What the heck do cups have to do with our senses?

 As Chiropractors we train to be specialists in Neuromusculoskeletal function.

So, you can imagine my shock when after eight years in clinical practice as a Chiropractor I heard about ‘Sensory Processing Disorder’ for the very first time.

This condition is primarily a dysfunction in the nervous system related to our senses and how we perceive the world around us.

Why had it taken so long???

How many children and adults had I treated over the years that I could have helped to better understand why they felt overwhelm???

Why did more people not know about this??

At that point, in this hotel conference room in the depths of Ireland, I decided to make it my mission to educate patients, parents and members of the public about Sensory Processing Challenges (it’s often not deemed ‘severe enough’ to be diagnosed a ‘Disorder’) as we can all be affected by them.

Sensory processing is something that happens all day, every day, every single second deep within our brain and it's how our brain makes sense of all the information that it gets from our external and internal environment via our senses.  

As I’m sure you know we have five main senses that I'm sure you know about;

Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch and Smell.

and there's two lesser known senses which are just as important;

·       Proprioception which is how we perceive the location and movement of our body parts

·       Vestibular which is related to balance and coordination.

Imagine, that inside your brain you have a cup for each of these seven senses. You’ll likely have a small or large cup for one or two and the opposite for others – we’re all different.

If you then imagine the sensory input as a drip, and with each drip our cup fills. A smaller cup will only tolerate a small amount of input before overspilling, whereas the larger cup, will need much more input to be comfortably full. Sensory-avoidant vs Sensory-seeking.

Here are some examples:

If you have a small cup for Vestibular its not going to take a long time before you feel Travel Sick on a winding road, ask to be let off of a fairground ride or close your eyes and clench your jaw on a bumpy train. With only a few drips of input, the nervous system becomes overwhelmed and a body-wide stress response ensues. On the other hand, if you have a large cup for Vestibular you might love rollercoasters, relish the chance to hang upside down on the monkey bars with your kids or count rally driving as your favourite hobby. The stimulus has to be high to create a sense of calm in your nervous system i.e. we are sensory seeking.

Hearing is another sense where this can be well demonstrated. If you have a small cup for Hearing you are unlikely to tolerate either loud noises or multiple noises at once. Have you ever been in a restaurant where you have loud background noise and a friend is speaking to you whilst your child is moaning at you for more juice? This repetitive dripping of sound input from multiple sources can, at-best, affect your ability to concentrate on your friend’s relationship issues, or at-worst be enough to tip you over the edge. You will maybe know some children who would just run into the corner and cover their ears to block out further input drips. It is harder for us to adapt to our environment when we are stressed. Conversely, there are those who relish being in busy, noisy environments and can even study and learn whilst listening to blaring music through earphones.

I often consult with parents whose children only eat a bland diet of beige foods. These children tend to have a small cup for taste, touch/texture, and often smell. Due to the fact that they cannot verbalise how they are feeling they can act out when being encouraged to eat as their outwards stress response. Others have a large cup for these senses and need high spice, high flavour, high texture foods in their diet to fill there sensory cups sufficiently.

These are only just a few examples but essentially we are all unique. Having knowledge of Sensory Integration and which sized cup you/your loved ones have for each sense can provide opportunities to adapt the surrounding environment in order to limit overwhelm if a small cup features, and gain understanding of why sensory-seeking behaviours exist in those with large cups.

There are also ways to help increase the threshold and ‘normalise’ your cup-size. Therapies that tap directly in to better regulating the nervous system such as Chiropractic, CranioSacral Therapy, Osteopathy, Hypnotherapy and Occupational Therapy are crucial in helping create Sensory Integration which you feel more in control of.

I've worked with several children and adults in the past and witnessed life-changing results. If you would like any more information get in touch at info@corehealthchiropractic.co.uk and please share this blog with anyone who needs to know about Sensory Processing Challenges (i.e. everyone) – I told you it was my mission!

‘til next time,

Francesca xx