Proprioception: Past The 5 Senses

How Understanding Proprioception Can Scale back Ache, Enhance Efficiency, and Preserve You More healthy Longer

Aristotle could have recognized the 5 senses of sight, scent, style, contact, and listening to in his treatise, On The Soul, in 350 BC, however science has come a good distance since then. It’s not simply the fab 5 anymore. Your physique additionally has its personal sensory World Positioning System, one thing Nobel Prize-winning neurophysiologist Charles Scott Sherrington labeled proprioception in 1906.  It’s derived from the Latin phrases proprius— “one’s personal,” and percepio– “notion.” Put merely, it’s your skill to sense your physique’s place in area.

Proprioception is dropping your toes on the ground while you get off the bed within the morning with out having to look down; holding your eyes in your laptop computer at work whilst you attain on your espresso with out spilling it; switching your foot seamlessly from the fuel pedal to the brake within the automobile with out bending over to take a look at the floorboard. You don’t want to consider it, and also you don’t have to see your arms, legs, or toes for any of it to happen with out incident— it occurs robotically, outdoors of your aware thought. And although proprioception happens on a unconscious stage, there are issues you are able to do consciously to evaluate your proprioceptive sense and determine methods to enhance it.

Proprioception could be diminished for quite a lot of completely different causes, from getting older to power ache to poor postural habits, leaving you at better danger of falls or harm. The excellent news is that there are easy, sensible issues you are able to do to develop and strengthen it, enabling you to maneuver and really feel higher in your personal physique. However first, what’s proprioception?

What Is Proprioception?

Tune Up Health co-founder Jill Miller has been learning proprioception her total profession, however the best clarification for the idea got here in an impromptu dialog together with her daughter Lilah, who was 4 years outdated on the time. “We have been within the automobile and I stated ‘Lilah, isn’t it cool you can simply take into consideration your knee, and you may really feel it with out even touching it?’ There was a pause for a number of seconds, after which she stated, ‘Sure. Faux your mind is a finger.’ It was unimaginable. I stated, ‘You’re proper. That’s proprioception.’” 

Depend on youngsters to search out simpler methods to speak about ideas neuroscientists have been grappling with for hundreds of years. 

Whether or not or to not categorize proprioception as an add-on to Aristotle’s 5 senses will depend on who you’re speaking to. Structural Integrator David Lesondak, writer of Fascia: What It Is And Why It Issues and host of the podcast “BodyTalk with David Lesondak”, shares the view of many when he refers to it as a sixth sense. “Culturally and colloquially we’ve talked about ESP because the sixth sense without end, however proprioception is the legit sixth sense,” he says. “It’s  associated to the touch, but it surely’s not the identical factor. It underlies each motion and gesture.” 

Bodily therapist Adam Wolf, founding father of The Motion Guild in Chicago and writer of Foundations of Motion: A Mind-Primarily based Musculoskeletal Strategy, thinks of it slightly in a different way. “I don’t suppose proprioception is the sixth sense,” says Wolf. “I believe it’s one among three techniques within the physique, the opposite two being the visible (eyes) and vestibular (steadiness) techniques. These three sensory techniques give the varied components of your mind data, and it interprets it so every thing can work collectively. In that means your mind is like the last word digital actuality machine.” 

When listening to completely different skilled and scientific views on the idea of proprioception, it might probably sound extra complicated than it truly is, as a result of it usually comes right down to semantics. Jennifer Milner, Pilates coach and host of the Flexible Our bodies podcast, places it succinctly and humorously when she says “That is completely a dialog that may devolve right into a fist battle if you happen to’re having it in the suitable group of scientists. It’s a sophisticated dialog, however to me, it’s simply your physique’s consciousness of the place you’re in area.” Even higher, Millner comes by way of with a Star Wars metaphor everybody can perceive; “Within the authentic film, Luke is coaching on the Millennium Falcon with the lightsaber. Obi-Wan places the helmet over Luke’s head so he can’t see and says ‘Simply sense it. Sense what’s occurring round you.’ That’s Luke’s proprioception getting stronger.” 

