The One You Feed - How to Connect More Deeply Through Our Senses with Gretchen Rubin

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

In This Episode, You'll Learn: How to utilize our five senses to more deeply connect with the world Why exploring the world through your senses to experience life more vividly and playfully. How sensory experiences are a meaningful way to connect with others. Keeping a “5 Senses Journal” as a useful tool as a form of appreciation How to elevate everyday moments with heightened sensory awareness techniques. Why sharing impactful sensory memories with others can foster deeper connections Understanding how sensory environments shape behaviors and decision-making processes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In general, we are wired for sight, and so it has the most real estate in the brain. And often when there's a conflict among senses, sight wins. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter.

It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you we have the answer go to really know

really.com and register to win 500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign jason bobblehead the really know really podcast follow us on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts thanks for joining us our guest on this episode is Gretchen Rubin, one of today's most influential observers of happiness and human nature. She's the author of many books, including the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers, Outer Order, Inner Calm, The Four Tendencies, Better Than Before, and The Happiness Project. Gretchen's books have sold more than 3.5 million copies worldwide in more than 30 languages, and she hosts the top-ranking, award-winning podcast, Happier with Gretchen

Rubin, where she explores practical solutions for living a happier life. Hi, Gretchen. Welcome to the show. I'm so happy to be back talking to you. Yes, it is definitely a pleasure to have you back on. We're going to be discussing your new book, which is called Life in Five Senses, How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World. But before we do that, we'll start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild, and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.

One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops, and they think about it for a second, and they look up at their grandparent, and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well, it's very apt for my book Life in Five Senses because what it shows you is that what you direct your attention to and what you feed and foster is what will grow and what

will take over your life. And one of the things I found about the five senses was I wasn't feeding that wolf. I was walking around kind of lost in my head in a fog of preoccupation. And then when I found that I turned my attention to the five senses, well, then they added so much vitality and energy and beauty and memory and creativity to my life. But I had to take the time to feed that wolf because it was there waiting the whole time it was inside me along with the other wolves, but I was ignoring it. I was overlooking it. And so I think it's a very apt parable for what I tried to do in the book. Yeah. I love a book focused on the senses because

I don't know how I got it into my head, but I did a number of years ago. And the basic idea was that our senses are kind of the portal to now. Like, if we want to be more present, which all of us talk about, our senses are a direct way to do that, to say, and you reference this in your book, to say, well, like, be more present isn't extraordinarily helpful. But what are five things I can see right now is, right? And so, some of those exercises, I have just internalized so much. And as I was reading your book, I was recognizing like, yeah, when I walk, I'm always sort of looking and what can I see that I haven't seen? Or how can I look at this different? Or where's

all the colors of green that I can see? All these different things. And so I love this idea of just exploring senses more because it's so important to us being present. But before we go into that, I have to ask a question, which is that can elephants really hear the movement of clouds? They can. They can. They know when the storm is coming. And they do it by hearing. That's crazy. Isn't it fascinating to think about the senses that other creatures must have? Like, I love to think about octopuses or octopi. I'm not sure how you're supposed to say that. But they can change all the color on their entire body instantly, you know?

So they've got these senses, you know, controlling all these different suckers. Their sense experience must be so radically different. It's just fascinating to think about. Yeah, there's a huge amount of interest in this very subject. There have been several popular science books written in the last few years talking about the superpowers of different kinds of creatures. And it really is remarkable. I mean, but then you just think of something like your dog. I so wish that I could experience my sidewalk and just walking around my neighborhood the way my dog does. Because of course, Barnaby is sensing all these things that

I'm not. But it is fascinating to think about what they're tuned into. They can see colors that we don't see. They can see things like heat. They can smell things we can't smell. They can feel things we can't feel. It is remarkable. Yeah. It tends to be that we think we're getting an accurate picture of what's out there, right? Like I'm seeing and hearing and everything. No, I'm not, right? Not by a long shot. There is so much more that is outside of me than I can possibly perceive. I just love that idea. Well, there's that, like, which is kind of outside the realm of your senses, the way we can only see this part of the spectrum that's visible to humans. But what's astonishing to me is how true that is, even within people. Even people,

like, you think, well, I'm sitting in a room, you're sitting in a room, we're basically having the same experience. But we really are not. I mean, I was just astonished over and over to realize the degree to which my brain is shaping my experience. And it's my brain. It's my genetics. It's my upbringing. It's my culture. It was the conditions, you know, in utero before I was born.

All these things are creating a different environment. And same with you. I mean, I think this is one of the reasons why, like, when somebody complains about something, we shouldn't just hand wave it and say, like, well, it's no big deal, or I don't know what you're complaining about, or like, why are you making such a big deal? Because to different people, different sensations just register very differently. And I mean, you and I are both podcasters, so a funny thing that I found from my life of podcasting is, you know, when I'm recording, I don't hear sirens. Because I live in New York York City and my brain is like, you don't need to know about sirens. Just ignore it. But people who are on the microphone with me will be like, hey, let's hold on. I think is the term misophonia, somebody who's very sensitive to sound. So I am naturally a very sound sensitive person. But I think recording this podcast has made it even worse because

I will hear any sound in somebody's background. Yes. My producer is like that. A fly buzzing, you know, two rooms away. And I'm like, uh, what's that noise? So it's funny how we are all so different. So talk to me a little bit about the process by which our sense organs, pick whichever one you want, eyes, ears, nose, they're recording a very basic thing, right? And then what actually arrives in our brain is something very different. Can you talk a little bit about what's going on in between those two things? Well, the brain is just acting as an editor. It's telling us what we need to know. It's helping us

to pay attention to the things that are important. The brain is very focused on change because change is opportunity or danger. So if there's a rock flying at my head, I'm going to notice that right away. There's a rock lying on the ground. Well, I'm not going to notice that so much. You see this with things like touch. Like if I pull on a tight hat, I'll feel that around my head when it's a new sensation. But pretty soon it'll fade out of my awareness. One of the most surprising ways that you see this is with smell. Because, you know, we've all had the experience of odor fatigue where you're smelling something beautiful, like a wonderful dish of your favorite food or a beautiful flower or something.

