Your Nose Knows

The TED 2017 event has landed in Vancouver for another exciting year, guided by the theme “The Future You”. This year, we are pleased to provide TED attendees with a wholistic Saje experience highlighting the importance of choosing plant-based wellness. In keeping with this year’s theme, Saje Co-Founder Jean-Pierre explores the premise that our body’s wisdom will lead us to our future success and wellness; however, paying attention matters.

How do you really feel?

Technology has brought us many, many health advancements and the positive impact of modern medicine on our health and longevity is huge.

But do we truly feel better than we did a generation ago?

Our future success as a human race may rely less on looking outward and creating new solutions, and more on looking inward and recognizing the body wisdom within us.

As the world continues to hurdle forward with innovation, let’s take a deep breath and consider where to find answers to wellness – they might be right under our nose.

Too much information, not enough knowledge

We’ve all done it – Googled our symptoms, only to be digitally inundated with hundreds of dire-sounding predictions for our health. It seems like whatever medical term we search, we are led to believe we’re suffering from an auto-immune disease, on the verge of a heart attack or at great risk of cancer.

The problem with this kind of "information" is that it goes beyond a questionable self-diagnosis. Our minds are so powerful that when we believe something to be true, even something false can become a reality and our bodies can begin to suffer needlessly.

On top of that, most treatments are designed to get rid of symptoms without actually addressing the underlying issue.

Filling our bodies and minds with synthetic drugs might make us feel better in the moment, but we might be paying a steep price for this short-term gain. We take a pill to get rid of a headache without pausing to consider why we have pain in the first place. We’ve lost sight of our body’s wisdom by prioritizing external data over internal data. We’re overlooking our ability to tune into our own body signals and feel better for it.

Let your nose guide you

The first step to tuning into our body’s signals is to recognize the data sources that are all around us. All day long, we are bombarded with messages from our external world – from sights to sounds to smells.  Our brains are exquisitely designed to interpret this information for us and guide us towards safety and health.

Our sense of smell is our most efficient pathways to the brain. Cell receptors in the nasal passages link our external environment to our limbic system, bypassing our intellectual brain and delivering ‘gut reaction’ responses. Our ancient ancestors relied on smell to determine not only what to eat, but what not to eat. Imagine if we extended this same idea to our current and future wellness: what messages is our body sending us to support our wellness, perhaps our very survival?

‘In-take’ the signals

Recall how you feel when someone is wearing too much cologne in an elevator. Then think about standing beside a waterfall and experiencing the rush of fresh, cool air. The difference between the effect of these two scenarios is profound – and virtually universal. We are drawn to the sensory data we take in when we are surrounded by plants, water and the earth.

There’s a reason why we feel so good in nature, and it’s the reason we at Saje teach the art and science of using only natural, plant-derived ingredients: nature is good for us.

Think of it this way: would you rather have forest air or shopping mall air entering your nose and affecting your brain? Make no mistake, both environments are impacting you.

Whether it’s a synthetic or a natural ingredient, the molecules will travel into our nasal passages and communicate with our limbic system. It makes sense that the body’s natural living, healing and breathing functions are best supported with ingredients that haven’t been synthetically created or chemically altered.

Shift your mind, and the body will follow

Choosing to support our wellness with nature is a radical shift in perspective. It could also be the key to our ability to thrive in our rapidly changing world.

Your body is infinitely capable of discerning an effective path to wellness; the trick is to keep the conditioned mind out of the way. Replace worry with optimism and digital overload with body wisdom.

Start the shift by choosing to pay attention to your body and listening to what it tells you. Practice using your sense of smell when making choices about your food and aromatic medicine. Note how you feel: your ‘don’t do it’ messages will feel like adrenaline or fear, and your ‘go for it’ messages will feel like endorphins or pleasure.

Above all, relax and take a deep breath – your body knows what to do next.