So why must you care about proprioception?

Whether or not it’s a sixth sense as David Lesondak believes, or one of many three sensory techniques that drives brain-based motion as Adam Wolf describes, it’s foundational to how we perceive and use our our bodies. “Are you able to think about dwelling in a home and never realizing what the sofa or eating room is for?” asks Lesondak. “That’s usually how we strategy our our bodies. However the extra we’re in contact with what we’re feeling, the extra doubtless our physique will change into our buddy as an alternative of one thing we’ve got to battle or wrestle with to have it do the issues we wish. And to me, that’s the actual good thing about understanding proprioception. It provides you confidence about find out how to enhance it.” 

Earlier than we take a deep dive on all issues proprioception, let’s take a fast take a look at the way it compares to 3 different phrases generally utilized in the identical dialog as proprioception. They’re all completely different processes, however work collectively to attempt to obtain homeostasis in physiological perform.

Proprioception and Day by day Actions

Proprioception is a part of each transfer we make, each minute of day by day, and no anatomical half could also be a greater instance of this than the ankle. The retinaculum of the ankle— or the fascial band round your ankle— has 5 occasions as many proprioceptive nerve endings as anyplace else in your physique. Jennifer Milner describes how this performs out in one thing so simple as stepping off of a curb onto the road. “In the event you’re strolling down the road at evening and it’s late, possibly the curb is greater or greater than you thought it was going to be, so that you begin to twist your ankle. In case you have lots of proprioceptors down there, then you will have lots of voices shouting again up at your mind, ‘Hey, you’re about to twist your ankle. Proper your self, and repair it earlier than something occurs.’ Your mind thinks ‘Oh my gosh, I’m about to sprain my ankle,’ and fixes it. In case you have poor proprioception, then you definately don’t have lots of guys down there prepared and prepared to work, so the message will get to your mind too late and also you twist your ankle. It’s the distinction between having a 5G community and the Pony Categorical.”

Are you frightened you may need the Pony Categorical in your ankle as an alternative of a 5G community? Listed here are some simple issues you are able to do at dwelling to assist proprioception in your foot:

For extra suggestions and workout routines on enhancing proprioception see beneath.

When Proprioception Goes Mistaken

One of many best methods to know proprioception is to listen to the tales of those that’ve misplaced it, by way of harm or different causes. Essentially the most well-known case is Ian Waterman, an Englishman who was the topic of the 1997 BBC documentary, “The Man Who Misplaced His Physique.”  Waterman was a 19-year-old worker at a butcher store when a flu-like an infection landed him within the hospital, and he wakened with a complete lack of proprioceptive sense. The virus attacked his central nervous system and destroyed all proprioceptive sensory neurons, however left the motor neurons intact. 

JARGON ALERT
Neurons: Cells within the central nervous system that ship and obtain data to and from the mind. 

The consequence was that Waterman’s muscle tissues and limbs nonetheless labored, however he couldn’t really feel the place they have been in area.  “My limbs have been lifeless to the contact,” he informed the BBC documentary crew. Medical doctors informed him he would doubtless by no means stroll once more, however he spent 17 months in a rehabilitation middle, decided to keep away from the wheelchair he was informed he wanted. Since Waterman couldn’t depend upon proprioception to sense movement from his legs and arms, he had to determine a workaround, and his eyes grew to become his most respected asset to regain the life he lived earlier than the virus. With the intention to transfer any a part of his physique, he had to have the ability to see it whereas he moved it. “I had to take a look at every thing to regulate it.” That meant wanting on the ground and his toes each time he took a single step; it took him a full yr to have the ability to stand safely. The harm to the nervous system was everlasting, so to at the present time, Ian should focus intently on each transfer he makes along with his physique. Nothing occurs robotically, the way in which it does for most individuals. The lights should be on always (if he can’t see what he’s doing, he could collapse), and his days are stuffed with limitless readjustments to his environment. Even one thing so simple as choosing up an merchandise on the grocery requires him to change his stance for stability, in any other case a heavy piece of produce can throw off his bodily orientation in area and result in a fall. Regardless of all of this, Waterman has gone on to guide a full life, and has confirmed to be an inspiration to others who skilled sudden lack of proprioception. 