And you smell and you smell and then you can't smell it anymore. It happens over time. We cannot smell our home the way a guest smells it. And if you've ever visited somebody's house where you're like, wow, how do they live in a house that has such a strong smell? It's because they don't smell it. And the kind of more persistent and strongest smell is the more you adjust to it. And so the brain is doing all this. The brain is helping, like if you've ever heard your name, like in a crowded room where a lot of people are talking and you're like, your ears perk up because your brain is like, hey, that's important to us. Like, let's, we got to get on that conversation. But to other people, they wouldn't

pick it up in the same way. So it's just, it's very remarkable the degree to which our minds are helping us and intervening for us, but then also sometimes maybe making trade-offs we wouldn't make or shaping our perception in ways that maybe aren't even accurate. Like you think about the dress, you know, is it white and gold or blue and black? I cannot see it blue and black. I know intellectually that is the true color of the dress, but my brain will not allow me to perceive it. I just can't see it that way, even though I know that that's an illusion. Yeah, I use that duress in my spiritual habits program where I show it on the screen, then I ask people to vote on what do they see, because it's the part in the program where I'm trying to make the point of,

we don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are, right? Everything we are processing is going through our filters. Like you said, it's a different experience for all of us based on so many different things. Well, and then also context can matter. So my daughter, I love the smell of paper white narcissus, which is a very sharp, distinctive smell, but very tied to my childhood and kind of Christmas growing up. So I finally was like, I'm going to buy one of these flowers myself, put it in there. And my daughter, Eleanor, was like, what is, she had smelled something and she was afraid like we had a dead mouse in a wall or something because she kept smelling this terrible smell. Then she realized it was this Paperwhite Narcissus. She hadn't connected the smell to the

flower. And then I was like, oh, I love that smell. And at first she said, oh, I hate that smell. But then once she knew that it was from a flower, it was not from a dead mouse, then she became much more accepting of the smell. So part of it is also like, is this Parmesan cheese or vomit? Is this like a very strong floor cleaner or is it pine needles? How much we like something, our brain is also giving us context in which to experience something maybe as pleasant or not, depending on kind of what else we bring to that. Yeah, exactly. And in so much of, you know, the Zen tradition that I've studied in so much, there's this idea of really, can you get to the point where you experience the world more directly, you know, without as many

of your filters? I think in many ways that in some ways would be leading towards what, you know, they might refer to as enlightenment being that you just aren't overlaying all your stuff onto the world and you experience it more directly, thus much more freshly and much more newly? I think that's pretty hard. Oh, it's incredibly hard. I don't know that the brain would permit that because even bringing no filter is its own filter. So if you're saying my filter is no judgment, that itself is a decision. So it's an interesting question. Not one that I think about. I love noticing that things that I like them or I don't like them or they're interesting

or whatever, but that is not the Zen way. Well, the Zen way would be noticing that and saying, doing a lot of what you do in this book, actually, which is, can I just experienced this thing again, more deeply, more closely, more focused, so that it comes alive beyond being something that we feel like we've seen 500 times before. Yeah, yeah. But what's familiar is easy to ignore. And I think that is one of the challenges of our life is like, how do you really look? I find this with the people that I love is I was taking them for granted. I wasn't really looking at them, even though, you know, they were so dear to me. It's just, you're like, why should I look at my husband? I look at him morning, noon, and night. Why

really pay attention? So I wanted to make sure to start to do that. I think that idea that you reference throughout the book, that our senses are particularly alert to changes, and that if nothing is changing, then in a sense, we stop sensing. I mean, obviously, we don't stop sensing because our sensor organs are always going, but it never or very rarely makes its way actually into consciousness because our brain just filters it out as unimportant because it's seen it so many times before. Yeah, so I think what we want to do is to awaken our attention so that we can experience things more vividly. I have to say, I'm not a fan of things like sit and taste a sip

of coffee for 20 minutes or, you know, or like look for every color of green. Like some people are very drawn to those kinds of exercises. I think my kind of exercises are sort of more loose and playful. I didn't take a very serious approach to this because I felt like part of what I wanted was kind of recess and fun and immediacy and energy. Whereas I think many people might approach this with sort of a meditative, you know, like one of the exercises I do for the book, and I still do to this day because I enjoyed it so much, was to visit the Metropolitan Museum every day. So I love going to the Met. And of course, I'm incredibly fortunate that I have the time and the freedom to go. And I also live within

walking distance of the Met. So, you know, I'm so lucky. I'm a New York State resident, so I can go for free, though I did join. But somebody said to me very confidently, well, if you're going to go to the Met, you have to sit on a bench and look at one painting for a half an hour. And I'm like, no, I don't. Like, maybe one day I'll do that. And that is definitely a thing a person could do. But that's not why I'm going. But this person said it with so much authority as if like, that was the right answer. I'm like, there's no right answer here. There are many ways that you could go to the Metropolitan Museum. And the more you go, the more you can try. And I'm excited. And I'm sure one day I will try that. And the more you go, the more you can try. And I'm excited.

And I'm sure one day I will try that. And it'll probably be a fascinating experience. But I just thought it was funny that somebody was like, well, that's the only kind of legitimate thing to do. I'm like, no, it's not. There's a lot of ways we can connect with our five senses, but some with more freedom, some with more discipline. Yeah, yeah.

I agree with you that if we turn it into too much of a serious exercise, it sort of loses a lot of what we're trying to do. Exactly. It just becomes another kind of discipline. And I'm a huge fan of discipline. I'm a very, very disciplined person. That's probably one of the reasons I was attracted to this because I wanted to let my mind off the leash. I wanted more energy and playfulness. And I think through the five senses is a terrific way to do it. Not to say that you couldn't achieve other aims through it. But yeah, for me, I was like, I don't want to make this so demanding and kind of dry that I missed the point of what I was seeking.

Right. You say early on in the book, I realized I'd grown serious and impatient, too eager to hurry back to my desk or my to-do list. You know, my focus on efficiency and productivity had left me with a heaviness of spirit, a feeling of staleness or stagnation. I wanted to stir myself up with the quick hits of exuberance that my senses could provide. I have that tendency also, right? I have a tendency towards just very focused, very serious, you know, very like turning anything into a project or a thing to get better at. You know, I started rock climbing. It's indoor rock climbing, but I loved it for the tactile piece of it, the feeling, the experience of being

up high, all that. Of course. I never thought about rock climbing as a touch exercise. What a great example. I wish I'd thought of that. Oh, I'm going to write that down. Yeah. But I noticed after like two sessions, I was like, maybe I should get a rock climbing coach. I was like, just stop. Does it make any difference whether you can climb, I don't remember the scale, a 5.1 versus a 5.3, not for what I'm trying to do, not for the reasons I'm here. It's the same reason I've taken up surfing and I love it and I want to get better at it, but I have to watch again my desire to get too serious. Because what I like about it is the sensation of it. I love being in the water and the sun and the sounds and the sense elements of it. And I know that for myself, when I start to get too serious about it as like, I've got to get better, my window of attention shrinks down very, very small. Yes.

