Good Life Project - Tap the 5 Senses for Happiness, Pleasure & Connection | Gretchen Rubin

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

What if there was a secret pathway that could dramatically expand the level of joy, creativity, pleasure, and connection you experienced in life, no matter what was happening? Turns out, there is, and that path takes us through the land of our five senses, but in ways you never thought about or imagined. In today's captivating conversation with my dear friend, Gretchen Rubin, one of today’s most influential observers of happiness and human nature, we dive into the untapped potential of the 5 senses to dramatically enhance our lives. Gretchen reveals how engaging with our senses in novel, playful ways can bring us moments of joy, even during difficult times. You'll discover the essential role our senses play in connecting with ourselves and the world around us. We explore how tuning into these powerful tools can foster stronger relationships, increase creativity, pleasure and joy, and lead to more mindful, satisfying experiences, all based on her new book, Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World.You'll learn:The concept of a "Five Senses Journal" to heighten your self-awareness and unlock personal insights.How tapping into your senses can foster stronger relationships, resolve conflicts, and boost empathy.The transformative power of sensory experiences in stimulating creativity, productivity, and mental well-being.How to harness your senses for meditation, relaxation, or simply having fun in your everyday life.The vital role our senses play in creating meaningful memories and fostering a greater sense of well-being.Join us as we uncover the hidden power of our senses, and embark on a sensory journey that will inspire you to live a more fulfilled and joyous life.You can find Gretchen at: Website | Instagram | Happier with Gretchen Rubin - PodcastIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Gretchen about The Four Tendencies or how we meet our own expectations.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED. To submit your “moment & question” for consideration to be on the show go to sparketype.com/submit. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The thing about the census is you can't bookmark it. You can't screenshot it. You can't save it for later. You've got to experience it right here, right now. And that's just, there's something so vital about that, about knowing that it's right here, right now, and it's of the moment and it can't be recaptured. You can't glut yourself on it.

You can't save it. It's just, it's happening and then it's over. For me, that's a great part of the appeal of the census is the way they tie me to the present moment and the unrepeatable moment. So what if there was a secret pathway that could dramatically expand the level of joy and creativity, pleasure, delight, and connection that you experienced in life, no matter what else was happening? Well, it turns out there is. And that path takes us through the land of our five senses, but in ways that you really have never thought about or

imagined. It turns out when we truly understand the power of each sense, we can harness that insight to literally transform the moment to moment and big picture experience of our lives. So in today's really deep and fun and captivating conversation with my old friend Gretchen Rubin, one of today's most influential observers of happiness and human nature, we dive into the untapped potential of the five senses to dramatically enhance our lives. And Gretchen reveals how engaging with our senses in novel, playful ways can really bring us moments of joy even during difficult times. And you'll discover the essential role our senses play in connecting with ourselves and the

world around us. We look at how turning to these powerful tools can foster stronger relationships, increase creativity, pleasure, and joy, and lead to more mindful, satisfying experiences. You'll learn about something she calls the five senses journal to heighten your self-awareness and unlock personal insights and how tapping into your senses can foster better relationships, help resolve conflict and boost empathy. You'll dive into the transformative power of sensory experiences in stimulating creativity and productivity and mental wellbeing and how to harness your senses for meditation and relaxation or simply having fun in everyday life. And we'll really talk about the vital role that our senses play in creating meaningful memories and fostering a greater sense of overall well-being. There are so

many ahas in this conversation, you may even want to listen twice just to take notes. And I am so thrilled to welcome Gretchen to the podcast. In addition to being friends for, I don't know, something like a decade and a half now, Gretchen to the podcast. In addition to being friends for, I don't know, something like a decade and a half now, Gretchen has authored multiple New York Times bestsellers, including Outer Order, Inner Calm, The Four Tendencies, Better Than Before, The Happiness Project, and her newest book, Life in Five Senses, which is really the topic that we're diving into today.

Her books have sold over three and a half million copies worldwide, been translated into something like 30 plus languages. And Gretchen also hosts the top ranked award-winning podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin, where she and her sister have practical solutions for living a happier life. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Gretchen Rubin, it is so fun to be hanging out with you.

We've been rolling together for, what, like 10 to 15 years at this point. From early, early days in writing groups in New York City. It's kind of fun to kind of think all the way back there. I know it seems incredible. It seems like no time has passed and a lot of times as fast at the same time. Yeah, it's amazing. So the topic of our conversation today is something that we're both fascinated by, but you've taken this just incredible deep dive into, and you've kind of been sharing bits and pieces of your process of discovery with me behind the scenes for years, but I am so excited for you to be able to actually

share a book-length body of work about not just what you've discovered, but your own personal experiments around this notion of the role of the senses in our lives. And I know you have kind of like an interesting origin story. I know this has been a long time fascination, but there was an interesting doctor's visit that you write about that seems like it was a bit of an inciting moment for you to say, let me actually focus more on the senses and really dive into them. Tell me about this moment a bit. You're exactly right. Looking back, I was sort of edging up to the subject from a couple of different angles, but it really snapped into clarity for me on an afternoon during a doctor's visit. So I'm a person who is susceptible to pink

eye and I had a particularly stubborn case. So I went to the eye doctor and as I was getting ready to leave, he said to me very offhandedly, like, you know, wear sunscreen or drink enough water. He said, be sure to come back for your checkup because as you know, you're at more risk for losing your vision. I did not know that. I said, what are you talking about? I didn't know that I was at risk for losing my vision. And he said, no, you're extremely nearsighted. And that means you're more at risk for having a detached retina. And if that happens, it can affect your vision, so we would want to catch it right away.

