Your Senses Are Working Harder Than You Realise — Here’s Why That Matters
TL;DR
Your senses continually take in impressions that affect both body and mind.
Ayurveda offers practical ways to care for the sense organs, while Yoga teaches us how to work more deliberately with sensory input.
Small daily practices can help reduce overstimulation and bring more steadiness to the mind.
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Your senses are taking in information all day long.
What you see, hear, smell, taste and touch continually feeds the mind. A busy screen, background noise, conversations, traffic, music, notifications, food, temperature — all of these become impressions that your system has to process.
In autumn, this becomes particularly relevant. Ayurveda associates the season with Vata: movement, change, dryness and increased sensitivity. When life is already full of stimulation, the senses can become another place where that movement accumulates.
This is why Ayurveda gives so much attention to caring for the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin. Yoga approaches the same territory through pratyahara — learning how to direct our attention and reduce the constant pull of the outside world.
Together, they give us practical ways to care for the senses and create a little more steadiness in the mind.
Why Your Senses Matter More Than You Think
In Sanskrit, the sense organs, our eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin, are called Indriya, which translates as doors of perception. These pathways allow us to see, hear, smell, taste and feel.
You can see why the senses are so important to our everyday experience.
Therefore, both sister sciences of Yoga and Ayurveda play a crucial role in understanding and caring for our senses, empowering us with knowledge and tools to maintain our health.
Let's first look at the Ayurveda side.
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The Ayurvedic Perspective: Understanding Indriya Agni
Imagine you look at a tree. You know that it is a tree that you see, right?
The process from your eyes seeing the tree to you knowing that it is a tree is governed by the digestive fire of the senses, Indriya Agni.
In simpler terms, this is the process of how your senses ‘digest' the information they receive, just like your body digests food.
It is the same principle as eating an apple from the tree. The apple gets broken down, absorbed, assimilated and finally transformed into the tissues of the body (dhatus).
And just as food needs to go through those stages (digest, absorb, assimilate, transform), so do the impressions entering through subtler sense organs. The difference is that much of this sensory processing happens beyond our awareness, while we are more conscious of the physical process of eating and digesting food.
So we circle back to the importance of our digestive fire, Agni, of which Indriya Agni is one part.
Ayurvedic Tips to Keep Your Senses Sharp and Healthy
Because the senses are very important, Ayurveda offers tips on how to look after them.
When everything works just fine, we barely notice our sense organs; only if something goes wrong do we become aware of our sense organs: our eyesight worsens, and the eyes develop cataracts or glaucoma. We start losing hearing, develop tinnitus or ear infections and so forth.
Or, you might notice dry or burning eyes after a long day at your computer or a dull sense of taste when you're stressed.
Ayurveda offers practical and doable suggestions for maintaining the health of our sense organs, encouraging us to take an active role in our health and well-being.
01. Use of the sense organs
There are three types of causes of disease – excessive utilisation, non-utilisation and wrong utilisation of the senses …
Charaka Samhita XI, 37 excerpt
Looking at a bright light or screen for too long can strain the senses, while complete non-use is equally discouraged. Ayurveda emphasises appropriate use. The same applies to all the other senses, too.
02. Eyes
The eyes are considered the most important. Cleaning the eyes regularly with an eye wash is recommended. The eyes are associated with Pitta dosha, one of the three doshas in Ayurveda, and are susceptible to Kapha dosha imbalance. Knowing this helps us choose practices that support and care for the eyes.
Special Ayurvedic eye drops, which are castor oil-based and have Pitta-Kapha balancing properties, are excellent (find my recommendation in the resources).
Rosewater eye pads, applied in the evening at bedtime to cool the eyes, are fantastic after screen use. Rosewater is also astringent, so it helps balance Kapha dosha.
03. Nose
Charaka Samhita describes Anu oil as a traditional nasya (nose) oil and recommends its seasonal use, including during autumn.