And I'm kind of back into my usual way of relating to the world. Absolutely. I think that's an outstanding example. It sounds like you and I are very much the same. And that's one of the things with the Met. Like, people kept saying to me, well, what were the rules and like what counted? And I'm like, I tried to just avoid all that because I'm exactly like you. If it's like, it's got to be this long, I've got to do this. What I did do is I went through the whole Met,

like room by room, because I felt like I needed to plot it out. But I didn't have like, oh, you have to do this much in a day. I tried to keep it loose because I think you're exactly right. For some people, it's a real temptation, which is to sort of professionalize everything, like try to make it good and try to make it regulated and achieve. And I think you're right. Like if you tend in that direction, it's very helpful to have a practice where you're very deliberately letting yourself stay loose, stay unfocused, just kind of roll with it, not try to up your game all the time.

It's an interesting temptation. Totally. Yes, that I think people don't talk about very much. But maybe there aren't many of us who experience this, but I absolutely know what you mean, But maybe there aren't many of us who experience this, but I absolutely know what you mean, where it's like, I don't want rock climbing to become like my next career, where I have to like that that just wasn't the right ambition for me. So I had to go through a really deliberate process of undoing all that so that I could get back to playing the guitar because I like to play the guitar. Yes. something. I've got to make that into something. Now I'm almost to the opposite extreme where I'd capture almost nothing. I just play. And if I play something pretty, I'm like, well, if I can remember it next time, I'll play it again. So it was that same thing, which is I'm taking something that should be an enjoyment for me and I'm turning it into a job. Yeah. I think if you have this relentless aspect to your nature, it can be exhausting. It's exhilarating and it's

satisfying to have that kind of relentlessness, but it can become draining and overwhelming and just sort of take the fun out of things. Yeah, I hadn't really thought of, in the context that you're saying, like of playing an instrument or rock climbing, but I see exactly how that would apply. It's very interesting. Yeah. This is my hope for the book. Like with everything I write, it's not like what I do is so important.

It's supposed to be like, this is gonna help you think about yourself. Yeah. This is something you could try in your own way. I've never gone rock climbing in my life, but that doesn't matter because you're thinking about your own rock climbing. Yep.

And so my hope is that people will bring their own sensory experiences and interests and challenges to it, but sort of get excited. Because I think a lot of times we can learn from other people. We get ideas. And even if we wouldn't do what they would do, we kind of get an idea for ourselves. That's maybe even more exciting. When you're bringing your own creativity, your own ingenuity to something, they need

a little spark to get you thinking along those lines. Yeah. You've got a lot of very creative ways of engaging with your senses that I had never thought of. And I've thought about this a fair amount. And so, yeah, there's a bunch of new things I'm interested in trying. There's a theme throughout the book that our senses are a way to connect to now, to being present. They're a way to connect to the world around us, but they're also a way of connect to now, to being present. They're a way to connect to the world around us, but they're also a way of connecting more deeply with the people around us. Will you share a little bit about why that is and maybe give us a couple examples? Yeah, this was one thing I really hoped that I could achieve from going deep into my five senses,

because of course, ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree, it's relationships with other people that really contribute the most to our happiness. So this is, you know, very important aim is to connect with more people and more deeply with people. And I did, I found the sensory experience is a great way to connect with other people in all kinds of ways. Now, of course, if some of these are classic, like we all go to meals with other people, you know, that's universal in human culture is that eating together is tied to, you know, hospitality and fellowship. And then like, we go sightseeing together, right? Like, we'll go to a museum

together, we'll go to a concert together, and we'll listen to something together. So sharing a sensory experience is a great way to connect with other people. But then I also found like, it's very useful as a way to connect with people through memory. So like I did a fun exercise for myself to connect with memories as I divided my life into sort of four stages. And then I wrote down all the tastes I remembered from those times, either that were the most distinctive or that were my favorites at that time. But then what made it even more fun is I called my sister Elizabeth and I said, well, let's talk about, let's talk together about what we remember from our childhood. And I mean, we just were laughing and talking. I mean, I had forgotten all about, you know, the foods that we ate on long car trips and like how we would beg our grandparents to buy us strawberry Pop-Tarts and cinnamon Pop-Tarts and the cereal that we ate, you know, when we were little. darts. And the cereal that we ate, you know, when we were little, this kind of reminiscence is a really great way if you want to connect with, say, co-workers or people you don't know well, because it tends to be very personal and kind of fun to talk about, but it's not intimate in a way

that can make people uncomfortable. If you say to somebody like, is there a food that you can get in your hometown that you really can't get anywhere else you go. You got to go back to your hometown to get it. That's a fun thing and it brings people closer, but most people wouldn't feel uncomfortable with that. Whereas I think sometimes when people are sort of like, do these get to know you questions, sometimes it can be tricky. And so it's fun to have something where everybody like, what was your favorite candy as a kid? Like people just like talking about that stuff. It's a really fun way to connect with people or talking about their preferences. Like, a question I love to ask people is, if you really need to focus and be productive, what kind of sound environment do you like?

Do you like silence? Do you like a busy hum, like in a coffee shop? Do you like music with lyrics? Do you like music without lyrics? And people have a lot of thoughts, you know? People are very specific. And some people will shape their sound environment depending on what kind of work they're doing. How about you? What's your preferred sound environment for deep work? Either quiet or instrumental music. But no words? No, words won't work. And even the instrumental music needs to be relatively spare. I'm sound

sensitive and I love music. So it would just get my attention. I need something that's just kind of there. Back to this idea that we all experience things differently. So I was talking to a friend of mine who, like you, is really, really into music. And I was saying how when I go to a restaurant, I'm very sensitive to the noise level, which is a very common thing. Like the number one complaint of restaurants is they're too noisy. And he was like, oh, but for me, it's like the music selection. Whereas I just tune out the music if it's not too loud. But he was like that.