And as it happened, I have a friend who had just recently lost some of his vision to a detached retina. So this felt like a very real possibility to me. So I walk out onto the street. I live in New York City, so I was walking home, and it just hit me. And of course, I knew intellectually that at any time I could lose any of my senses. And I also, I knew intellectually that at any time I could lose

any of my senses. And I also knew that I would live a rich, meaningful life even if I lost some of my senses. But it just hit me for the first time. I'm out on the street, I'm looking around, this could all just vanish for me. And I realized I hadn't looked at one thing on my way over. I'd been walking around in a fog. I hadn't noticed one thing as I was walking into the office and I just wasn't appreciating it while I had it. And in that moment, as I made that realization, it was like every knob in my brain just got jammed up to 11. So I could see everything with crystal clarity. I could hear every sound on a separate track. I could smell every smell and New York city is very smelly. I could smell, it was just coming to me with such intensity. It was like a psychedelic experience. And, and so during that walk home, it took about

20 minutes. It just showed me all of this was happening around me all the time. And I, I wanted to pay attention to it. And I realized that that what was missing, I've been studying happiness for years. And I'd had the feeling that I was, there was something that I was just overlooking. And that walk made me realize that it was having this direct connection to the world through my senses was really the missing puzzle piece. Yeah. And it's so interesting, right? Because it's not like you weren't using your senses all the time anyway, but I think it also brings up this really interesting question, which is where do the senses exist? Do the senses exist in the elements of perception or do they exist in your brain? Or is it like there's this continuum where

one, it's got to be both of them. And I know you've kind of like gone deep into this. Yeah. No, if there's no light, there's no color. If there's no eye, there's no color. If there's no brain, there's no color. It's like, where is it? Yeah. No, it is a very mysterious thing. And that's part of what I loved about studying the five senses is I didn't know anything about the five senses. And the more you know, the more you notice. And learning about them just gave me this extraordinary respect for the sophistication of the body and what is happening at all times. And yeah, and these sort of deep mysteries and paradoxes that exist around the five senses. It just makes everyday life so much more rich to know all these things. Yeah, it's amazing. And I want to dive into sort of like each of the five senses. It just makes everyday life so much more rich to know all these things. Yeah, it's amazing. And I want to dive into sort of like each of the five and some of the fun

explorations and discoveries that you made. But before we sort of do that, and the five, I think probably everybody knows what like sort of like the core five are sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. But you also talk about these other sort of like, I think there were three different ones, proprioception, which I'd heard of sort of like an awareness of where parts of your body are in space. And then there are these two others that I had never heard of before. I have no idea if I'm pronouncing this right, equilibrioception and introception. Talk to me about these three, because they seem like sort of like the off to the side senses that nobody really talks about. Well, I mentioned those three, but there's really like 33 or 35 senses in total.

Scientists are constantly sort of identifying these new senses. And yeah, interoception is like the feeling of knowing what's happening in your own body. Like I'm hungry. I need to go to the bathroom. I have butterflies in my stomach. Equilibrioception is the ability to find your balance.

But these senses are incredibly vital for our sense of wellbeing. And they're fascinating, Like equilibrioception is the ability to find your balance. But these senses are incredibly vital for our sense of well-being. And they're fascinating, but they do run in the background. So it's sort of like your heartbeat where it's not really within your conscious control. And we're not really very aware of them until something starts going wrong. And then we're acutely aware of them. But it's not like the big five, like the ones you listed, you could call them the Aristotelian senses. These are the ones Aristotle talked about, or maybe the kindergarten senses, because

they're the ones we all learn about when we're little. These we really talk about. We know, we experiment with, we want to learn, we want to engage. So we're much more aware of the big five. They kind of have a glamour that the other more subtle senses don't have. But not to say they're not important. It's just they're not in our awareness as much. Yeah, it's funny.

As you were listing those out, like my mind went to this question of like, I wonder how much they are these less than conscious mediators of the big five. So, and the scenario that popped into my head as you were describing, especially equilibrioception is, I remember this moment distinctly flying on a plane. And I noticed that the plane is starting to pitch upward. And I'm like, oh, we're flying up. And I look down the aisle on my aisle seat and I see the front of the plane pointed up. And then I realized

every blind in the windows were pulled down. There was no horizon that I could reference. Yet somehow my brain was saying, the plane is going up, but visually there was no basis for me to know whether we were stable going up or down. And I was wondering, is there something else that's informing my sight? And it sounds like equilibrioception or these other things, maybe these hidden mediators that then pass signals to the big five that sort of like help you like control what you actually think you're feeling or seeing or touching. Well, this is an issue with VR because when there's this disconnect between what you're seeing and what you're feeling and, and then it starts to, the body is feeling that things are

not lining up properly. And it's fascinating how the body makes trade-offs. Like for balance, we use sight and touch. Like if you've ever tried to stand on one foot or something, if you do with your eyes shut, it's much harder. If you can touch even one thing with one little finger, it's so much easier. You know, they all work together. And what's interesting, we are wired for sight. We're hardwired to kind of give sight preference. It takes up the most real estate of the brain of the senses. And if there is a conflict among the senses, sight will trump. So there is this trade-off that the body is constantly making with how do we integrate these signals and make sense of them together? And if there's a conflict, how do we resolve that conflict? And usually we resolve it

by letting sight prevail. But you're absolutely right. How these things work together is fascinating in ways that we aren't aware of. Yeah. And the fact that there are things that would control what we believe these five senses are passing to us, and we have no awareness of the fact that it's actually, we're not seeing what we're seeing, or we're not feeling what we're feeling. We're not tasting what we're tasting. We're like, no, but I am. Right. And there's, it's fascinating to sort of think about all the different scripts that are running underneath the surface.

No, I mean, that was one of the things I have to say that just astonished me the most is it's like intellectually, yes, I know all living in a different sensory experience and it's genetics and it's upbringing and it's experiences and it's preferences and it's associations. I knew that. But still, when you encounter it, it is still surprising. I mean, the best example is the dress. Like, do you see the dress white and gold? Do you see the dress blue and black? What do you see? I see white and gold.

Okay. I see white and gold too. And it's actually blue and black. And even when I know it's blue and black, I cannot see it blue and black. And that is actually the color of it. But then there are other things that are so surprising. Like I live in New York City and I'll be recording a podcast and people will say, oh, you got to stop. There's a siren. I do not hear a siren because my brain is just like, oh, this is background information. You see this how you can't smell your home the way a guest smells it. Because for

you, you have that odor fatigue. You just, your nose doesn't awake, doesn't cue you with some, the smell of your air freshener or your cats or whatever, because to you, that's so familiar. Whereas to someone else, that odor might be very, very strong. Or like if you work in a coffee shop, you probably don't really notice the smell of coffee. Whereas if I walked into the coffee shop, I would be overwhelmed by the smell of coffee because our brains are constantly editing and adjusting for us specifically. And it's just extraordinary to realize that, to what degree that's true. It's amazing. And this is, it keys in with a question. I've been told years ago that

most people actually either aren't aware of or can't smell their own body scent. Yet those around them, it can be incredibly powerful in good or like not good, good ways. Yet we either can't smell them or even if others would perceive it as almost noxious, we're completely fine with it. We're like, yeah, that's totally cool. So that the notion that it's completely personal to you is kind of fascinating. You mentioned also that there's this priority of sight over the other four senses. It sounds like also the brain tends to attune to people and change and prioritize those as like, this is where my senses need to go. No, exactly.