It is traditionally used to support the entire head area and the sense organs, with benefits described for headaches, rhinitis and the strength and clarity of the senses. Although the classical nasya procedure is more involved than the simple daily practice I use and teach, applying a few drops of Anu oil daily can make a noticeable difference in everyday use.
04. Oral and dental health
Regular teeth cleaning, tongue scraping and keeping a clove in the mouth are traditionally recommended for maintaining oral health, clarity of taste and fresh breath.
Practising Kavala — swishing warm sesame oil around the mouth — is traditionally used to care for the mouth, teeth and gums. Charaka also describes wider benefits for the head and neck area, including dryness of the mouth and rhinitis.
05. Oiling of the head
Applying warm sesame oil to the head is traditionally described as helping to prevent headaches, baldness, greying or hair loss, promote sound sleep and support the healthy functioning of the sense organs.
When there is excess heat in the head, castor oil mixed with rosewater can also be applied to the scalp. This has a cooling effect and can be particularly useful when heat contributes to headaches or migraines. Ayurveda takes persistent heat and dryness in the head seriously, which is another reason regular care of the head and sense organs is emphasised.
An easy way to include head oiling is to apply your hair oil about 20–30 minutes before washing your hair. A castor oil and rosewater mixture can be left on the scalp for longer.
06. Oiling of ears
Oiling the ears helps to balance Vata in the ear area and is traditionally used for Vata-related ear complaints, including tinnitus.
Sesame oil or olive oil work well and are oils you may already have at home. Before going to bed, place one or two drops of warm oil into one ear and massage gently around the ear. Then repeat on the other side.
07. Regular full-body oil massage
Regular full-body oil massage helps strengthen the body, alleviate tiredness and exhaustion, keep the skin smooth and balance Vata. Massaging the feet is particularly helpful for dryness, fatigue and numbness. Ayurveda also traditionally associates regular foot massage with steadiness and healthy eyesight.
You certainly don’t need to do all of these practices every day. Start with one or two that fit easily into your routine.
If you’re not sure where to start, try the rosewater eye pads. The eyes are considered the most important of the sense organs in Ayurveda, and this is a simple practice that takes very little time.
Many of the practices for the sense organs take only a minute or two. A few drops of oil in the nose or ears can easily become part of your evening routine, while oil pulling is best done in the morning before brushing your teeth.
We tend to think about caring for our skin, yet the sense organs themselves often receive very little attention. These small practices are a simple way to change that.
I love these little rituals, and they have become an important part of my own routine. I use them especially when I travel, as travel increases Vata with its movement, dryness and irregularity.
When I fly, I usually put a drop or two of oil into my ears and use Anu oil or a little warm liquid ghee in my nostrils to help protect them from the dry cabin air.
How Yoga Uses the Senses to Steady the Mind
Yoga has a different perspective on the senses.
Ayurveda aims to support good health for a long and fulfilling life. Yoga aims to bring stillness to the mind.
Our senses play an important role in this because they continually connect us with the outside world. They take in what we see, hear, smell, taste and touch and feed these impressions to the mind.
And sometimes one small impression is enough to set the mind in motion.
Remember the last time you went shopping and saw a pair of shoes you really liked. Suddenly you're thinking about how much you like them, how good you would feel wearing them and all the reasons you really should have them. You leave the shop, but the shoes come with you in your thoughts.
The senses are simply doing their job. Their primary role is to keep us aware of our surroundings and help us find what we need. The mind receives that information and starts making suggestions.
This is where Yoga becomes interesting. We can notice those suggestions without automatically following every one of them. We can become more discerning about what we give our attention to and which impulses we act upon.
Pratyahara: Turning the Senses Inwards
Yoga calls this practice pratyahara. It is usually translated as withdrawal of the senses and is the fifth of the eight limbs described in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.
Prati means away or against, and ahara means food or nourishment.
Ahara can be the physical food we eat as well as the subtler impressions that enter through the senses and feed the mind. Pratyahara therefore asks us to become more deliberate about what we take in and where we place our attention.
In everyday life, that might mean stepping away from a screen, spending some time without background noise, or simply noticing how much sensory input we are taking in throughout the day.