He's like, to me, that's a huge part of the experience, just like the food. If I don't like their choice of music or I love their choice of music, that's a major element in why I would choose a restaurant or not. And I was like, wow, as somebody who is not a huge music lover, I wouldn't have thought of that. But of course it makes sense if you love music and you're very tuned into music. It would be just as important as the decor of the restaurant or the smells of the restaurant or the noise level of the restaurant, how uncomfortable the seats are. All these things matter. But to me, I never thought about it. For him, he made his choices based on that. That's interesting. I do always notice the music, but I've never actually connected the

dots in my mind to say, like, I like a restaurant because the music they play. Oh, interesting. As you were writing about the noise in restaurants, I feel the same way. It's very hard for me to tune out. And it occurred to me, like, do any of the rating services like reviews, like that a restaurant is noisy or that it's quiet. One thing that's like kind of an interesting hack, if you're trying to pick a restaurant is that sort of more old fashioned restaurants tend to be quieter because there's sort of this new trend for like concrete and wood and glass and tile, open kitchens. And that sends sound bouncing around. And if you're in a place that has like thick carpeting, tablecloths, heavy drapes, you know, that will muffle sound. Yeah.

And so if you're thinking like, oh, do I want the new trendy spot? Or do I want like the old fashion, you know, like Italian restaurant, if you care a lot about noise, you want to look for what is the look of the restaurant that will tell you a lot about the sound. That's a very good, simple heuristic to try and sort of figure that out. Because you're right. I mean, the environment has everything to do with the sound. Well, and one of the things, which is just interesting, is sound is often used to manipulate us. And so in some restaurants, they turn it up loud because people eat and drink more quickly when the music is loud. But they tend to taste things less.

So if they're trying to turn their tables quickly, they'll play louder music. And in grocery stores, they play slow music because people move more slowly. We're so affected by music. They'll move more slowly. And the more time you spend in a store, the more you tend to buy. And so often, music that is put into our environment is meant to shape our behavior in ways that we may not be aware of.

Yeah, I think there was something about playing Barry Manilow or classical music. Yes. You had to get people away so people wouldn't loiter in front of like convenience stores. Or like a friend of mine did that in college when he wanted to clear people out after a party, he would like pick some song that nobody liked and just play it on a loop until people just, you know, ran shrieking to escape. question. Music is universal in human culture, and no one is really quite sure why. Because if it's not something that's necessary for survival, why is it so ubiquitous? But it does have a huge influence. It helps us with work. It helps us synchronize with other people. There's a huge amount of effect that it has. But from an evolutionary standpoint, it's a little bit puzzling. There's a lot of theories about that. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast,

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It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You developed something called a manifesto for listening. Share a little bit about why you did that and what's on it. I find that when something's really important, it helps me to kind of crystallize my thoughts by writing a manifesto or a list or, you know, I have 12 personal commandments. And I just find that that process helps me really understand my own beliefs, my own conclusions. And I realized, like, of everything we do to use our sense of hearing, really listening to other people is one of the most important things. And it sounds very passive, like I'm just listening to somebody talk. It's very, very demanding. I made a manifesto for

listening of everything that I wanted to remember. And it really does help me to remember, you know, how to listen attentively, even something as simple as like, when you're listening to someone, like show them with your body, like face them full on, put down anything that is like a distraction, like a newspaper or a cell phone or a book. So that people are like, you know, you assume the position, I'm listening. So it's full of things like that, that I try to remember. There's a bunch of great ones on there. I think it might be the last one. When in doubt, stop talking.

One of the hardest ones. Yeah, yeah. And I find that very hard to do when there's like an awkward pause or, you know, if it feels uncomfortable. And sometimes you just have to let the silence stretch out. just to listen and not talk as much. You know, it's always good to know where you fall on the spectrum. I think there are some people who have a tendency to talk too much who might need to modulate it down. There's other people who have a tendency to not say anything in a conversation. They might need to modulate it up. So it's not always a good rule. Right.

I'm so glad you said that. That's a very important thing to remember, which is that not everyone faces the same challenges and not everyone has the same faults. faces the same challenges and not everyone has the same faults. And so, you know, you have to always think for yourself, you know, do I need to do more listening or do I really need to do more talking? Because one of the ways that we show intimacy with people is that we disclose. And if you've ever been with somebody who just peppers you with questions and refuses to say anything about themselves, you feel very shut out by that. It doesn't feel intimate. The person doesn't feel interested in you. It feels like they're kind of controlling you by interviewing

you. And so there has to be this give and take. My own personal problem is talking too much. So that's what my manifesto for listening focuses on, which is really being that attentive listener to someone who's talking. Yep. Let's talk a little bit about smell. I love the sense of smell. Yeah. It's funny as I was reading your book and you were saying like sound is your sort of underrated areas, but smell was one of your known favorites. I was like, I think I'm kind of the opposite. Like I'm super, super sound oriented and smell oriented, not as much. But your book helped me realize partially why. It's because of that, did you call it olfactory fatigue? It's difficult for me to hang on to a smell sometimes long enough to really savor it or be with it because it seems like I

notice it and then it fades quickly. And so just knowing that that's the nature of smell makes me willing to engage with it slightly differently, knowing like, yeah, of course that happens. That's the way it works. It's not like you have a broken smeller. Right. No, it's frustrating when you want to keep smelling something and you just can't. I mean, that's the thing about a smell. You can't gorge on it. You can't bookmark it.

You can't save it for later. It's like right here, right now. And then it's going to go. It's true of all the senses, but particularly the sense of smell, I think it's a reminder of you better appreciate what's happening right now because it will not persist for you. Yeah. You talk about one way being putting on perfume or cologne and, you know, I love it. Like the minute I put it on, but then minute minute later, I have forgotten it, and I don't notice it again all day. So I'm kind of like, well, how valuable is this really for me? But what are ways that you learn to engage with smell differently as a result of this experiment versus kind of what you already knew to do, knowing it was one of your favorite senses?

Well, I learned much more about it. The more you know, the more you notice. knowing it was one of your favorite senses? Well, I learned much more about it. The more you know, the more you notice. And I did love my sense of smell, but I didn't really pay that much attention to it other than thinking like, oh, this smells good or this smells bad.