You put your finger on both of them. So one is change because change means danger or opportunity, which is why like if there's a rock flying at your head, you notice that rock. If there's a rock on the ground, you might not notice that rock. So that's why with the smell, it doesn't want to distract you by smelling baking chocolate chip cookies for two hours so that you don't notice the leaking gas. It's bringing down things that are familiar. Or like if you put on a tight wool hat, at first you might be very aware of it, but then you adjust to it and it doesn't distract you as you go about your day. But the other is people. The brain is very attuned to people. And you see this how you see a face everywhere. It's like you see a face on the car. You see a face in your slice of toast. You see because the brain has special powers to find faces because that's so important for hearing where we have particular.

We're very suited to the human voice and the brain is very good at picking out like what do you need to know, like your own name. If you've ever been in a crowded cocktail party and you hear your name, you're like, okay, the brain is like, okay, that is top information. Let's bring that right in. So it is interesting. And then, you know, it is, it is interesting about smell though, because it's sort of like surprising and then absolutely not surprising because if you think, well, you would think that we would be really, really interested in the smells of other people. But in fact, we, we spend a lot of time, energy, and money controlling our smell. It's called our diplomatic odor. And that is the one, you know, because we want to bring the right smell into the world. And so we're constantly really masking our natural

odor because we are so attuned to other people's odors and we really react to those smells. So it's interesting that all information is not created equal in the brain. Certain things get priority and certain things are allowed to fade into the background. Yeah. And whenever you hear something like that, my mind always goes to, well, there had to be some sort of anthropological reason for that, which almost always is about survival in some way, shape or form. If something lasts for time immortal, it's about survival in some way, shape, or form. Like if something lasts for, you know, like time immortal, it's about survival within our physiology. On that note, one thing that's really interesting is music. Music is universal among human culture.

All human cultures have music. And it's not really clear why. Because exactly as you say, when something's totally universal, you're like, there's an evolutionary explanation for this. And there's sort of like, is it about communication? Is it about being able to come into synchronization with other people, which is really important? What is the reason? And there's sort of different arguments about it because it isn't really necessary for our survival.

And yet it is something that all human cultures share, but you can see that it's so important for us to understand faces, remember faces, read faces, because really faces are very much the same. And you think about how many different faces you can identify in profile, just like part of a face. It's really extraordinary. And it's clear why, because that's people, you know, we're the one of the most social species on the planet. We depend on other people for survival. So this is information that we're very, very good at processing. Yeah. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So let's dive into the five different senses a bit more. You spend a lot of time, years really,

basically you walk out of the doctor's office, you spend those 20 minutes walking home, it becomes a sensory experience, a smorgasbord of senses surrounding you all over the place. And as I know happens with you very often, it kicks off a quest that says like this 20 minutes is not enough. I need to really understand what's happening that lasts for years. And then you're like- You're not surprised. Right.

I've seen this process unfold many times. So you go into this just incredible deep dive into the five senses. So I want to walk through each one of them and explore some of the things that you discovered, starting with sight. As you shared, this tends to be the, I don't know if the word dominant sense is the right way to put it, but it's the one where it's the default sense. It's the one that seems to take precedence. But as we started to tease out a little bit, and this is maybe it makes sense to dive into this just in the context of sight, even though it applies to all of them. When we talk about sense, when we think about sight, we think about, oh, sight is about the eyes. It's about the eyes and it's about the

external environment and the data that gets passed into the eyes. And then what your eyes pass into your brain and then what your brain decides to see or not see. So talk to me more about what we're actually talking about when we talk about sight. Well, you're right, because there's just sort of the mechanics of the sight. And then there's the experience of the sight when what we're seeing is being paired up with memories, emotions, associations, and context. And so it matters very much like how something is coming up. One of the places you see this is with color. People will often say things like, well, blue is calming or red is energizing. I mean, these are learned associations

that we have. It's not true that drunk tank paint is going to make you feel calmer or take away your appetite, which is certain people have suggested. We feel these things. And yet these are learned associations that we're experiencing. And by the way, this is the same thing with smell. We are hardwired to have like to find bitter things, to reject bitter things, and then to like sweet things because sweet things tend to be nutritious and bitter things are often toxic. And so we're hardwired from birth to have those preferences. But nature does not threaten

us with toxic smells. So all of our associations with smell are often are all, or nearly all of our associations are learned. So this is the body helping us and make sense of something with things that we've learned to associate with it. So if I walk into a room and I'm like, oh, this deep purple feels royal and luxurious and expensive, I'm bringing that to the color. There's nothing essential about purple that makes it seem expensive. Which is interesting because there's been research done on this.

And I guess the research maybe is mixed. You brought up the notion of drunk tank pink, which was the name of the book. And for those who don't know, like the theory was that prison cells were painted, you know, like holding cells were painted with this particular shade of pink because it was thought that that calmed the people. It made everyone just kind of chill and relaxed. And, you know, if you were thrown in the drunk tank, you know, to just sleep it off for the night before you get released the next morning, that would keep you nice and chill. So you're saying that that's not true, that there may have been an effect, but the effect was actually a learned behavior, a learned association, not anything that actually is physiological. Yeah. And then there was another argument that it would suppress your appetite.

Right. Yeah. And just side note, one of the things that's fascinating to me is how people love associations and correspondences. Like we want to say like lavender is calming and, you know, make all these associations. But a lot of times we're supplying these associations, which we can use, we can kind of turn that into a hack with luck. So it turns out research shows that if you think something is lucky, like this is a lucky golf ball, or this is a lucky shirt, you will actually perform better because it just kind of plays into your idea of self-efficacy. And so if you think something is lucky, it will actually help you. And you can do this with your senses. So like I have a scent that I love. It's the scent of hay and I save it. I only use it when I need

luck. And I'm like, this is my lucky smell. I will use it when I need luck. And here I am putting on my lucky smell. So I know that it's all going to go better than it otherwise would because I'm using my lucky smell. So if you think, oh, this smell is calming or this color helps me focus or energizes me, that might work very well for you because that's what you expect. And that's what you then bring to the situation. But it's not a universal thing that everybody would necessarily experience. Okay. So I have to ask now, are you telling me that somewhere in your house, you have like a little bottle of essence of hay?

That is exactly what I have. It's called hay. It's a hay accord. So an accord is a building block of a perfume. So it's not meant to be a standalone. It's like a part of a perfume. I went to this wacky anti-perfumer called CB I Hate Perfume just to experience the gallery of smells there. And I bought it and I love, love, love it. It's got this heavy, sweet, grassy smell of hay. I just love it. And it's just in a bottle on a shelf by my front door and it's just called hay. I keep it there. I put it on when I need a little luck. That's amazing. I love that. One of the other things you bring up in the context of say, but it really applies, I think, in a lot of different ways to all of the senses, is this notion of something called inattentional blindness. Ooh, yes. Okay. And we've all experienced this one way or another. If you want a bonkers illustration of this, look up the monkey business illusion on the internet.

