The Forgotten Sixth Sense

Thanks to movies, TV, books, and pop culture, many people today are familiar with the idea of extrasensory perception – telepathy, clairvoyance, remote sensing, astral projection, and all that jazz; It seems at least once a year there’s a new prophet claiming to have seen the next big doomsday event.

While it’s certainly entertaining, the idea of a sixth sense has been around for some time, and although many modern interpretations look to be more in the realm of science fiction or fantasy, there is some elements of truth to the idea – just not where you would expect to look.

Flash back to the 70’s and 80’s. Bodybuilding has finally grown past its infancy and awkward teenage phase and is now turning things on its head for people across the world: Pumping Iron, a classic American docudrama featuring the legendary Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, Franco Colombu, and many others, gives folks an unfiltered and gritty, yet charming insight into the world of competitive bodybuilding, and approaches it from several angles one would not expect at all – one of which is our segue into the lesser-known sense that is our topic of discussion today.

There is a scene in Pumping Iron where Arnold Schwarzenegger, in full 6’2”, 235-pound competition weight is taking a ballet class. Yes, a ballet class – complete with a certifiable, trained ballerina coaching him through the basic movements and flow. One thing that she emphasizes is not just the start and end positions, but the transitions between them, and the way the body and muscles move while on display to reach those points.

In Arnold’s context, this means the different poses and flexes he used to awe the audience and wow the judges. In a physical sense, it ties into this interesting little sense called proprioception.

Not quite a sense of touch, not quite a sense of balance, and not quite a sense of sight, it’s a combination of electrical impulses from the various types of motor neurons within our body that help us realize where it is in relation to itself. Rather mind bending to wrap your head around at first, but here’s two ways to encapsulate the idea: Bodybuilders love the term mind-muscle connection, which is essentially what proprioception is. The scientific term is kinesthesia, but the fitness community has coined a much more approachable term, and that leads to the next exercise.

Close your eyes and extend your right arm out randomly in any direction. Now, keeping your eyes closed, touch your nose. Now touch your left ear. Notice how you can mostly succeed at that, even without having to use your eyes or main senses? That is proprioception, or your mind-muscle connection.

Weightlifters, athletes, dancers, musicians, crafters and artisans – everybody who uses their hands or their body in some way uses and trains this exact sense. Most people don’t go out of their way to train it, but high level athletes and other competitors most certainly do, even if they’re not aware that they’re training it.

Take weightlifting – eccentric and concentric movement, or lengthening and shortening the muscles to move the limbs, uses a highly refined cascade of motor neurons all communicating to one another without conscious thought, but with conscious intention to move the weight that you’re lifting. When you’re concentrating on the sensing of the muscles as they contract and extend, exerting force to maneuver or lift weight, you’re training your sense of proprioception. You’re consciously engaging the unconscious responses and impulses of the motor neurons that control your muscles and regulate force input and output, in order to direct that energy into the completion of that task.

It’s a prettily worded abstraction, but it’s also your forgotten sixth sense. It isn’t limited to just weightlifting, either – any daily activity or exercise involves this sense, even if you’re not aware of it at first. Every movement, every action, is a result of these neurons and this inherent sense of awareness that almost all creatures of where they are in relation to themselves.

Hand-eye coordination is one consequence of a high or low functioning sense of proprioception; Similarly with foot-eye coordination (though if that’s the proper term, I can’t say at the current time of writing), and just your overall sense of balance in general. Your inner ear most definitely contributes the most to your sense of balance, but if you couldn’t feel where you were in relation to yourself, how would you know which way to lean or balance?

Similarly, without proprioception, you would essentially have to think through every action you did, including walking around and breathing, things which we mostly dedicate very little conscious thought to after a certain point.

If you’ve ever watched the videos of AI robots learning how to walk over a thousand iterations, you can imagine how we would look if we suddenly lost the ability to know where our bodies were. A similarly fun exercise would be to let your foot or leg falls asleep and then try to walk on it – something that has probably happened to most, if not all of us at least once. See how difficult it is compared to normal? That’s your sixth sense.

At this point, you may be asking – that's great, but I don’t want to lift weights, run marathons, or learn a new instrument, so how exactly do I train this new-fangled sixth sense you’re speaking of? Well, I’m going to pull a little bit from the fitness community, a little bit from the psychology community, and a little bit from the hippie community to give you a few options to explore your newly discovered sense.

At this point, I will make it entirely clear that I am not a medical professional, I am not giving medical advice, and I am only offering my perspective on proprioception based on my experiences in weightlifting, meditation, higher education, and a whole lot of introspection. Please consult actual professionals and use your good ol’ common sense before doing any of these things, if they make you uncomfortable in any way – although realistically & hopefully, they shouldn’t.

So, onto the list!

Number One: Meditation.

Yup, just gonna get it out of the way. Transcendentalists, this one’s for you. Meditation can come in many, many different forms, but the most commonly accessible one is breathing control and mindfulness. There are, likewise, many different forms and definitions of both of those terms – so, unfortunately, meditation is very much a personalized thing, and the path to mastering it even more so.

The very basics are to close your eyes, sit in a comfortable position (cross-legged, Lotus, or whatever is easiest for you to relax but not fall asleep in), and focus solely on your breathing. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Let all other thoughts enter your mind and then pass through as if they just were – and, unfortunately, my descriptions for that are going to get a little more abstract from here.