So I did take a perfume class and that was just fascinating because just learning so much about it and kind of exercising it. There was sort of introduction class and then there was the advanced class. And in the advanced class, we would just put blotters in these vials and smell them. And what was interesting is some people were really good at saying, oh, this reminds me of like a cedar closet on a hot summer day or this smells like wet Kleenex or whatever.

harder to sort of characterize it or to kind of identify it. You know, and it was funny because even the professor was like, listen, you guys, you're not going to be able to do this by the end of this class. This is very advanced, like to be able to really have any kind of facility with this. It's very, very difficult, takes a long time, not just this class that you would take, which was reassuring. But it was just fascinating. I found out I can't really smell musk, which turns out to be not that uncommon. But I was like, I didn't know I was missing a whole smell. It was like, it was like the emperor's new clothes because everybody was acting very normal. Like, oh, this, that, the other thing. I'm like, I don't smell anything. He was like, oh, yeah, some people can't smell

musk. So that was one of the things that I did. But back to your idea of the neglected sense, like this is one of your neglected sense. So you were aware of that. But often, like, I find that this is something that maybe we don't really understand about ourselves is what's our most neglected sense. So I did this very fun quiz, and it's free and it's quick. You can go to GretchenRubin.com slash quiz and take it, and it will tell you what is your most neglected sense. So maybe for you, it's smell. For me, I thought my most neglected senses were hearing and tasting. And indeed, I thought, and it's probably tasting. You know, I took my own quiz, and that's what my quiz showed me, was that it was tasting. And this is a useful thing to know, because often there's low-hanging fruit. As your question

suggests, if you don't spend that much time thinking about your sense of smell or dialing into it, that's a lot of opportunity. Like, you're like, well, wearing perfume or cologne, that kind of fades away. That's not really, and I feel like that does that much for me. But maybe if you brought some plants into your office and you had kind of the smell of fresh plants and earth, that would be interesting to you. Or maybe you want to have a nostalgia smell and get something just because you love the smell from childhood. Like I have a little bottle of Johnson's baby lotion that I don't use. I just smell it because I love that smell. So maybe you're like, well, maybe I'll have something that I keep around just because I love the smell. Lava soap. There are just these funny things. I'm from Kansas City, Missouri, and there's a kind of a popcorn store that everybody goes to called Topsy's. And I got

something. I'm like, I have to have this smell for the rest of my life. So I put some popcorn into a Ziploc bag. I'm like, I don't know if this stuff will rot away or how long I can keep it, but just that smell is so valuable to me. It brings back so many memories. And so when you identify your most neglected sense, then that sort of shows you, oh, well, maybe this is something I can tune into. Because for our appreciated sense, just like with you and sound and hearing, we tend to already have a lot of interest in it. We learn about it. We talk about it with other people. We cultivate it, which is great. And it's good to do more of that. But the neglected sense gives us a

new opportunity too. I just got two ideas as you were talking. One was my father passed. It's, I mean, within the last month. Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. Thank you. However, I have a smell that I very much associate with him, which is aqua velva cologne. I think they still make it, but I never smell it normally. So it occurred to me like, well, I could get some of it, not with the intention that I'm going to wear it, but to smell it as a memory thing for him. And then the second thing that you said was, I never thought to smell my plants. I have plants. I love them. I look at them. I touch them all the time. I love to touch plants, trees. Oh, me too.

We were at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens recently, and I just, I'm walking around touching everything, but I never thought to smell my own plants. I mean, if I see a flower, I'll smell the flower, but it never occurred to me that smelling my own plants would be, that's, it just sounds, that's a weird thing to say. It sounds strange, smelling my own plants, but. Or smelling the dirt once you've, you know, they have that kind of earthy, that's a weird thing to say. It sounds strange, smelling my own plants. Or smelling the dirt once you've washed. They have that kind of earthy smell that's very pleasing. Here's a suggestion about your father. So in the book, I talked about how I did a five senses portrait of my husband, Jamie. For each of the five senses, I picked five of those sensations

that I most associated with him, which was a wonderful exercise, lots of fun, very creative. And then I have a podcast, The Happier with Gretchen Rubin Podcast. So we talked about doing that on the podcast. But here's what could be useful to you is someone wrote in and said that she did it for someone who had recently died. Because you want to feel that somehow you're capturing their like concrete essence. And really thinking like, well, this cologne comes to your mind right away, but what are some of the other things? Or like, what are the favorite tastes? Because you feel like you'll never forget, but there's something about organizing it in like a portrait that really makes you feel like you're capturing that person. And she was also saying that her

children were so young that they would not remember this beloved family member. And she felt that like by creating this portrait of these very concrete things, she could really capture the essence of this person and show it to them. And I thought that was such a great idea. Oh, and here's another interesting thing. Someone was saying, just smell and its association, someone was saying how her mother had dementia. So it was very hard to have a conversation. They just kind of looped and looped. But then she said, oh, do you remember your bath powder? And the mother remembered the bath powder. And then the next time they spoke, she said, somehow that clicked in a way.

And everybody talks about how music is very good for people who are having memory loss. And so this is another way to connect with people maybe who are having certain kinds of challenges. But with these memories, these sensations can maybe help bridge that or hang on to those memories. Yeah, that's a really interesting idea. My partner Ginny's mother last fall passed from Alzheimer's and we'd been with her, you know, primary caregivers for about six years. And I noticed that me playing the guitar for her, she enjoyed that. It felt like nearly to the end. Yeah.

And could she remember the words? A lot of times people can remember the words to lyrics even when they can't remember. Yeah. I mean, after a while she was nonverbal, but it just felt like there was some sense that it was just her favorite thing was for me to play guitar for her. Oh, what a beautiful memory. Yeah. But again, like with the Five Senses Portrait, you could write down like, what was the song you play guitar for her. Oh, what a beautiful memory. Yeah. But again, like with the five senses portrait, you could write down like what were her like, what was the song you always

played for her? Because that's the kind of memory. It's like we forget we remember. I feel like with memory, I felt with the five senses, I started remembering a lot of things that I had never forgotten, but that I forgot that I remembered because I never went looking for them. And with the five senses, I was like, oh, I remember the smell of my grandparents' garage or the smell of my grandparents' kitchen or, you know, these little things or, you know, my dog's dog bed when I was growing up. You just forget, you remember. I was with some friends from high school and we were all talking about the locker room in the basement of our high school. And it was like, man, I forgot all about that locker room. I hadn't