Right. Which I've seen, like I've literally, even after I knew it was happening, I didn't always really catch myself there. Right. So we're not even going to talk about that. So people can experience a spoiler there. But by the way, if you think, oh, I know the spoiler, there is a version that will outfox you. But what inattentional blindness is, is that if you're looking for one thing, you don't see another thing. And we've all experienced this. Like if you've ever been you're like in an unfamiliar place and you're looking for like a store sign or something or like the logo of a fast food place or something. And then you miss something that should have been far more attention grabbing, like, oh, did you see that there's like a beautiful fountain in the middle of the square? And you're like, no, I was walking all around. I didn't see the fountain. It's like, no, because you were looking for the Starbucks logo,

because we're focused very intensely on looking at one thing. We don't notice other things, even things that you might think would be more striking or notable. We just don't see them. And it's very surprising to realize how strong this effect can be. Yeah. So this brings up that association we talked about earlier, which is the fact that it's not just what your eyes take in. It's actually what your brain chooses to say, I see. And your brain can like opt in or opt out of almost anything that's coming into your visual field. Well, and I experienced this when I got a dog because just walking around my neighborhood, I was like, oh my gosh, there's this dog store and this pet supply company and all these places, or here's a groomers. And I just, my brain had never flagged them. And

all of a sudden when I was sort of look like I wasn't even looking for it, but I was just, I was interested in the fact that now I owned a dog, all of this stuff got, or if you have a baby, you know, all of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh, like there's all this, like, there's just all this information that you're, you're like, oh, it was out there in culture. And I just never even noticed it because why would I care? And then the minute you care, all that information starts to be presented. And it is very startling to realize how much you just overlook. One of my aims in the book was to look for what's overlooked. And it's just extraordinary how hard it is just to notice what is happening right in front of our nose and right in front of our eyes.

And the notion that this phenomenon is called inattentional blindness, the fact that attention is built into that phenomenon, also it speaks to the importance of attention in the actual experience of sight. Yes. If somebody is listening to this and they're like, is there one thing I can do? Is there a quick tip? Is there a strategy? Is there something that I could do so that I walk out of my house today and I can start to literally ignite my sense of sight on a higher level. Well, there's two things I would suggest, and these are sort of general for the senses, not just particularly for sight, but just generally. One is to keep a five senses journal where you just every day write down a notable experience with your five senses.

And just because, again, because the challenge is the attention. And when you have an exercise like this, a practice like this, the, your brain will start to fly. You like, Oh, listen, listen to the church bells or, Oh my goodness, look at the texture of that dog's fur. What those things will be highlighted for you because you are, you need them for something that you're doing. So that's a way to kind of awaken your attention to sensations as you go through. You could do it just for one of the senses, or you could do it for all of the senses. And it's kind of a gratitude journal. Jonathan, we've talked before about, like, I do not like the gratitude journal approach. It's not a tool that works for me,

even though it's a tool that works for many people. But this is a kind of gratitude journal because it really is like paying tribute to the beauty of the world because it's all these remarkable sensations that we're experiencing. The other thing I would say to try, this is probably least applicable to sight, but it's really like enjoy experiences and we kind of go out of our way to play with and engage with. And then we have some that we don't appreciate as much. So if you if you look at the sense that you most neglect, and this is surprisingly hard to know because you sort of aren't paying attention to that. So I created a quiz. If you go to GretchenRubin.com slash quiz, I know you love a quiz, Jonathan. I do. It's this quiz. So you take a quiz and it will tell you what your most neglected sense is. So like my most neglected sense is taste. And what that tells me is that's low hanging fruit. If I want to pay attention, if I want to learn, if I want to try to think of a way to engage with other people, if I want to tap into it for memories, this is something where I probably have been overlooking the opportunities of this sense in the past. And so it's a place where probably there's a lot of really fun stuff for me to try.

Now it is true that sometimes you kind of can't avail yourself of a sense, like maybe you're hard of hearing, or maybe you have really bad allergies or migraines that if you smell things too much, it kind of sets them off. So then it's like, okay, well, maybe that's not one. Maybe you don't want that one. just like being outside and thinking about how you could enjoy the smell of the ocean or the smell of just kind of like plants growing as a way to tap into the sense of smell, which can cause you trouble in some areas, but maybe there is a way that you can find a way to engage in it in a way that's right for you. And so that's a way to bring your attention to it as well. And that last part also brings up this notion of a phrase that I've heard many times over the years,

sensory overload. If there's, on the one side, you've got inattentional blindness where like you literally don't perceive certain things on the other end of the spectrum. It's like, is it actually possible for your sensory input organs and your brain to literally like become so ungated that so much comes into it that it's actually not a good thing? Well, people have sensory differences where they experience this very acutely. And, you know, everything from the smell of the detergent aisle in the grocery store or a tag in a shirt. I mean, one thing that this book really taught me is like, we should really try to show consideration for other people.

And if they have objections or difficulties with the sensory environment, not to dismiss those objections, but to realize people really experience things differently. And the fact that I find something completely fine doesn't mean that somebody else isn't really troubled by it. So we need to show consideration. But I think on the sensory overload, and again, one of the things that was funny about writing this book is that there were all these patterns in my own life that I'd hardly even noticed and certainly couldn't make sense of that, you know, writing this book is like, I've been doing this the whole time. And I realized I'm very sensitive to sensory overload. And what I do is, first of all, I bring down the sense of hearing. So like, if I'm very stressed out, and I walk into the kitchen and like my daughter's playing

music I will just unthinkingly turn it off because I just can't take the music playing or like I often wear perfume I wear perfume to bed and I often wear perfume during the day because I work at home and I love perfume and there's nobody around me so I'm like I'll bring it on I'll wear perfume I wouldn't wear it you know if I was I'll wear perfume. I wouldn't wear it. You know, if I was in a crowded office place, I wouldn't wear perfume. But if I'm by myself, I really do love it. And I realized that when I'm really, really stressed out, I stopped doing that because it's just a little bit too much. It's like bringing it down, bringing it down.

