Sensory Awareness Overview

I have gathered a lot of insight from the various sensory awareness exercises we have done in class. Some have meant more than others and some were more difficult than others. The first eye-opening experience was the "Roof" experiment, where we attempted to use all our senses at one time. This was one of the hardest to do because I think we are trained to use one or at the most two senses at one time. My favorite SAE was the "Blindfold" experiment where we blindfolded ourselves and walked up the stairs seven flights to class. It was the most fun but also one of the most insightful; for instance when I put the blindfold on I had an immediate sense of anxiety, this is what I expected, but when I just trusted my memory of where things were I found myself walking around rather comfortably and at my normal pace.
The most boring exercise but probably the most meaningful was "Standing". We were asked to stand for only six minutes, not to talk, close our eyes, and just 'notice'. This was nearly impossible for almost everyone in the room. It made us realize the extent of our inpatients, and that we need something to distract ourselves because we aren’t even comfortable enough in our own skin to stand still. I personally didn’t have to talk to anyone during those six minutes but did continuously shift my weight from side to side.