One of the things I think is so important not only to personal safety but to the enjoyment of life is the skill of awareness, which is the use of all six senses to have a feel for the environment around us, to see and experience life to the fullest extent that we can. Of course, it’s impossible to do this if you’re sleepwalking through life, not paying the slightest bit of attention to the details. Increasing our sensitivity to what’s going on around us is relatively easy to do — it requires a little knowledge and a lot of practice. Here are some suggested sensitivity exercises to work on. The exercises are set up on a weekly basis.

Sunday
Sunday is traditionally a day of reflection in America, and as such we start with the sixth sense, the sense of intuition. Go for a walk in a crowded place, and observe the people you encounter. As you watch or pass someone, and without engaging any rational or logical thought processes, get a feel for the type of person that he or she is. What mood, what emotion? Is this person a fundamentally happy or unhappy person? Go with your gut instinct, and pay very close attention, feeling for emotions and sensations that aren’t your own.

Monday
On Mondays, we practice exercises involving vision. Every few minutes, refocus your eyes into wide angle vision. Scan your environment using only your peripheral vision. Relax your eyes, trying to detect motion and color with your peripheral vision. Practice reading a book and still keeping an eye on your environment — practice reading in a mall or other dynamic, rapidly changing environments. Take a small section of any place — your room, outside. Look extremely closely at a 6 inch x 6 inch area and learn as much as you can in that area.

Another exercise to practice is to look at someone and try to memorize as much information about them as you can remember. Look at someone, watch them briefly, and then wait half an hour. Recall as much as you can. Determine what makes a person memorable or not, and then apply that knowledge to yourself to make yourself memorable or not, depending on the situation. For example, during an interview for jobs or schools, you will want to make yourself as presentable and as memorable as possible.

A third exercise to practice is to look at a scene very quickly, and then recall as much detail as possible. Perhaps it’s a quick glimpse of a mountaintop vista or a photograph in a newspaper that someone is carrying. Whatever the sight is, practice paying attention and capturing as much of the visual information as you can.

Tuesday
On Tuesdays, we practice exercises involving sound. Go outside and sit down. Close your eyes, and listen to your environment around you. Turn off everything in a room in your house or office and listen to the ambient sounds in the environment. What can you hear? Practice walking and moving throughout your day as quietly as possible so that you can better hear the environment around you. Pause for a few moments during walks to listen for the ambient sounds around you. If you hear a sudden sound, practice determining the direction and distance of the sound. Don’t forget to enjoy sound as well. Take a few moments out of your day to sit down with a good song or piece of music, close your eyes, and give your full attention to listening to the music, enjoying its rich complexity and any emotions the music evokes in you.

Wednesday
On Wednesday, we practice exercises involving smell. Sit down in any comfortable environment and take a deep breath to clear any stagnant air in your lungs. Then place the tip of your tongue against the back of your teeth, and inhale the air around you. Discern as much as you can from the air. Move around your environment. What areas have distinct smells to them, and why? When you’re eating, what foods give off what odors? Could you determine the ingredients of your meal by smell alone?

Thursday
Thursday is the day we practice taste. Sit down at each meal and work on determining what your food is made of just by taste alone. Close your eyes and try to discern the ingredients that make up your food. Pay attention to the different tastes of water wherever you are — each building, office, and home has different plumbing.

Try altering the taste of your food subtly and determining the difference. We have many spices and condiments you can use with your food, such as salt, pepper, sugar, etc. Also, try reducing the amount of condiments you use on your food to a bare minimum so that you can tell the true nature of what you’re eating. You’ll quickly be able to tell what foods really are and aren’t good for you — some foods, after thorough chewing, begin to break down, especially foods with processed chemicals in them. Drink water with your meals instead of flavored beverages if you can, to avoid “coloring” the food.

Friday
We practice the sense of touch on Friday. Close your eyes in your home or office. Try to navigate without using any sense other than touch. When you touch things, try to determine as much information about them as possible. How large is the mouse on your computer in inches? What’s the room temperature? You CAN tell by sense of touch. Blindfold yourself and pick up an object. Feel it thoroughly and determine what it is. Do this in a friend’s home or office where everything might not be familiar.

Practice walking through your backyard or local (and SAFE) woods at night. Rely on your sense of touch to navigate around unseen branches and pitfalls. Wear thinner shoes — sandals or moccasins, so that your feet can feel the terrain more accurately. Walk around barefoot and relearn the sense of touch in the feet. Go outside on a breezy day and try to determine what direction the wind is moving and how fast.

Saturday
General awareness comprises our Saturday. Work on integrating all the skills you’ve practiced during the week. Go for a long walk and try to put it all together.

Conclusion
These sensitivity exercises are designed to help you relax and enjoy the world around you more. Relax, kick back, enjoy life for the grand adventure it is. Learn to see things like a little kid again, as if you were seeing something truly interesting for the first time. So often we become jaded with our daily routines that we overlook what’s really going on around us. Stop sleepwalking! Promote awareness and enjoyment of life!

Chris Penn has been training for five years with various instructors around the Northeast, and is currently a student at the Boston Martial Arts Center. This article originally appeared in Issue 1 of Enlightened Living, a journal for self-discovery. Mr. Penn can be reached at cspenn@bu.edu for questions, comments, and jokes.