You want to acknowledge any thoughts but not linger on them, and don’t consciously dismiss them but instead just let them go. Imagine, essentially, that you’re alone on a hill listening to the wind, and your thoughts are leaves carried by it – let them pass you by and see them, but try to only be aware of you, your breathing, your body, and your place in the world around you.

This is basically step one of mindfulness. Step two, three, etc is understanding your place in the world with other people and other things and a whole lot of other stuff, but step one is always Know Thy Self – thus, proprioception. Now, as I said, this is only my experience and understanding of meditation, which is limited and entry-level at best, and very much tinted by my own preconceptions, reading, and education. There are many other techniques that could be more effective for each different person and I highly recommend researching different meditation techniques to discover which resonates most with you, because that’s likely your best bet for success if you’d like to go down that rabbit hole. It’s certainly a beneficial one, but it’s also very much the Journey of a Thousand Miles (tm).

Number Two: Tai Chi, or other Martial Arts

Building directly on our previous suggestion is something I’ve always thought of as a moving meditation of sorts. Tai Chi emphasizes slow, smooth, purposeful movements, particularly focusing on the start and end points of each of the forms, as well as the transitions between them.

Sound familiar?

There are many styles of Tai Chi. I, personally, learned Yang-Style Tai Chi, which is meant to have more martial and defense applications than the more meditation, mobility, and health-focused styles, but it all accomplishes the same thing. It helps you become more aware of your body, how it moves, and particularly, how it feels to go through those motions and be aware of your body as it moves through each form.

It’s another form of mindfulness, and for many people it’s more accessible and helpful because, often, it’s done in group settings, with room for both instruction and less pressure than learning individually. Depending on where you live, it may be possible for you to go out early one morning and simply find a Tai Chi group to join.

Similar to meditation, the movements in Tai Chi are always going to be just a little different from person to person, as we all have different bodies and move differently. They all follow largely the same form, depending on the family or style taught, but the more advanced you get the more you focus on what feels right and correct for your body, and what enables you to channel the most force with, or redirect forces through your body.

Other martial arts can help accomplish the same thing, although since they are at a faster pace, there’s not as much emphasis on the mind-muscle or mind-body connection as with Tai Chi.

(Kung Fu or Shaolin training is the one exception to this because they’re a whole other level entirely and I don’t know nearly enough to even try to extrapolate or speak on their underlying philosophies, methodologies, or practices. Go to a temple, don’t ask a bored Computer Engineer.)

Number Three: Drugs

Insert Charlie Sheen reference here. This one’s the reason for the disclaimer, in case you didn’t realize already. As I said, I am not advocating or suggesting the use of drugs for any purposes not approved of by a medical or legal professional, I am simply offering my opinion based on my experiences on how certain chemical substances affect brain chemistry and therefore how they might possibly affect proprioception or enable someone to become more familiar with the idea of it.

Anyway, with the second disclaimer out of the way, there are many substances available over the counter, in dispensaries, or from other sketchier sources that can alter your mind in such a way to make you much, much more aware of your body. The ones that most people seem to think of are marijuana or alcohol, but we know there’s a whole gamut of others out there.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I certainly remember the DARE commercials where the kid was melting into the couch. Funnily enough, it was never marijuana that gave me that particular feeling, but it absolutely can make you more aware, or even hyperaware of your own body. Similarly, psilocybin mushrooms can have such effects, even in small or microdoses.

Both of these substances have had clinical trials and research done, and have been proposed as treatments for many mental or physical disorders. As always, do your own research, but if these are options available where you’re at and something that you feel may help, they are viable options for becoming more in-tune with your kinesthesia, depending on your circumstances. I certainly don’t recommend using them as crutches or coping mechanisms, and highly recommend consulting a medical professional before taking or trying anything, period.

Onto less(?) serious topics! Nootropics are another field of substances that have emerged in the past few decades, and also something not entirely well known or documented! Ashwagandha, Lion’s Mane, even caffeine and Adderall are technically classified as these.

The main focus on this class of chemicals is not necessarily the mind-body connection, but the mind itself – however, in some individuals, that could be the necessary assistance needed to concentrate more on the connection that exists, and becoming more aware of something is the first step to understanding and training it. All of these affect (or don’t affect) the mind in different ways, through different neural or chemical pathways, and so the effects from person to person can be wildly different at times.

It should also be noted that many of these supplements are outright bunk, and most of them are not regulated by the FDA. Nutritional and dietary supplements are a funky gray area, one that the health and fitness community as of late has made even murkier, and so nootropics and other “mind enhancing” drugs available online should always be taken with a grain of salt (metaphorically) and a healthy dose of research & skepticism (literally).

Many, though – like Lion’s Mane – have been shown to have legitimate immunomodulatory or neurological effects, which just goes to show that more studies need to be done on this class of substances, if only to see what we actually can cure or solve with them.

If a mushroom can produce an enzyme that helps reform, remake, or create new neural pathways in the brain – well, then it should be possible to reform motor neurons in the muscles, right? Something for the scientists to figure out, but also one last tip of the hat to our forgotten sixth sense, the neat little byproduct of all those motor neurons – proprioception.

I hope you found this article informative and entertaining, and please share any thoughts or comments below!