Famed neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote a few related expertise he had with a affected person in his 1986 bestselling guide about neurological problems, The Man Who Mistook His Spouse For A Hat. Sacks handled a lady named Christina, who misplaced her sense of proprioception after a standard-protocol dose of antibiotics earlier than gallbladder surgical procedure triggered acute irritation, damaging a few of her sensory nerves. Whereas one hospital psychiatrist initially dismissed Christina’s situation as “anxiousness hysteria,” Sacks and his workforce did a sequence of sensory exams that exposed a near-total proprioceptive deficit, much like Ian Waterman’s expertise. After Sacks defined to Christina the interdependence of the three techniques of imaginative and prescient, vestibular (steadiness), and proprioception for physique motion, the affected person got here to the identical conclusion that Waterman did; her eyes should step in the place her proprioception left her. She informed Sacks, “This proprioception is just like the eyes of the physique, the way in which the physique sees itself. And if it goes, because it’s gone with me, it’s just like the physique’s blind. My physique can’t ‘see’ itself if it’s misplaced its eyes, proper? So I’ve to look at it — be its eyes. Proper?” As with Waterman, Christina’s harm was everlasting, however as time went on, she was capable of do lots of the issues she did earlier than her hospitalization and harm, with lodging. 

Whereas Waterman and Christina are good examples of people that have wholesome limbs however no proprioception, neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran has accomplished groundbreaking work with sufferers who’ve misplaced a limb in an amputation or traumatic accident, however nonetheless preserve proprioceptive sense in that lacking a part of the physique, a phenomenon referred to as phantom limb syndrome. A few of these sufferers expertise the sensation of motion or ache within the spot the place the limb was, and will complain that the lacking limb feels locked in place, inflicting intense discomfort and cramping. With the intention to perceive how this occurs, we first want to know that our mind has a sensory map that’s spatially organized round the way in which we use our physique. Sure components of our physique have kind of “area” in our brains, in keeping with the extent of exercise. Dr. Meredith Stephens, a specialist in bodily remedy, scoliosis rehabilitation, and wholesome getting older explains it this fashion: “In the event you’re an excellent piano participant, the illustration of your fingers within the mind map goes to be a lot greater than it could be for me, as a result of I don’t play a single instrument. If we consider it from a motor management perspective, once we cease transferring issues, we lose actual property within the mind. The map in our mind that helps us with the dexterity and motion of that half will shrink. Conversely, if we use one thing lots, it will get extra actual property within the mind.”

In his guide The Inform-Story Mind: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human, Dr. Ramachandran connects the phantom limb expertise to the mind map. “Consider what occurs when an arm is amputated. There isn’t a longer an arm, however there’s nonetheless a map of the arm within the mind. The job of the map, its raison d’être, is to characterize its arm. The arm could also be gone however the mind map, having nothing higher to do, troopers on. It retains representing the arm, second by second, day after day. This map persistence explains the fundamental phantom limb phenomenon— why the felt presence of the limb persists lengthy after the flesh-and-blood limb has been severed.”  

Victoria C. Anderson-Barnes and her colleagues at Walter Reed Military Medical Middle in Washington, DC hypothesize that this phantom expertise is a results of one thing they name proprioceptive reminiscence, suggesting that “the reminiscences of the limb’s place previous to amputation stays embedded inside a person’s unconscious, and ache reminiscences that could be related to every limb place contribute not solely to phantom limb ache, however to the expertise of a set or frozen limb.” They suggest that day by day duties and bodily exercise change into a part of an individual’s proprioceptive reminiscence financial institution, nonetheless embedded within the unconscious and simply accessible after amputation. 

