Life In 5 Senses: How Our Senses Connect Us | Gretchen Rubin

25:04Use code charm at monarch.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50 % off your first year at monarch.com with code charm. Well, it's very true, especially with smell, because when we come into the world, we are wired for certain preferences for taste. We have a craving for things that are sweet because things that are nutritious are often sweet. And we have an aversion to things that are bitter because toxic substances are often bitter. And so it's very important that even a newborn baby gets it because that could be life-threatening. But nature does not threaten us with killer smells.

25:42And so we don't have any kind of association that you have with the smell is a learned association. And so people will say very confidently, like you say, lavender is calming. Because in the United States, many people associate lavender with something being calming. But in Brazil, they say, well, lavender is energizing. And, you know, they say a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Well, you're trained by your associations to think of things as smelling good or smelling bad or being calming or energizing. There's nothing inherent in the smell that evokes that in you. It's funny, my daughter, for the holidays, I bought a paperwhite narcissus for the first time, which is kind of a traditional holiday flower.

26:26It has a very, very distinct smell, which I love. And I was sitting, but I had never bought one before. So I was sitting with my older daughter, my younger daughter. I said to her, oh, I love the smell of paper whites. And she said, oh, I didn't know they had a smell. And she leaned in and smelled it. And she's like, oh my gosh, I detest that smell. She said, actually, I'd been smelling it a little bit here and there. And I thought maybe we had a dead mouse somewhere. And I was like, no, I love the smell. And then a couple of days went by and then she's like, oh, you know what? I don't mind the smell.

26:56Because when her brain was saying like, oh my gosh, you're smelling a dead mouse, she was thinking this is a terrible smell. But then with experience, she saw, oh, this is a flower smell and my mother loves this flower smell. Well, then her association started to change and her actual perception of the smell started to change too because she was bringing her own expectations to that kind of that information. Our culture tells us what's delightful and what's horrible. It's very funny. They tried to create the Department of Defense tried to create a stink bomb. They wanted to create a stink bomb that smelled so bad that it would disperse crowds.

27:35But it turned out to be incredibly challenging because there was no stink that the whole world agreed was so bad they would just run in terror. Because different people have different associations with smells. So what smelled terrible in some places, other people weren't so bothered by. So it's interesting to realize how much a creation of culture we are. Yeah, I know durian fruit in Southeast Asia, French cheese, you know, can turn some people off and others will run to the table to try that cheese. Yes. One of the things about me is I don't have ever, I feel like I don't have a very good memory from my own past.

28:11So I'm always trying to find ways to remember things better. One of the things I found to be really powerful is to deliberately try to reach back in time through the five senses. And it was funny, it would kick up a lot of memories that I sort of forgot I remembered. So yeah, I did a taste timeline where I divided my life into four periods and thought, well, what were the most kind of notable or favorite tastes of that period? It was so fun. Then I called my sister and we reminisced about our taste of childhood because, of course, my childhood taste or her childhood taste. I mean, I hadn't thought about a cinnamon Pop-Tart in years.

28:44And then, I mean, I didn't even have to eat one. It was just the thought of it brought back so many memories. But you can do this with all the senses. I mean, I'm not such a music person, but John, since you're such a music person, you could do a music timeline of yourself, of your life. And think about that. And there's a wonderful website called The Nostalgia Machine where you can enter a year and it will kick up the songs for that year. My whole life timeline, I could put a soundtrack. It's so funny because I was doing an event and somebody said to me, well, Gretchen, what was your favorite song in high school?

29:15And I was like, well, I have no idea. To me, those are not salient at all, but I'm sure to you, you can be like second half of the year. I remember what I was listening to. People just, you can call forth. But even for me, when I go to the nostalgia machine and enter a year and start playing the music that was popular, I do start remembering and I do start having associations. Oh, I remember listening to that at a party in college. so it's a way to tap into our memories by casting back into the past looking for specific memories because that that helps them uh rise to the surface and one of the things i did sort of um for the future is i created an album of now because what i realized is like if i if i'm looking at the past when i look at photographs of the past often i'm not interested in like what at the time seemed like the most important thing like we're standing in front of the eiffel tower or here I am in my graduation robe.

30:13It's more like, what did the cars look like? What do my clothes look like? What did my room look like? What was the wallpaper in the old living room in my parents' house? So I made an album of now. I just took pictures of like every room in my apartment, the inside of the fridge, the inside of the pantry, like what a drugstore looks like, what a, like a couple aisles in the grocery store, what the street looks like, what people are wearing, what the cars look like. Because I know that in the future, I'll be very interested in like, what does now look like? But at the moment, you're like, nothing's more boring than now.

