Wanting to experience the same wonder from your childhood?

Sensory regulation is the foundational mechanism at play when it comes to regulating our emotions, thoughts and behaviors. Without an ability to process the world around us with full use of our senses, we can easily become agitated or numb. However, with full work days in front of the computer, busy surroundings and endless distractions, we are less in control of our “stimulus settings.” What would it take to build more sensory balance into your day?

Take a 5 minute break….

INSIGHT
(what we need)

Retraining our senses to become our stress shields. 

The therapeutic benefits of using the body’s sensory network to override the stress response is no longer just a niche therapy for neurodivergence. Sensory integration activities and therapies are common developmental interventions for children with a tendency towards overstimulation, hyperactivity, or attention issues. By learning self-regulation techniques and ways to differentiate between low, medium and high arousal states doing various activities, children learn how to read their signaling and situations better to self-regulate. 

All of us are on some spectrum of processing stimuli differently, so could all use a reboot in sensory regulation to experience our worlds fully.

Sensory regulation is the foundational mechanism at play for overall self-regulation. The ability to process the world around us through our senses determines our ability to regulate emotions, adjust our behavioral responses and ultimately influence our cognition and executive function. Everyone knows the difficultly in making a sound decision while distracted and agitated!

Sensory immersion diverts attention away from distressing thoughts or emotions by engaging multiple senses with different stimuli. This distraction is what provides temporary relief to help people relax – reducing the emotional intensity that would have lingered without the distraction. By creating these controlled settings and providing repeated exposure, individuals can learn to tolerate and regulate their emotional responses more effectively.

Simulations that offer controlled settings help facilitate cognitive reappraisal: a cognitive-behavioral technique that reinterprets the meaning of emotional stimuli so individuals can change their emotional responses in a mindful way. Once they access heightened awareness states within an environment of acceptance, social co-regulation and biofeedback cues, then individuals begin to not only relax but gain a sense of empowerment to access more self-expression, intuition and creativity. 

In effect, anyone experiencing overstimulated environments or has trouble self-regulating, calls for a need to retrain their sensory regulation system. Being sensorily balanced as adults requires rebuilding our dopamine sensitivity and interoceptive faculties so we don’t default to shutting down. That override may be protecting our systems, but it is also what cuts us off from regularly experiencing wonder. And I don’t know about you, but I prefer a daily dose of wonder and delight…

INSPIRATION
(what we want)

Lifelines: tools designed to help you de-stress, calm your mind and boost your mood – anytime, anywhere.

• Sensory-supported products that build a toolkit of quick stress relief in your day. 

• Grounding stones, sensory writing pens, and essential oil diffusers promote moments of tuned-in and tactile delight. 

• Lifelines aims to make stress-relief less time consuming (and ultimately stressful) by giving people delightful things that bring your attention to the here and now. 

• Train how to turn up your senses and turn down your stressors with small distractive items you can easily carry with you anywhere. 

• Tap in your body’s innate stress relievers by awakening your senses periodically throughout the day with beautiful things. 

INNOVATION
(what we wish for)

r O O m: sensory reboot experience immersing a person through a series of spaces to rebuild their sense of touch, sound, scent, smell, and taste. 

• Designed from principles of sensory regulation to reboot one’s senses in a controlled environment to ‘make room’ for more experience in life. 

• The experience begins with the contrast of overstimulation in a room of flashing lights, loud noises, and strange smells before the individual is invited to lay down in a suspended swing. 

• The lights go pitch black for 3 minutes of sensory deprivation while suspended off the ground. Slowly, we reintroduce the sound of a calibrated heartbeat and a matching guided breath for 2 minutes. 

• A low light turns on while the individual is invited to move into the next room through a series of tactile curtains. A medley of different sounds matching the different tactile curtain changes along with different temperature breezes being blown onto their skin. 

• The next space opens up the individuals olfactory senses with compounding scents that calibrate to building light and sound. 

• The final room brings the individual to a lounge where they are invited to mindfully smell and ingest a series of foods and liquids to wake up their palettes. 

• The orchestral sounds build to a finale where a voice closes the experience by inviting the participant to capture their experience through words and meaning in an ai enabled interactive voice journal. 

“Find room to be you, again.”