Dr. Ramachandran developed a way to deal with the phantom limb expertise known as Mirror Visible Suggestions (MRV), which he particulars in his guide. “I positioned an upright mirror within the middle of a cardboard field whose high and entrance had been eliminated. In the event you stood in entrance of the mirror, held your fingers on both aspect of the mirror and seemed down at them from an angle, you possibly can see the reflection of 1 hand exactly superimposed on the felt location of your different hand. In different phrases, you’ll get the vivid however misunderstanding that you just have been taking a look at each of your fingers; the truth is, you’ll solely be taking a look at one precise hand and one reflection of a hand.” Dr. Ramachandran instructed sufferers to maneuver their hand, which “tricked” the mind into believing the phantom limb was transferring as properly, which regularly led to a discount in phantom limb ache, or helped free the sensation of a frozen phantom limb. Although the precise mechanism for what produces the ache aid or unlocking of the phantom limb is unknown at this level, Ramachandran says in his guide that he suspects the mind will get so many conflicting sensory inputs that it provides up and says “To hell with it; there is no such thing as a arm.”

He discusses the mirror field experiment in additional element in his extensively seen 2007 TED Discuss, 3 Clues to Understanding Your Mind.   

How Does Proprioception Work?

So now we all know what proprioception does, however how does it work?  “You may have these nerve endings known as mechanoreceptors which are peppered all through your fascial tissues at completely different depths,” says Jill Miller. “They usually transmit data in a short time to your mind about the place your components are in relationship to one another.”

JARGON ALERT
Mechanoreceptors: The nerve endings that relay particular contact and pressure-sensing data to the central nervous system.  

“The mechanoreceptors are a system of 5 completely different sensory nerves, and so they all have completely different features,” says David Lesondak. “Some solely have interaction when, let’s say you’re attempting to elevate a heavy object, and people mechanoreceptors that dwell close to the joint areas sign your mind about hazard so that you don’t overdo it. A few of the mechanoreceptors reply to quick, sudden actions and vibration, and a few reply to lengthy, sluggish traction or stretching. Others have a variety of sensations from itching, to burning, to stinging, to the stroke of a paintbrush or feather, so they’re sensations which are bodily emotions. They’re not contact, per se, however they’re issues we really feel bodily, and it’s all within the area of the fascia and connective tissue. And what appears to occur is that when there’s stress or some type of bodily engagement of the mechanoreceptors, there’s a very small piezo electrical cost that causes the collagen fibers within the fascia to unwind in a specific means that transmits the sign to the mind. It’s a suggestions loop that offers us a real-time evaluation of how our limbs are working or not working.”

JARGON ALERT
Piezoelectricity: the power of sure natural supplies to provide {an electrical} cost in response to mechanical stress. Piezo2 is among the mechanoreceptors central to proprioception.

Scientists solely just lately found a really small variety of individuals worldwide who’re lacking this piezo receptor— piezo2—which leaves them with very related experiences to Ian Waterman and Oliver Sack’s affected person, Christina, besides the individuals with out the piezo2 receptor are born with this genetic situation, as an alternative of shedding proprioception later in life as a result of an an infection or different acute harm. In accordance with an article revealed in Vox in 2019, a workforce of researchers on the Nationwide Institutes of Well being and their colleagues world wide have solely recognized 18 instances, with the primary two documented within the New England Journal of Drugs in 2016. 

Dr. Wilbour Kelsick is a chiropractor and rehab specialist who works with non-public purchasers and athletes, and has been a member of the official employees of the Canadian Nationwide and Olympic groups for over 25 years. He says the important thing to optimizing proprioception is knowing it as one thing that doesn’t simply dwell within the joints. “It’s a body-wide, built-in mechanosignaling system. That’s crucial factor to know,” says Dr. Kelsick. “The way in which we’re taught anatomy and physiology is to take a look at the physique in a really segmented means, however every thing is related. We transfer as a unit, and the gravitational subject is appearing on us as a unit. If a golfer goes to hit a ball, his imaginative and prescient is coordinating, however how a lot drive goes to be within the toes? What’s the arm going to be doing? The elbow has to speak to the knee, and the knee has to speak to the foot. The communication system has to work as a unit, and that’s what proprioception does.”

