I thought I understood this sense until I began to research its meaning. This sense, proprioceptive, is about keeping our body healthy through movement. Not just our physical self, but our mental and emotional self. This is beyond a simplistic turn of phrase. It’s not just about exercise or flexibility, it’s also about self-myofascial release (SMR), it’s about the need or desire to move or keep our hands or feet or another part of your body busy as a means to try or relieve stress.
This particular sense encompasses so much of what we do or should do to enrich our world and to be healthy. Think about the things you do to calm your mind: jigsaw puzzles, yoga, fidget devices, video games, crafts, exercise, anything that requires movement and reduces stress or enriches. We do these activities consciously or unconsciously and yet we derive pleasure or relief from them. Sometimes there are other rewards: a healthier body, a craft item, a stack of wood. Whatever the outcome of the activity, your nervous system is deriving input (we hope healthy input) from this activity.
As a child, the farm was my happy place and still is. There was nowhere else I would rather be. During the summer, we were expected to spend our days outside playing and exploring the yard, the barn, the fields, and the outbuildings. I didn’t know it then, but that exploration and all it had to offer me from breakfast to bath-time was healthy for my emotional, sensory, and mental growth. It still is.
Are we doing enough now to ensure we’re healthy? It’s so easy to just sit and do nothing, scrolling our phones and streaming the latest offerings some entertainment service has to offer. Move, relieve the stress you didn’t know you carry, and enjoy this beautiful life. (Psalms 37:4)
May 24, 2025
