Sensehacking: How to Use the Power of Your Senses for Happier, Healthier Living

Much of the interest in the nature effect has been triggered by the eminent North American sociobiologist E. O. Wilson’s influential suggestion that we humans are biophilic, meaning that we have a natural affinity for living things.

A number of studies have demonstrated that those viewing pictures of national parks in the US exhibit an impaired memory for, and a much reduced appreciation of, those landscapes if they also hear road traffic noise, or else the sounds of helicopters – this being the cacophony that apparently accosts the ears of many of those who are lucky enough t

Stimulating the skin, or rather the C-tactile afferents, in other words, should perhaps be considered a biological necessity, and not merely a luxury for those wanting to be pampered.

Ultimately, sensism is all about finding the right balance of sensory stimulation in our lives. We need to recognize that the sensory overload so many of us complain about is really only affecting our higher rational senses, namely our eyes and ears. As we have seen, too many of us are suffering from a neglect of our more emotional senses – namely

So often, what we see is affected by what we hear, what we smell by what we feel, what we feel by what we see, and so it goes on. Sensehacking is built on our growing understanding of such sensory interconnections.

the fundamental problem in the modern era is that we seem to have lost touch with our more sensual side. The increasing amounts of time that those living an urban existence, which is the majority of people these days, spend indoors mean that we are all in danger of losing touch with nature, and the multisensory benefits that it provides. As Marc Tr

The Glenmorangie campaign, like the Guinness example, shows how the latest in digital experience, together with the emerging knowledge of perception, can be used to hack the multisensory experience in the home online, or in store. Figuring out how such experiences can be delivered, enhanced and propagated digitally is one of the most intriguing cha

is worth noting that the biophilia hypothesis and ART make somewhat different predictions about the underlying causes of the nature effect. According to the biophilia account, there is something about being amongst living things that is beneficial, while according to the Kaplans it is being in an environment that is minimally demanding of our volun

No surprise, then, that our ‘innate’ affinity for nature (biophilia) is matched by biophobia, an equally strong fear of things that look like, or move like, or, indeed, are spiders and snakes, etc. Biophobia appears to reflect some kind of evolved preparedness to develop a fear of, or acquire an aversion to, these ancestral threats.39 While so many

The physical characteristics of the places in which we work influence the way we think more than we realize. And while many of the effects, when considered individually, might be small, every little helps. Taken together, they may ultimately have a big impact on how we perform. In the Home chapter, for example, we already came across the suggestion