A key element of the “realizing the place your physique is in area” is adjusting to your surroundings. Jennifer Milner works with lots of dancers, and observed one thing about the way in which they transfer by way of rooms that broadened her understanding of how proprioception dictates how we work together with our environment. “I observed once they’re not dancing, they’re hugging the furnishings within the room; they’re strolling near a desk or chair,” says Milner. “I commented on that to a health care provider buddy of mine and he stated, ‘Properly, that’s proprioception. It’s simply the physique instinctively in search of one thing to inform them the place they’re. You set anyone right into a room and so they’re going to stroll near the desk or near the chair. Only a few persons are simply going to wander by way of the open area.’ So it was fascinating to me to consider one thing bouncing off of myself, like sonar or radar.” 

Take a minute and see your personal habits while you stroll by way of a room. Even when the room is large, do you end up strolling near the wall, or close to objects or furnishings within the room? Do you bump your leg on the espresso desk in the lounge even when there’s loads of area for you in all instructions round it and also you didn’t should be so near the desk within the first place? That’s your physique in search of one thing to inform it the place it’s.

Proprioception and Ache

One other sensible motive to know the idea of proprioception is its connection to ache. A rise in a single inevitably results in a lower within the different. “Enhance of ache goes to end in a lack of proprioception, interval,” says Jill Miller. “Even if you happen to don’t suppose you’re shedding coordination, as your ache ranges enhance, your proprioception decreases. That’s simply the way in which they work.”

Consider the mind map outlined earlier (the sensory homunculus), and the quantity of area every a part of your physique takes up in that map. Ache has a direct impression on it. Adam Wolf summarizes it this fashion:  “We all know that instantly upon ache, the chemistry in your mind modifications, and over time, that ends in much less illustration of that physique half within the mind. So which means when you’ve got ache at a joint, both from a sprain or surgical procedure, you’re going to have much less proprioception at that physique half.”

A part of the explanation the mind chemistry modifications is as a result of ache modifications the way in which we use our physique, so the suggestions loop between the mechanoreceptors and the mind is interrupted. “After we really feel ache, we are inclined to not wish to transfer the realm as a result of we don’t wish to jar it and make it worse. It’s instinctive,” says David Lesondak. “And, sadly, if we do an excessive amount of of that, it shuts down the proprioception. But when we will slowly induce extra proprioception, the ache begins to recede and new alternatives for motion are created.” 

A pure consequence of getting a great proprioceptive sense is that you’re higher capable of keep away from conditions that result in ache or harm. “Proprioception is sort of a ache gate,” says Dr. Wilbour Kelsick. “If you concentrate on proprioception when it comes to sustaining kinesthetic sense, dynamic stability, and management, it prevents the physique from attending to the acute vary. As a result of if the physique has no sense of how far it’s going or how a lot issues are being stretched, there’s ache immediately. Proprioception is just like the guard that claims ‘I’m right here, as a result of if I’m not working, issues are going to go loopy and the physique will ship disinformation into the central nervous system.’” 

Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is an inherited dysfunction that causes hypermobility of the joints due to an abnormality associated to collagen protein. Collagen is a key element of fascia, and if it’s not producing or processing usually, the mechanoreceptors can’t successfully take part within the suggestions loop with the mind to assist wholesome proprioception. Not everybody who’s hypermobile has EDS, however many nonetheless expertise hypermobility of their joints and wrestle with proprioception. “Some with hypermobility don’t at all times sense when sufficient is sufficient,” says David Lesondak. “They may go too far as a result of they’re not getting sufficient suggestions within the mechanoreceptors of the fascia.”

Jill Miller has been hypermobile her complete life, culminating in a complete hip alternative on the age of 45 in 2017. The dramatic surgical procedure upended every thing she thought she understood about her personal proprioception. It set her on a course that might convey her again to herself, and assist others who’ve been in related conditions.

