SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

How to boost the power of your senses. this week: touch

TOUCH is controlled by nerve endings transmitting signals from the skin to the brain.

This can decline with age as a result of damage to nerves. Meditation can train the brain and improve our perception of subtle changes in touch, according to a 2015 study published in the journal Scientific Reports.

People meditating on the sensation of touch on one finger, by focusing intensely on things such as the feeling of wind on the skin, or the temperature of the finger as it rested on their leg, improved their ability to tell when they were being prodded in two points very close together — something we’d normally feel as one sensation.