thought about it in so long. But the minute we started talking about it, man, I forgot all about that locker room. I hadn't thought about it in so long. But the minute we started talking about it, oh, I could smell it. I could smell it right in my nose. It all came back. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really Know Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Heart Radio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It just made me think, like, I wish I had thought to do that with her, like some smelling things. Yes, right. Could that have? Yeah. There are other ways in than music, to your point. Senses in general would be really helpful. So let's talk about the connection between smelling and tasting. Well, sadly, I think a lot of people became very much more aware of this during COVID because people often thought that if they had COVID, they had lost their sense of taste, but it was actually because their sense of smell had been

affected. And if we have just taste, that's the five basic tastes. There's some controversies, there's other tastes waiting in the wings, hoping to be, you know, enter the canon of five. But traditionally, the widely accepted tastes are sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and then the latest entrant, umami, which now has been accepted for more than 100 years. But if you are just to have something on your tongue, you're going to get a very simple taste. Flavor is when you have taste plus smell, because we can actually smell things while we're eating through our nose, through our mouth. A really fun way to test this is to take something that has a complex flavor, like a jelly bean, like a jelly belly. You know,

there's like those crazy jelly bellies. And plug your nose, put it in your mouth, and you will just taste something sweet. It will taste just very sweet. And then if you unplug your nose, put it in your mouth, and you will just taste something sweet. It will taste just very sweet. And then if you unplug your nose, then it will blossom into cherry or root beer or, you know, banana daiquiri or whatever flavor you're having. Because when that smell comes, then you get that complex flavor. So to really appreciate something, a food or beverage, you need to have smell plus taste. So when COVID took away people's sense of smell, it also very much affected their sense of taste. Interesting. I did not know that. I did not know that was the mechanism of action that caused them to feel like they couldn't taste. In your research on this, is there anything about either smell or taste right after you swallow?

Because it seems to me that it gets slightly more intense for me right after the food has left my mouth. Oh, good perception. You know, there's a bunch of research about like saliva. And I have to say, I did not plumb that work. But there is work to be found. If you're curious about that. I really applaud your subtlety of your noticing. That's really good. I never have noticed that myself. I'll try that the next time I eat. I think that's the next book, The Science of Spit by Gretchen Rubin. Yeah, that's right. That's right. But it's also probably like the timing of your breathing and it's all very, you know, the body is amazing the way everything's so interconnected. Oh,

but there is a myth about tastes that like different parts of your tongue are like, you know, this is the salty part and this is the sugar part. That's not true. Not true. That's not true. Now the whole tongue, it's like, it's all mixed together. It's so fascinating the things that make it into very popular conception that sounds scientific that are simply not true. Yeah. I don't know if it's that the science at the time believed that and then it's later disproved and the common knowledge never catches up. I just, it's always fascinating to me when those things sort of linger, you know, when you look a little bit deeper,

it's sort of like the 21 days to build a habit. Yes. Nonsense, right? Oh my gosh, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. You're like, but we know that's not true, right? It's like, yeah. You don't need to have a laboratory full of guinea pigs running that to be like, yeah, that doesn't work.

Well, since we're just kind of moving through the senses sort of in order like your book does, let's hit touch. Well, touch is interesting because I feel like it's the most different from the other four. The other four are located on the head. Touch is for our whole body. And the skin kind of feels like packaging to me. It doesn't feel like a sense organ the way like the ear does. But touch is extraordinarily important and very, very sophisticated to help us make sense of what we're sensing. Some places it's very sensitive, like on the fingertips, and then other places, like in the middle of your back, it's not very sensitive. Back to this idea of neglected sense. I assumed when I started this that I wasn't that tuned into touch. I was like,

I never think about it, and I don't really care about it. But so one fascinating thing for me was to realize I'm super, super focused on touch. How did I not know that about myself? I don't know. I guess that's why I read a book called Life in Five Senses, because I'm the kind of person who doesn't even notice that she's extremely focused on the sense of touch. But I realized all kinds of funny things. Like, you know how every once in a while you look in your closet and you think, okay, what did this stuff, what do I wear? What do I not wear?

How could I wear stuff more? And I was thinking, well, I have these blouses that I really like, and yet I never wear them. Why not? And then I was thinking about it. And then I thought, well, it's because they're cotton. They're like kind of white cotton shirt. And I don't like the feeling of that. And now I'm like, okay, well, I'm not going to buy that kind of shirt because even though

it looks good and I feel like, oh, this would be useful. I don't like to wear them because I don't like the feeling on my skin. On the other hand, when I looked at my closet and I saw things that I didn't wear, often they were a beautiful color and I thought oh this is because I love this color I buy something even though it doesn't really fit or look good because I'm so entranced by the purple or the brown or whatever the combination and then in the end I'm like it doesn't look good so I never feel like wearing it but the touch or like I had the sweatshirt, I should get rid of the sweatshirt.

It's way too old. It's really ratty. And I just couldn't give it up. And then I realized because it was the perfect stretchiness, softness, weight, like it had side pockets, like the feel of it was perfect. And I just ignored how bad it looked because I thought, oh, it's just the ideal hoodie. So who could give it up? But all these kinds of things I had not noticed, not noticed at all. Yeah. Yeah. There's so many things to that sense of a piece of clothing and its touch. You know, there's the material.

But like you said, there's its weight. It's how it falls on your body. I mean, I'm not even talking about from a look perspective. It's just a feel thing. And I'm kind of the same way. I've noticed that there are a number of things in my closet that I just never put on. And it is almost always because I don't like the way it feels. So I'll occasionally be like, well, you know, you never worn that thing.

You bought it. You should put it on. And I'll put it on. And like five minutes later, I'm like, nope. Now I know why I didn't wear it. It's because for whatever reason, it just doesn't feel right. Now, I don't know if this is an example of this phenomenon, but in general, we are wired for sight. And so it has the most real estate in the brain. And often when there's a conflict among senses, sight wins. And I wonder if for you and

me, when we're making these mistakes, when we're like in the store buying these items, I wonder if we think of it as a sight exercise. I am here. I'm looking at myself in the mirror. How does this look? How does this fit? not going to get distracted by the way that it looks. Let me really focus on the way that it feels because it might be that for people like you and me who are making these mistakes, maybe if we shut out the site and really said, okay, now I'm going to tune into that. It might help us identify things. I bought a pair of pants that I loved. It was this blue. They were amazing. And I loved them. And I bought them just instantly in the store. I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't wait to buy these. I got them home and they were so scratchy. It was like, did they do this on purpose? Because this can't be accidental.