And so one of the big things that I learned from writing this book is that I think a lot of us are too passive about our sense. I certainly was too passive, like letting things roll over us instead of thinking, okay, okay, it's time to turn off notification sounds on my phone. I'm going to switch my phone to grayscale. I'm going to just not watch TV for a week. I'm going to, you know, not have the TV playing in the background with the noise just running. I'm just, I need to bring down the sensory over the sensory stimulation. How do I do that? If I need to, or how do I just make things more pleasant by figuring out? I don't like going to noisy restaurants. And I used to just be like, well, sometimes they're noisy and that's too bad. And now I'm like, I don't go back to a restaurant if it's,

if it's uncomfortably noisy, why am I going to do that? One of my husband's favorite restaurants. I'm like, I'm never going there again. It's just too loud. I can take steps with my behavior to shape my sensory environment to make me more comfortable. Right. And I think part of what I'm hearing from you also is this notion that our reaction to the different sensory inputs is not stable over life too. Yes. Oh, good point. Yes. Because I was a club DJ in college. I loved three nights a week. I was out until four in the morning, literally creating really loud music on a dance floor. And now,

similar to you, I'm really sensitive to sound. And I find myself almost always turning things down. Right. So it sounds like everything that we're talking about, it can change over time. It can change. It absolutely can change. Oh, but here's something really interesting. Okay. To try by 25, what the research shows is that if you haven't listened to a genre of music or like enjoyed a certain type of food by the age of 25, it's much less likely that you adults have like specially vivid memories from the age of 15 to 25. So clearly like there's something going on at that time. So I think if you're under 25, like get out there and experience as much as you can to set yourself up for future enjoyment. And if you're after over 25, you might say to yourself, okay, well, maybe if I'm having a little bit of trouble with enjoying something, this might explain why. So I, you know, I just have to work a little harder for it, or maybe cut some slack if I'm just like, I don't have a taste for it. It's like, yeah, I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, and we just never ate sushi. And I've never really developed a taste for sushi.

Whereas my daughters love sushi and eat all kinds of sushi. And if I really worked at it, probably I could develop a taste for sushi just by familiarity and all that. But it kind of explains to me why I didn't pick it up as an adult. So all these things are changing over time and they're affected by different times of our lives. Oh, another strange thing, and they don't know why, is that children, not really little kids and not teenagers, but like kids have a special love of sour. And have you noticed like Sour Patch Kids, all this candy that's so, so sour. And they're like, we don't know why that is. But it's universal.

It's not a cultural thing. Little kids really love sweet things. Then they go through this period of loving sour and they like it more than little kids and adults do. So again, all these things affect us through our lives. And then our own, our own experiences and preferences probably change as well. Like in certain times, you're like very cued into this loud music. Or you can imagine certain time of your life where you were like experimenting with a lot

of cooking, a lot of restaurants, farmer's markets, really getting out there, really deeply engaging with your sense of taste. And then you hit a patch in your work life where you just didn't have time for that. And so then maybe you're having more time for the sense of hearing and you're really in, and that's really becoming something that you're dialing into. So yeah, it's, it's very interesting to think how at different phases in our lives, we might be tapping into one sense more than another or less than another. Yeah. And to actually just know that that's part of the experience and create the space to say like, Oh, well, like I used to really like feel this way. And it's actually completely okay for me to feel almost like the exact opposite now,

because that's just almost to a certain extent that's, I almost feel like that's your brain and your body telling you, well, that's what I need at this moment in time at this particular season. This is what's going to be nourishing to me. And potentially this is what's going to be offensive to me. And here's how I find the sweet spot. I think that's such an important point, which is just stop and pay attention to your own experience and think like, well, what do I need? Here's another example of something that I did without understanding it for exactly that reason to help myself, but I didn't understand it. So in the sense of touch, I was studying how we can use the sense of touch, how important the sense of touch is to us. And then I just happened to read this book by Andrew McCarthy, you know, the actor. And he was talking about how when he had a really important

scene to play in a movie, he was really worried about it. And at the last minute, he grabbed a set of bongos and he just played bongos and that kind of unlocked his performance. And that made me think about props and how props can somehow ground us. Just holding something can make us sort of help us feel grounded. And I realized that in my own life, I will very often hold a pen, even when I have no intention to write. There's no paper. I'm just holding a pen. And I realized that especially when I'm very stressed out, like I recently went to a party where I knew no one and I knew I would probably know no one. So I was a little apprehensive and I held a pen. And what I realized now is there is something very grounding. And when I asked

around, of course, many people do this. They hold a mug, they hold a clipboard, they hold a water bottle, they hold a stone. So we think of things like fidget spinners and pop toys and all those are great for me, like using touch to manage anxiety. But even just knowing my own needs, my own sensory environment, my own preferences, because the more consciously we notice these, of course, the better we can cultivate them where I was holding a pen without without having any insight into myself whatsoever, myself whatsoever. But now I'm like, oh, I got a pen in my pocket. I'm ready. I don't do it accidentally. I do it on purpose. Yeah. I mean, which is amazing because I think so many of us probably develop behaviors around our senses over a period of years or decades. They have a very specific effect on us that in

some way is beneficial to us. So we just keep doing it, but there's no conscious awareness of the fact that I'm doing this because it's actually making me feel like this. It's just something in our body picks up on the fact that this perception is creating this effect in us. And it becomes a pattern that just becomes a habit. And it's on autopilot. It's ingrained in us for years. And then when you become aware of that, you're like, oh, this is fascinating. You can be more intentional about creating the effect. No, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's interesting because you realize that how you can create an environment to suit yourself. So for instance, sensory, like auditory environments for focus and productivity. Okay. So Jonathan, for you,

if you're really like, let's say you're writing the first draft of a book, okay. Which I, you would probably say is one of the most intellectually challenging things you do. Do you want silence? Do you want a busy hum? Like you're in a coffee shop? Do you want music with words or do you want music with no words? What's your focus sounds? So for me, a busy coffee shop, but with noise reducing headphones on. So I hear it, but it's sort of like, it's not, it's muffled. It's not super intelligible, but I actually like that sound. I feel like it helps me drop more into a creative groove. Okay. And I need silence. I like silence or a busy hump. I would never, never, never listen to music. But I've talked to people who listen to music.