Here Yoga and Ayurveda meet again. Ayurveda teaches that excessive, insufficient or inappropriate use of the senses can contribute to imbalance. Yoga teaches us how to direct the senses and gradually turn our attention inwards.
Pratyahara is also an important teaching in the Bhagavad Gita:
When one can withdraw the senses from sense objects, like a tortoise draws within, one's wisdom is unwavering.
Bhagavad Gita, II.58
By withdrawing attention from external things, mentally focusing back between the eyebrows and equalising the in and out breaths, thus you control the mind, the senses and the discerning intellect. Then, by aiming for nothing else but absolute and unconditional freedom, personal desire, fear, and anger naturally drop away, and you undoubtedly experience final liberation.
Bhagavad Gita V.27+28
Practical Yoga Tips for the Senses
You can begin working with the senses within your regular yoga practice:
Use your asana practice to bring your attention into the body. Notice how you move into and out of a posture and what you feel while holding it.
Feel the stretch of the skin in poses such as Trikonasana or Parsva Konasana.
Notice your connection with the floor beneath you. Feeling the feet, hands or other points of contact gives your attention a tangible anchor.
Use drishti to focus the eyes on one point, such as the tip of the nose, the hands or the floor. Steady eyes, steady mind.
Follow the breath. Giving your attention to the movement of the breath helps to steady the mind.
Listen to chanting and allow your attention to rest on the sound.
Practise Shanmukhi Mudra, closing the sensory openings with the fingers and temporarily reducing the impressions coming in from the outside.
Practise eye movements by looking right and left, up towards the eyebrows and down towards the chest, followed by slow circles clockwise and anticlockwise. Keep the head still and let only the eyes move.
These are simple ways to work purposefully with the senses. Sometimes we focus them on one thing, such as the breath, the floor or a drishti. At other times, we reduce the amount of sensory input altogether.
With practice, we become better at directing our attention. This strengthens our discernment and helps us make more conscious choices in everyday life.
Final Thoughts
Our senses are our connection to the world around us. Ayurveda teaches us how to care for the sense organs themselves, while Yoga teaches us to become more aware of the impressions we take in and where we place our attention.
Small practices can make a difference. Applying nose oil, oiling your ears, using rosewater eye pads or bringing more awareness to your drishti and breath during your yoga practice can all become part of everyday life.
Choose one practice that feels easy to include and start there. Over time, caring for your senses can become as natural as brushing your teeth — another way of supporting steadiness in your body and mind.
FAQ
Why are the senses important in Ayurveda?
Ayurveda considers the sense organs — the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin — important pathways between us and the world around us. The impressions entering through the senses also feed the mind. Ayurveda therefore pays attention both to how we use our senses and how we care for the sense organs themselves.
What is Indriya Agni?
Indriya Agni is the digestive or transformative capacity of the senses. Just as Agni helps us digest and transform food, Indriya Agni describes how sensory information is received and processed so that we can recognise and understand what we see, hear, smell, taste and feel.
What is pratyahara?
Pratyahara is the fifth of the eight limbs of Yoga described in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. It is usually translated as withdrawal of the senses. In everyday life, it can also mean becoming more deliberate about the sensory impressions we take in and learning to direct our attention rather than continually being pulled towards external stimulation.
What is an easy Ayurvedic practice for caring for the senses?
Rosewater eye pads are a good place to start. Ayurveda gives particular importance to the eyes, and applying good-quality pure rosewater on eye pads is a simple practice that can easily become part of your evening routine, especially after a day of screen use.
How can I practise pratyahara in everyday life?
You can begin by reducing unnecessary sensory input and giving your attention one clear place to rest. This might mean stepping away from a screen, spending some time without background noise, focusing on your breath, using a steady drishti during yoga or practising Shanmukhi Mudra to temporarily reduce external sensory impressions.
Resources
Sunayan Eye Oil (The shipping costs for one item may be deterring, but they lower dramatically when ordering more.)
Rosewater - For use around the eyes, choose a good-quality pure rosewater.