I had to, I wore them with like heavy tights, but it didn't matter. The scratchiness went right through. Like to the point I was getting a rash from them. Like why was this even ever manufactured this way? It didn't make any sense. And yet in the store, I hadn't even noticed for one second because I was so focused on the way they looked. Yeah, that's a great idea to close your eyes because you're right. Sight does tend to be sort of dominant. It's a very common thing.

You know, you'll see people tasting things, close their eyes. You know, I close my eyes when I'm listening very often, you know, because I know that it allows the sense I want to focus on to be a little more clear. Yes, and we do that. We will shut down one sense to help us pay more attention to others. So, exactly. That's why for a concert, the lights will dim. I'm a fearful driver, so I'll turn off the radio when I'm driving so I can see better. I found it's interesting, like when I'm very stressed out, as I said, I love smell. I wear perfume to bed.

I like will smell things all the time. But when I'm really stressed out, I stop doing that. And I think it's because I'm trying to bring the sensory load down. So I don't even give myself these pleasures. It's just like, oh, I want less stimulation. So I will take that out of the equation to help me manage it. So I think you're right. Okay, let's try that.

This is a new idea for me. Next time we're in a dressing room. Close your eyes. Shut your eyes. Do a couple deep knee bends. See how that thing feels. Yep. I've gotten a little bit better at least. I at least now contemplate it more than I used to, but I have not gone as far as the eye shutting. So that's a good idea. Similar to this idea that, you know, when we shut down one sense, the other senses have more, I don't know what you want to call it, energy, acuity, whatever. You mentioned in the book also an idea of noticing that if you satisfy one sense, you may pacify a craving or a desire from another sense. Say a little bit more about that I'm wandering through the kitchen, you know, opening a cabinet or opening up the fridge, or maybe you're at work.

And so you're like checking out the vending machine. And what I found is that what worked for me was just to overwhelm and stimulate another sense instead. Because the thing about those treats is for some people they're healthy, But for some people, they're reaching for unhealthy treats, and they would really like to resist that temptation. So it's like, because I do love smells. I have like a whole collection of just smells. They're not even perfumes. They're just smells. Somebody said to me, what do you do with this thing? I'm like, I just smell it. But by overwhelming and kind of gratifying a sense, then that other desire goes away. And I wonder for someone like you, like if you love to listen to new music, or you have like a playlist of songs that you sort of save, you could tap into your sense of hearing. So your mind is moved away from like the fridge to your playlist or whether it really is truly like by overwhelming us.

What we're looking for is the kind of stimulation, maybe the kind of like jolt of energy that comes to our brain by stimulating a sense that we're getting it in a different way. Yeah. I'm not sure which is at play. Maybe they're both at play. But I found that it really works. And so it's a great thing to try if you're feeling like, okay, I just can't break my habit of the mid-afternoon snack or the after-dinner snack. Try this because it seems to work really, really well. And it's easier to pick something healthy. And then you just, you know, you don't want to do something to make yourself feel better that

just ends up making you feel worse in the long run. So this is a way to feel good about it. Yeah. It's a really interesting idea because yeah, on one level, the principle being if you're going to take something away, you want to put something in its place, right? But to be specific about the thing that you put in its place being another sense thing is a really interesting twist on that basic idea. I do think there is something energizing about things that come to us through our senses. When we really tune into that, there's a kind of vitality that we feel. And I think that when we're reaching for that snack, that's often what we're seeking. That we want to be like, you know, we want to get plugged into the wall like a cell phone. And so it's like,

how are you going to do that? Yeah. Yeah. You're exactly right. That is often what it is, Yep, you're exactly right. That is often what it is, is either vitality or just turning off temporarily. Yeah, right. So kind of a moment of sort of respite. Yeah, yeah, where I just can sort of set aside whatever I'm working on or worried about or thinking about and transition. I love that idea. Let's talk about your five senses journal. Yeah. So this is interesting because it's a different way to sort of, again, pay attention. We keep coming back to this idea of like, how do we pay attention? And I'm actually creating a journal that'll be like beautifully printed out. Like I'll have that in a couple months to offer, but I've never seen anything like that. So I just kind of created my own for every day. I would just write, see, hear, smell, taste, touch.

And I would just write down one remarkable thing. It could be best. It could just be notable. It could be really bad. Like whatever I sort of wanted to remember. And it was really fun. It helped me pay attention throughout the day because I would think, oh, this would be great for my five senses journal because I heard church bells when I was walking around downtown. I hadn't heard those before.

Or maybe I had heard them, but I'd never noticed them. Probably, that is probably what is true. But what I found too that surprised me, and I'm sure you know about this research, that the gratitude journal, right? Everybody's always saying keep the gratitude journal. And it's definitely true that gratitude is very important for a happy life. But I myself have to say that I did not find the gratitude journal to be a helpful exercise. I found it

very annoying, I have to say. This ends up being a kind of gratitude journal. And I felt much more like I was paying homage to the world and really noticing the world and recording the majesty of nature and other people in the world in a way that for me gave me a sense of gratitude and made me feel like I was reflecting a sense of gratitude more than just like a straight up gratitude journal did, which as I say, when I was writing The Happiness Project, it's such a common thing that people recommend, but I was like, am I the only person who can't stand her gratitude journal? Yep, yep. Well, I've always thought of it I the only person who can't stand her gratitude journal? Yep. Yep. Well, I've always thought of it when I have kept what we would call a gratitude journal or whatever. That's not the word I've used. I've always used the word appreciation. And because

that points me towards the smell of a cup of coffee, the taste of something. Right. Oh, interesting distinction. Yeah. Some of the deeper research on gratitude, if you look at it, they'll say that specificity is the key driver. If you're not specific enough, it becomes just a mental exercise that after a while doesn't have much benefit. But if you're really specific, it's helpful. And I think that's what the senses are, is they allow us to be much more specific about that thing. And so I agree 100% when I do, you know, gratitude practice. I mean, sure, there's, you know, the obvious stuff on there, like I'm grateful

for my health and my son's health, right? But so much of it has always been appreciation. You know, what did I appreciate today? But I love the idea of a five senses journal because we see what we're looking for. Yes, exactly. Well, and that's back to the brain. When the brain knows, oh, this is interesting information, it will highlight that. So when my brain was like, oh, are there any interesting sounds happening? I was like, oh, I'll notice those church bells. I mean, I've walked around downtown a thousand times and I never noticed the church bells. But of course they were ringing.