And then there are people who will do different things depending on exactly the nature of the task. So somebody was saying if she's working in Excel, she wants music with words. But if she's drafting something, she wants music with no words. So again, as you were saying, when you consciously know these things, you can consciously make sure to get yourself to the environment that's going to be the most helpful to you. Whereas if you're only dimly aware of it, go out of your way to put yourself into that circumstance or to say something like,

hey, wow, okay, I have this chance to join this collective work thing. But if I'm there and nobody's there, it's going to be too quiet. And I'm going to end up leaving anyway to go to the coffee shop where I know I can be really productive. Or like my brother-in-law is somebody who, he really does better in a coffee shop. He always worked in a coffee shop. And then during COVID, it was incredibly disruptive to his work process

because he hadn't realized how much he needed the sense of like the busy hum. But if you didn't realize that's what it was, you might think, oh, well, you well, who knows what's going on? But the more you understand these things, the more you can be actively trying to shape your surroundings to suit yourself. Or you might understand why you're in conflict with other people. Because if you're a parent and you keep walking into your kid's room and saying, turn off that music, turn off that music. I would say that because I need silence. But maybe if your child is working very well and very efficiently, who are you to say that this work, this, that kind of musical background

isn't helpful because if they say it helps and they're doing great work, I mean, clearly it does work for them. And for some people that's true. Yeah. I love that. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th.

Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk.

The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10.

Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. So you ran an interesting experiment in the context of the hearing sense, and that was trying a sound bath meditation, which is funny because I have never pictured you

as the sound bath meditation person. I have not. That's why it was good to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Cryotherapy, sensory deprivation. I tried a lot of things. Yeah.

No. And the sound bath was funny because my sister, Elizabeth, who's the co-host of the Happier podcast with me, she loves the sound bath. She likes them better than a massage. She loves the sound bath. So I was really than a massage. She loves a sound bath. So I was really curious to try it. I found it interesting. I didn't find it transformative. You're more sound focused than I am. So I'm definitely more sound focused and I'm also super sensitive to sound. And there are beautiful sounds. And they're really beautiful. And for those who don't know,

oftentimes a sound bath, you're almost like surrounded by, you know, like crystal or metal singing bowls or all sorts of different things. And they vibrate at frequencies where literally your whole body starts to almost become attuned to it. For me, it can be incredibly powerful. But when I was listening or hearing about like your sound bath experience, it brought me back to the early 2000s when they owned a yoga studio in Hell's Kitchen. And we used to do this thing we would call a sea of ohms, where you'd have 50 people in a room after a 90-minute super hot, sweaty yoga practice, and everyone would rise up. Oftentimes, you'd close out a practice with everyone chanting ohm three times. But there was this other version where you just say, okay, so for the next however long, I'll start to om, and then everyone just kind of comes in and out.

And it becomes this sort of like overlapping waves of the syllable with people in all different vocal tones and frequencies saying it. And what's fascinating to me is I would start it, and there was never a designated end, but always within about a minute to two minutes, it came to an organic end. And for that entire time, it didn't happen every time, but there were moments where literally it was transcendent. You just felt like you were lifted off the ground and you entirely went somewhere. And the only thing that was happening was sound in the room. Well, and the idea of people working, like synchronizing, which is so pleasing. That's interesting. Yeah, I would find that to be a fascinating exercise.

That's really interesting. I think the interesting thing too about a sound bath is there's no expectations. It's not music where it's like, I like it, I don't like it. Like, oh, here comes the chorus again. I didn't see that coming. It's just sound and so there's a kind of a purity to it and they are very beautiful sounds the thing about the senses is you can't bookmark it you can't screenshot it you can't save it for later you've got to experience

it right here right now and like we could play the sound of a soundbap and people could listen to it you know as part of a podcast but it's not the same of being there in person and feeling those vibrations going through your body and feeling the floor below your body and sensing the other people and the air in your face and the movement of the person playing the singing bowls. There's something about being right there, right then. And again, with your yoga class, where all these people are together, it's like, that's the only way that can happen. It will only happen now. It will never happen again in that way. And that's just, there's something so vital about that, about knowing that it's right here right now. And it's, it's of the moment and it can't be recaptured. You can't glut yourself on it. You can't save it.

It's just, it's happening. And then it's. For me, that's a great part of the appeal of the senses is the way they tie me to the present moment and the unrepeatable moment. Yeah, I love that. It also really invites you to say, look for these opportunities and just be as present, be in the moment as much as you can when they hit. You talk about smell also, and I think this is fascinating. And it seems to me like of the five different senses, smell feels like the one that gives you the most ready access to almost like the experience of time travel.

Okay. So here's my question about that. Many, many people say that, and I have read many, many arguments about why kind of physiologically that is true. But I have to say in my own experience and from my own observation for what it is worth, is it really stronger than sight? If I plunked you into the middle of your childhood bedroom and you looked around, would you not also time travel? If I said, hey, Jonathan, go to the Nostalgia Machine website where they have all the top songs for all of the previous years and you listen to five of the top songs from the year you graduated from college,

would you not be transported back? If I handed you your favorite candy from childhood that you haven't eaten in 30 years and you tasted that, would you not be transported back? If I handed you a shirt, your favorite shirt that you had when you were five years older, you're like your stuffed animal that got left behind on that car trip. And oh my gosh, here it is. You can hold it again. So I kind of think all the senses do that, but it is true that people often say that that smell seems to have a special power. And I wonder if that is because it often comes

to us unawares that if I handed you, you know, a pop tart, you would sort of say like, oh, this really reminds me of my childhood. And so it doesn't surprise you. But if you're walking down a street and a store opens and the smell of hairspray comes out at you and that transport you to your great aunt that use that kind of hairspray as a child that you haven't smelled in 30 years. That's sort of a shock. It's kind of invisible. It's coming to you out of nowhere. It does feel very like abrupt and magical. So maybe that is the reason that smell gets sort of special credit. And I have seen these arguments for why it's true about like how it travels to the brain. But I got to say, I think all of them are really good at doing that. They're all memories very strongly.

I mean, the way you described, we have that window between 15 and 25, where there's like just really powerful imprinting with the senses. I almost wonder if during that window, any one sense has sort of like takes center stage for a significant part of that window, whether that becomes a sense later in life, that's becomes most likely to let you like time travel, because that was sort of like the dominant sense when some of those memories were really imprinted. Well, that is very interesting. And here's something that I've never found any research or discussion of maybe you have, because I know you're interested in these things too, which is during that period, people do seem to be more interested in music. That is a

time when people are particularly interested in music. Even people who later in their life don't seem to spend that much time in music. Like people will often play instruments, even voluntarily. It's not even like, okay, your parents are making you take piano lessons. It's like, oh, we have a band and we play in our free time or we'll spend hours and hours listening to music. Now, part of this is probably about the kind of the social aspect of that time when you're trying to engage with other people and there's all that part of it. But I do wonder if there is something, I just have always been very struck by that, like how that seems to be a particularly, just like kids like Sour, it's sort of like people in that age are very music focused. That would be very interesting to try to look at that through people's lives to see

if you can trace these patterns. Yeah. Because I know for me, I've always been very music focused, but 15 to 25, it was almost all consuming. For me, actually hearing is the sense that gives me easiest access to time travel. I can hear three bars of a song and get back to when I'm like 16 years old and tell you exactly where I was, what I was wearing, who I was with. Like that's the thing much more powerfully than, than scent for me. Well, here's something that might be fun for you to try. So I did, cause I, cause my neglected sense is taste and I was trying to do things to help me tap into the, you me tap into the sense of taste. I did a taste timeline where I went through my life

and in kind of like four zones, did like what were my strongest taste associations, either something that was very notable, like I had it at that time, but not other times, or my favorite things. And it was super fun. And then I called and reminisced with different people like my college roommates or my sister about different times.

