When you think of health and safety when it comes to your family, it’s likely your mind goes to eating right and wearing a helmet when you ride your bicycle. However, some of the most commonly overlooked things on the human body are your senses. If you have great vision, can hear when people talk to you, taste and smell your food, and feel another person’s touch, it’s pretty likely you spend most of your time taking these five senses for granted. But you shouldn’t.
Take the time to teach your children the importance of health and safety when it comes to your five senses. Here are some tips on how to do that.
Hearing
Hearing is an amazing thing. It allows you to enjoy music, and it lets you hear what people are saying on your favorite TV shows and movies. While there are plenty of people in the world that live and thrive with failing hearing, and no hearing at all, you still want to teach your children to protect theirs.
Teach them to wear hats in the winter, to not use q-tips to clean their ears, and to let you know if they experience any issues with their hearing. Also, teach them to wear earplugs when they help with lawn mowing. Take your child in for a hearing test once in awhile, to keep up on their health, and get yours checked as well.
Sight
If your eyesight is 20/20, you’re lucky. Many people wear glasses, to correct some form of eyesight issue, from near and far distance correction to battling the effects of astigmatism. The older you get, the more eye problems arise, such as glaucoma. If any eye conditions start to develop, it might be worth visiting some laser eye surgeons to see if they can correct the problem and enhance your vision. Laser eye surgery can correct a number of eye conditions, so people should check it out here if they’d like to know more. That could help some people.
Get your child’s sight tested from a young age if it seems they’re having issues, and especially at school age. Teach them to wear their glasses, if they have them.
Smell And Taste
Smell and taste work together for the most part. If your sense of smell is out of whack then things are going to taste off as well. In fact, if you have no sense of smell, it’s also likely you’ll have no sense of taste.
Most commonly an easy answer, like having a cold, can solve your taste and smell issues. However, head trauma and certain illness can also affect these. Teach your children to let you know if normal things they’re used to eating ever taste differently.
Touch
There are numerous issues that you can have with your sense of touch. You may have tingling or numbness in your fingers, feet, or limbs. Or maybe you lose feeling all together.
There are different causes, from spine and nerve damage to brain trauma. Even diseases like diabetes can affect the feeling in your extremities. It’s important to be knowledgeable about since issues, since people of all ages can suffer from diabetes, and can risk losing toes, their feet, and even an entire leg to this disease.