It's not like they just started doing that. You know, probably started in 1750. Yeah. Right. And so you're exactly right. It's a practice that helps the brain to attend because it knows that you want to have that information. Yeah.

I never thought to take it to all senses. I will do periodically that picture a day idea because it makes me look for beauty. Right? Yes. You know, I'm not trying to produce any particular picture, right? It's just that by doing it, my brain is sort of looking like what's beautiful. But I never thought to expand it to all the senses until I read that five senses journal. And it does make total sense why that would tune you in so much more.

Yeah. I think the photo a day is a great exercise. A lot of people like to do that. It doesn't cover all four senses, but it is something that many people take great pleasure in and there is a creative thing and it's also pretty easy. So I'm a fan of that. Some people sort of take the view that if you're taking a picture of something, you're not really engaging with it.

But the research shows that a lot of times people are engaging more deeply when they take photographs. And again, like so many things, it's what is the spirit you bring to it? Yes. Is there opportunity cost? Is it driving out other things? But if you feel like, you know, I walk to the river every day and take a picture of it and in that way, I'm sort of like creating a don't break the chain and a memory of my

life. I'm like, that sounds good to me. The fact that you're using your phone to do it, I don't object to that. I feel like sometimes people feel like technology doesn't bring us any benefits. And I think it used wisely. It definitely can. Yeah. I think the taking picture thing for me is another way of seeing differently than I would

see normally. Like, you know, you talk in the book about closing one eye or squinting or, you know, I often like to look and see like, where are all the shadows, where are all the edges, right? Right. Because it causes me to actually look. And I think photography for me often will do that too. It's just it causes me to look more closely than I normally would look because I'm thinking about the light and I'm thinking about the angle. It's bringing me into, at least in the way that I'm trying to do it,

closer contact with the object I'm looking at. Right, right. Well, again, the more we know, the more we notice. And so, right, because you're bringing more to it, you get more from it. Yep. We've only got a couple minutes here, but I would like to pivot out of the five senses to a phrase that you have in the book that I love. And it may be a phrase that you've had for a while, but I haven't caught it in your work before. And it just jumped out at me. And it was, I must both accept myself and expect more from myself. And I love that phrase because I'm always thinking about that balance, you know, and that tension, you know, how do I accept me and my life just the way it is? And how do I also continue to expect more out of myself? And talk to me about

how you think about doing both those things. Yeah, it took me a long time to come up with that formulation, because I was very much kind of caught in this tension, which I think is a deep tension within a happy life, which is on the one hand, we want to accept ourselves. We want to recognize the natural limitations of our nature. We don't want to be lost in sort of, you know, frustration or, you know, fantasy. Then on the other hand, you want to go out of your comfort zone. You want to have an atmosphere of growth. You don't want to be limited. You don't want to just sort of hand wave anything that feels uncomfortable of saying, like, well, I'm not the kind of person who does that, or that's not me. I finally was able to

put it into words after months of trying, of like fussing with the language that you use, that you want to accept yourself and expect more from yourself. And, you know, sometimes people will say to me, like, well, how do you know? Like, what is that line? And like, everyone has to decide that for themselves, because it's different for everyone. And only I can know what is when I'm accepting myself and when I'm expecting more for myself. And that would be very different from someone else. But there are a lot of these tensions within happiness. It's again, sort of like, do you think about the present? Or do you think about the future? Well, some people are sort of like, well, just think about the present. It's all we have. It's like, yeah, but a life where you only think about the present is not a very good life.

I mean, I took that to its furthest extent with my heroin addiction, right? That was exactly the whole game, right? It's all about right this very second. And, you know, taken too far, that is ruinous. Right. And then on the other hand, you don't want to be too focused on the future because, you know, the future may never come and you may not be able to predict the future. And, you know, you want to enjoy the process. And all we do have is now. So there are these tensions that I think are sort of the great challenge of our lives, which is to navigate our way through for ourselves.

Yeah. And I think back to what we talked about earlier, and you talk about so often this idea of self knowledge, you know, and knowing more is it doesn't always provide the answer. But it is helpful for me to kind of know, oh, yeah, I tend to be very oriented towards the future versus the present moment. Right. Or I tend to just accept myself and not really push myself as much as I need to versus someone else who might be like, you know, my tendency is to be too much on the expecting things for myself. So if I at least know where I naturally go, it's not always

that black and white. I remember from Carol Dweck's research on the growth mindset, you could have a growth mindset in one area of your life and not the other. So it's not like this advice always applies across the board, but knowing where our tendencies are can be helpful in the first step of that discernment. Right. Yes. No, I think that's really true. Yeah. The more we know ourselves, the more we can shape our lives to help us to be happier. You know, one of the things I'm fascinated by in your work is continuing to find new ways to know yourself. Yes, I am always looking for new ways to know myself.

Absolutely, that's true. That is true. Yes, yes. So just before we end, do you want to give us what your current favorite sense experiment is? Can you pick one out of your big list? Or the next one that you plan to do? Or just leave us with one very simple experiment.

Well, a very, very simple one is light a match. People love to light matches, and now I know why, because it's so sensory. It's like you touch it, you see it, you smell it, you hear it, just so satisfying. So that's an easy one. I would say a hard one that I really loved was visiting the Met every day. And people might be like, well, you know, note to self, live within walking distance of the Met. But I've talked to many people who have done this with a park, with a hike. I talked to a guy who goes to the drugstore every day. Like, there's just something, I'm very interested in the power of repetition and familiarity and watching things change very slowly over time. I thought that was very idiosyncratic, but it's turned out that a lot

of people are drawn to that. And so if that sounds like the kind of thing that would be interesting to you, you might really think about the same thing about taking a photo every day. I think a lot of people do that. When you do something every single day, it has a special power. You will experience it with all your five senses or you can. So I love doing something every day. Awesome. Well, I think that is a great place to wrap up. Thank you so much for coming on, Gretchen. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. The book is called Life in Five Senses, How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World. And it was a fun book and this was a fun conversation. Thank you. Thank you.

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