HealthLinksSC.com | 67 In the summer of 1985, Greenville County resident Tommy Lewis Neal was playing outfield on his softball team when a batter hit the ball in the gap. He raced to prevent an insidethe-park home run, but, just as he reached the outfield fence to retrieve the ball, his cleats hit a spot of asphalt and both legs flew out from under him. “And I instinctively threw out my arms to break the fall,” Neal recalled. “So instead of seriously hurting my back or hips, all I got was a scrape on both palms – and was able to get up and throw the ball back to hold the runner to a triple. And it all happened in like a split second.” Neal’s experience is what scientists call equilibrioception – a little-known human sense that allows us to keep our balance and to react immediately to changes in body movement, acceleration and direction. “I never heard of it before,” Neal said. “At the time, people just said I was lucky not to get hurt.” But if you’ve ever had something similar happen where your mind or body tried to avoid a potential disaster, chances are it came from one of our lesser-known senses. And beyond the five major ones we learn about in grade school, scientists now estimate that we have at least nine senses – and perhaps a lot more – to help keep us well, healthy and from incurring anything more than a few palm scrapes. “The concept of the five human senses is outdated,” said Erin Eatough, Ph.D. an occupational health psychologist with BetterUp, an online wellness platform. “Neuroscientists agree that people are gifted with far more than the five senses we learned in school.” But other than sight, sound, smell, taste and touch, what other senses do we have to steer us toward better health? So far, researchers with Harvard School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins University list these additional four: By L. C. Leach III “Our ability to use all these senses is a gift,” Eatough said. “Imagine what life would be like without even one of them.”
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