Desk Life and Proprioception

Even if you happen to don’t have hypermobility or one other underlying situation that negatively impacts proprioception, fashionable work life can have a dramatic impression in your proprioceptive sense. In the event you sit all day lengthy at a desk, it’s essential to be proactive about enhancing proprioception so you possibly can scale back the chance of harm. 

Dr. Aracelly Latino-Feliz is the founding father of The Motion Remedy Institute in Florida and sees how this impacts her purchasers. “Even if you happen to’re a wholesome particular person, if you happen to’re sitting in a chair for six or seven hours, your physique is adapting to being in that place,” says Dr. Latino-Feliz. “Your proprioception shall be altered after sitting that lengthy. So it is advisable to perceive the way it impacts your efficiency so that you don’t get injured while you go for a run after work.”  

In the event you’re dwelling the desk jockey life, there are some fast issues you are able to do after work to convey your physique again on board, and enhance proprioception earlier than you’re employed out. First, present some like to the entrance of your hips and thighs, which have been curled up in a seated place all day. 

One other essential space to “get up” is your glutes, which have borne the brunt of your lengthy days in the identical chair, taking part in a single zoom assembly after the opposite.

Check Your Proprioception At House

Are you interested by your personal proprioceptive skills? There are some simple issues you are able to do at dwelling to gauge proprioception, and this lets you uncover components of your physique that want extra consideration. While you do a proprioception self-test at dwelling, you might discover that there are areas that don’t cooperate the way in which you count on them to. Jill Miller calls these physique blind spots. “These blind spots are areas of overuse, underuse, misuse, or physique confuse,” says Miller. “And it’s the confusion that I personally discover probably the most intriguing, as a result of it’s a failure of your physique to present you suggestions about the place it’s.”

Right here’s a easy steadiness take a look at you possibly can take at dwelling to gauge proprioception:

How To Enhance Proprioception

Essentially the most thrilling information about proprioception is that there are lots of issues you are able to do by yourself to take care of or enhance it. It provides you with a greater sense of how your physique is transferring, scale back ache, and scale back accidents. “When you concentrate on it, we domesticate our senses, don’t we?” says David Lesondak. “Folks can domesticate an exceptional palate for wine, or specific kinds of spices, or sure sorts of auditory or visible acuity. It’s the identical factor with proprioception. It’s a way you possibly can domesticate, and the extra you domesticate it, the extra beautiful it may be.”

If you wish to attempt a proprioceptive train that places all of those ideas collectively, supplying you with a sensible sense of how your tissues talk together with your mind to maneuver your physique, attempt one among Jill’s favourite strikes, propellor arms:  

Understanding proprioception and doing the small day by day or weekly actions to assist it might probably have a long-lasting impression in your well being and mobility. Getting old is unavoidable, however how we age is as much as us in additional methods than we frequently perceive. You could be your personal well being care supplier at this time, and reap the advantages for many years to come back. “Prevention begins now,” says Jill Miller. “Slips and falls are probably the most lethal accidents to individuals over the age of 80. A fractured hip is the main reason behind demise within the aged, and people fractured hips come from slips and falls. And slips and falls occur due to an absence of proprioception and coordination. You may start constructing your confidence and your physique competence now.”

David Lesondak believes understanding proprioception permits your physique to change into your finest buddy. “Once I work with my sufferers, I usually hear the phrase need. ‘I would like extra confidence in my physique to do X.’ They usually get to the purpose the place they really feel like they’ve a brand new relationship with their physique, and it’s their buddy now. And to me, that’s the key sauce. That’s the actual present you get from proprioception.”

Prepared for extra?

Now that you’ve a greater understanding of what proprioception is, right here’s a fast introduction to its sister sense, interoception. If proprioception is knowing what’s occurring to your physique in area outdoors, interoception is what’s occurring inside. And simply as you possibly can take issues into your personal fingers to enhance proprioception, there are issues you are able to do to assist interoception. Right here’s a take a look at what it’s, and how one can improve it.

Learn Extra on Tune Up Health