, stroke and multiple sclerosis to name just a few.
The Foundation also funds valuable educational initiatives
such as Brain Awareness Week, and regularly provides its
members and the wider public with information about the latest
advances made in neurological disorder prevention
and research.
If you would like to know more about the work of the
Neurological Foundation, or to ask for information about
neurological conditions or support groups, contact our
national office or visit our website www.neurological.org.nz
Copyright of this booklet is reserved by the
Neurological Foundation of New Zealand.
Copies may be made, provided the source is
acknowledged and there is no profit involved.
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Phone 09 309 7749 Fax 09 377 0614
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Email admin@neurological.org.nz
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THE NEUROLOGICAL FOUNDATION
www.neurological.org.nz
P ro g res s t h ro u g h re s e a rc h
This information booklet has been produced with the generous support of the
Ted & Mollie Carr Endowment Fund, proudly administered by Guardian Trust.