So I did that to kind of reclaim a neglected sense. But it also might be fun for you to do one of your most appreciated sense and do a timeline of your own, like your own songs. Like what were the 10 songs from childhood, the 10 songs from college, the 10 songs from like law school or, you know, first time in New York or however you would divide up your life. And what were the songs? Because it's just dialing into the sensory memories as a way to kind of capture your own experience is really, really fun. I mean, I'm a person who doesn't remember things very well. So I'm always looking for ways to provoke memories because a lot of times we remember more than we know. We just haven't like reached out and tried to get a memory. And often like through the senses, like you could remember concerts and parties and go

into a record store, you know, just like things that you associate with music that maybe you haven't had an occasion to recall, but then would give you immense pleasure if you went back to them or songs that you kind of forgot that you loved. And you're like, oh, now I can bring that into my active playlist and kind of reclaim something that has kind of gone quiet for me, but that I still love. So now I know I'm going to be spending time this weekend making playlists. Yes, right. It's like going for like different seasons of my life. That's such a cool and fun idea.

One of the senses we haven't really talked a lot about is taste. And when I think about taste, especially in the context of you, the immediate thing that popped up for me was years ago, I remember we were literally, I think, hanging out in Central Park. You're telling me, I read this book by Gary Taubes. Yeah. Basically, I just stopped eating sugar from that moment forward. And my mind was blown because I'm like, how can a human being actually do that? Like I've tried doing that a million times and you were just like, no, it made sense. I decided. So I did. And granted it plays into, you know, like your previous work in the four tendencies and the way that you're wired for that. But it also really

speaks to this notion of the way that taste affects you and affects different people in different ways. Well, it is interesting. And I do think that I'm wired in a way that made it probably easier for me to do that than other people. So, and yeah, that's like more than 10 years ago now. Yeah. I basically don't eat. I almost eat, I eat very few carbs, but yeah, I don't eat sugar, but part of what it is. And again, this was like me understanding myself much better after I studied the five senses, because of course I knew I wasn't eating sugar. And I knew that I wasn't eating sugar because I had this overwhelming sweet tooth and it was just so boring to manage the sweet tooth. Like I want more, I want more, I want more now later it's my birthday. I deserve it. It just

was boring. So I was just like, let me just give it up altogether. I'm kind of an all or nothing person. So it was easier for me to give it up altogether than to try to have it sometimes. That's what I call being an abstainer versus a moderator. But here's the thing about my study of five senses, a mystery that was solved for me about quitting sugar. Because I am also puzzled, right? You say you were puzzled that I could just quit. And I'm also, I was also puzzled.

Like this isn't as hard as I thought it would be, why? There's a lot of reasons, but one of the things that particularly puzzled me was that people would say, but look, the thing is, Gretchen, we're all surrounded by all these food queues all the time. You're just surrounded by these restaurants pumping these smells into the air and these storefronts like just was packed with pastries. And you're on social media and it's delicious thing after delicious thing. And like, you're just, you're just so cute. You can't escape it. And I thought, you know, I don't feel that way. What is going on? What is happening? And what I realized it's back to what we were talking about before the brain tells us what it thinks we need to know. And my brain after not very long in my experience, my brain was like, yeah, you know, this isn't useful information.

We don't need to bring this to the forefront of her attention. Yeah. Insomnia cookies smells good. Yeah. There are these like petty fours in the window of a French bakery. Like, yeah, here's a recipe for cinnamon buns. But all that just kind of faded back for me. It wasn't that I didn't see it. I'm in an airport and I smell the Cinnabon just like anybody, but it doesn't really press on me in the same way. So that was something that explained to me, why was it that I wasn't experiencing food cues the

way other people were? Well, I think it's because of this idea of what is needed. Where do we need to direct our attention? Our brain is intervening and editing all the time. And after a certain point, my brain was just like, yeah, this is sort of like, oh, there's this plate of chocolate chip cookies in the middle of a, in the middle of a conference room table. But it's the same thing as if there was like a bag of uncooked rice. It's just not useful information. I'm not going to eat that. So I don't really need to know about it. It just fades away. Whereas before when my sweet tooth was active, that thing would have just been at the glaring, blaring forefront of my attention the whole time. in part to survival. And granted, probably most of these senses are tied to survival, but literally it's the sense where in no small part controls what goes into your body, like your nutrition, which has a huge role in whether you survive or don't survive, no matter what your circumstance is. And it's almost like your brain can change. It can attune

your taste to try and solve for what your body needs or doesn't need at any given time. But industry and commerce has learned this too and learned how to effectively influence our taste. You know, the bliss points. Right. I love that phrase. Yeah, they're engineered to hit those bliss points. But, you know, here's the thing again about how the senses all work together. OK, so you might eat a food that's been engineered to hit all these bliss points.

But if you pick it up and take it out, you're not getting the smells of grilling and roasting and baking that are really going to enrich that experience and give you that feeling of satisfaction. I'm starting to think that part of the reason that everything is billed as immersive and everybody seems so just have this craving for direct contact, you know, and really to engage with their five senses. I don't think I'm alone in that, in that desire is because things are lopsided. Like on the one hand, there's too little. And on the one hand, there's too much. So this food is hyper processed to hit all these bliss points. And yet it doesn't really have a

smell. And that's just like, you know, it's like I opened up this crinkly bag and it just kind of comes and goes too quickly, like too much on the one hand and not enough on the other. I mean, you think about like our love of back to this idea of our love of faces. We see more faces in one day than like a medieval villager would have seen in a lifetime. And we love faces. We can't stay away from faces. We're mesmerized by faces. And now you can just like face, face, face, face, face all day long. And a lot of people do.

And yet it's very flat. You're not engaging with a person where I mean, this is the problem with remote work. It's like, it's not the same as smelling somebody and feeling the air currents pass between you and just like the presence of their body and But for me, music is a really powerful sensation for me. And I don't think I realized until later in life how powerful touch was. I took the classic love language test and I came up with touch, physical touch as my primary love language. And also I just noticed how incredibly sensitive I am

to the experience of touch. I think when most people think about touch, we think about other human beings or other beings. You offered this notion that it can actually be inanimate objects that actually satisfy a certain sensory need when it comes to touch. It can be so many different things. It can be like a really furry pillow type of thing that can affect you a particular way. But touch is this interesting thing also because it has a survival basis. And it seems like some of the wiring for touch happens very, very early in life and sustains throughout life. And it can lead to a lack of touch in the very early years. It can lead to profound and sustained dysfunction. And it seems

like this is different than some of the other senses in that way. Yeah. It's interesting. Touch does feel the most different from the others. And we touch over our whole bodies, whereas the other four are all kind of compactly located on the head. And yeah, and skin feels almost like packaging. It doesn't feel like a sensory organ the way the eyes do. But this research that you're pointing to, or this experience in the real world is so true that babies who don't experience touch really are very profoundly and negatively influenced. And I know this from my own experience because my older daughter was born early. And so she was in the neonatal intensive care unit. And I did this thing called kangaroo care, which is where you, I would come in in the morning and, you know, scrub in.

And then I would hold her. I would like pull up my shirt and hold her against the bare skin of my stomach and just rock her. And they were like, you, we, the baby needs that skin to skin contact. And like that, just the holding and, you know, the stroking and just the sense that there's somebody there. And I have to say there was something kind of mystical about it, where I did feel like I was sort of pouring my life force into her and kind of forcing her to grow through my touch. There is, you see this throughout history. There is something that

there's something special about the human touch. Blessings happen through touch. There's healing happens through touch because we do feel like there is this like there is this transcendent and sometimes mystical power that we think comes through us through touch. So it's very important to us. And then even, you know, the touch of a cat or a dog or a horse is also so soothing and so comforting. And it is it does feel different from the other ones. I agree. It feel in that sense feels like the most different from the other. They're all a little different, like seeing and hearing you do from a distance and then smelling it's a little bit closer and then tasting and touching. You got to be in direct contact. So both of those feel riskier,

you know, like, okay, we're putting it on the line here, but touch feels like the final reality too. There does feel like something about just, if on the line here but touch feels like the final reality too there does feel like something about just if you can touch something it feels real yeah that's actually a really interesting point about the proximity effect yeah the progression and i wonder if like like that really plays a role and sort of like how they they affect us in different ways um and then zooming the lens out i mean we've kind of bounced between each one of the individual senses, but nobody experiences one at a time. So true. The reality is we move through life and every sense is activated all the time in different

ways and different levels. And it seems like part of your reason for going so deep into this space is to invite people to just start paying attention because there's so much joy that can come into our life, even in really, really hard times, even when we're really struggling or suffering. There's like the senses provide almost like a gateway to some element of pleasure, of joy, of like grounding. And it sounds like a lot of what you're saying is, but most of us ignore the fact that we have these tools available to us in any given time. Absolutely. It's so true. It can kind of offer us a respite. Like we can go out of ourselves and into the world, even for just a moment. And here's the thing too, like, I think for many people doing this kind of exercise,

they maybe would have taken a very much more disciplined or maybe reflective approach. You know, people talk to me about like the five, four, three, two, one meditation technique, or like, you know, there are people who really say you should sit and look at a piece of art for half an hour. You should like have your sip of coffee and like not do anything else and just like really notice the aroma and the flavor of that coffee. And I have to say, I'm kind of like skipping around throwing confetti in the air. I'm like, this is undisciplined. This is snow day. This is recess. This is like, let's just have fun. I'm kind of overly disciplined, overly rigid. And I wanted to

use the five senses in kind of a fun, playful, energetic way. One of the things I found is like, there's so many ways to dial into the five senses. It's almost like anything that you want to achieve in your own life, any kind of change you want to make, you could probably say to yourself, well, how could I draw on the power of my five senses to help me do that? Whether I wanted to discipline my mind through meditation, or whether I wanted to let my mind off the leash through recess, or whether I wanted to become very reflective and meditative, or I wanted to give myself a break because that's also good for creativity and productivity. And of course, everybody's got their own set of senses. We've each got our own compliment of senses. We're not dealing with the same senses, but whatever we have,

it's something that we that's right there with us all the time. And yet we overlook it and we don't take advantage of it. And it's so energizing and so exciting. And it's always there for us. You know, like you can't sleep at night, you know, try listening to like a very, very monotone podcast. And it's like magic. This is the greatest thing I ever discovered for people with insomnia like me. It just helps you fall asleep if you're having insomnia. So I think it's a it's a tool like no tool fits every hand. But this is something that I think almost anybody could adapt to themselves and find a way to use it for themselves. Yeah. And going back to the early part of our conversation where you invited us to start to

explore, I think you called it the five sense journal. The more that we actually get to know our different senses and how they affect us, the more we can be intentional about like, oh, I feel this way. I happen to know that if I play this particular type of music, it's going to counter this and make me feel better or whatever the state is. And then we can just know ourselves better. I found myself saying things to my husband like, do I like that? We'd be at a restaurant and be like, do I like that? And he's like, you don't like fennel. And I'm like, okay. I that? And he's like, well, you don't like fennel. And I'm like, okay. You know, I didn't even know. It's like, I don't like fennel at all. Like now I know that. But before that I was like, okay,

sometimes things taste better than other times. Who can know? It's like, you can know. Exactly. Apologies to the fennel lobby. I've got a whole list of controversial things. Cause like, it's like a lot of people, about candy corn or whatever. Yeah. But then you can really suit your environment to suit yourself and you can know yourself better and really create an environment that's going to give you like comfort and pleasure and help you connect with other people. And it can also help explain conflict because if you're, if you're arguing with somebody, instead of saying, well, I'm right, you're wrong. Or like, this is objectively true. I don't know why you dispute it. It's like,

well, you find that to be an ugly color, but I like that color. So what do we do about it? Right? Not somebody's right. Somebody's wrong. Yeah. I love that. Feels like a good place to come full circle now conversation as well. So in this container of good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? Many, many, many things, but a life where we really tune into our five senses for creativity and love and luck and fun and energy and peace and memories. I think that is a very important element to a good life. Awesome. Thank you. Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, say that you'll also love the conversation we had with Gretchen about the four tendencies or how we meet our own expectations.

You'll find a link to that episode in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it? Maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person. Just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required.

Charge time and actual results will vary.