30:44It's just like now never changes. But of course, now is changing all the time. When we think about the now, those sounds, those scents, those sights, they're constant. And then you travel, you go to a completely new environment and every one of those senses is brand new. And that's why we are drawn to travel, many of us, to explore those experiences. I mean, even here in France, the siren is a different sound. So you're catching all of these other moments that in normal life walking around LA, I would not pick up on because I'm saturated in my senses in that experience. No, that's exactly right.

31:20And time feels more rich and slow when you're going through novel experiences, which is why travel, like if you go on a week vacation, it feels like a month has gone by. And that's why habit also speeds time because the more consistent things are and the more you're doing things habitually, time starts to speed up. So I wrote about that a lot in my book, Better Than Before, because I love habits, but they do speed time. And you have to be very aware that that's a downside of habits. And at least for me, really mindfully try to seek out novel experiences so that my time feels rich. And I do think that through the five senses, we can make experiences feel more vivid and therefore more rich.

32:00It's like, yeah, when you're traveling, somebody finally told, I think a lot of people do this, but I had never really thought of it as kind of a hack. It's like, go to the grocery store. If you're in a foreign country, just walk around the grocery store. Just look what's on the shelves. What does their packaging look like? What do they eat? What is their milk like? And it's just now every time I go to a foreign country, I make a beeline for the grocery store because it's just so different. It's fascinating. It's hard to experience a grocery store vividly in your hometown. But when it's new, it feels very, very fresh and very compelling.

32:36For me, I love watching locals eat and sort of the traditions that go along with a meal. So eating in LA, I'll speed through my meal, sometimes faster than my wife, and she'll tell me to slow down. But then when we're traveling, I love the sensory cues of seeing people around me, what they're eating, when they eat the bread, how they're approaching their meal. Okay, when are they taking a break? Are they coursing it? That to me is so fascinating, and it is one of those universals across all cultures because obviously as humans we have to eat. I have literally never thought to do that. This is a great idea.

33:08The next time I travel, I'm absolutely going to do that. It never occurred to me. See, taste is my most neglected sense. There you go. It's one of AJ's tops. I'm not reaching out for this. There you go. But see, this is a great example of like, you have given me a way to tap into my sense of taste and find interest and make my experience richer by tapping into the experience of a meal in a way that hadn't occurred to me. So that's low hanging fruit because it's like, it's not hard to walk into a restaurant and watch how people eat, but it never occurred to me. And now like, this is going to be a whole new thing that will be fun to do and will make travel more interesting for me.

33:51So it's, that's a good example of how once you know your neglected sense, it can help you be on the lookout for things that you could do to bring it into your life more because you do it automatically because it's just that's that you appreciate that sense and but like I love the sense of smell so I'm probably having a lot of fun with smell that you're not having because it's not one of your top yeah it's certainly a situation where when I'm whenever a meal is presented in front of me that scent of smell that sense of smell is is really present and important but I can walk into a store I can walk through the perfume mile and it doesn't hit me the same way as I'm sure it hits others who that is their main sensory experience that they enjoy.

34:32Yeah. Like hardware store. I said to somebody, oh, I love the smell of a hardware store. And they were like, do hardware stores have a particular smell? I was like, are you kidding? Yes, 100%. I would buy a candle, hardware store candle. I go to the Met every day. That's one of the most ambitious exercises that I did for Life in Five Senses was decide to go to the Met every day. And I love it so much. I did it for a year, but I'm still going because I love it so much. But the hand sanitizer in the Met is a very distinctive smell. And I was thinking for the rest of my life, that will take me back because it's such a particular smell that I only smell in the Met.

35:10But maybe for you, you wouldn't even notice that hand sanitizer smell. There is another point made around how some senses are annoying for us. So like sounds will drive you crazy and other people are not at all bothered by it. And I find that so fascinating. So I believe yours is pouring liquids, drives you crazy. Yes, cannot stand those sounds. Yes. Which is, it's so interesting because for me, pouring liquids is like, oh, I'm sitting down again to have a meal to tap into my other sensory experience that I'm excited for. Yeah, it's interesting though, like cross-culturally, okay, crying baby is a sound that nobody likes and that kind of makes sense.

35:50you get it. But another one is like nails on a blackboard. I thought that was sort of intriguing. I'm like, I wonder why it is that that like across the globe is a sound that people don't like. I would have thought that was, I thought, I would have thought that had just become like in the West kind of our iconic bad sound and that we just sort of all agreed that that stood for an annoying sound and that some people found it annoying and some people probably didn't even didn't really care. No, it turns out nobody likes that sound. Now, laughter cuts both ways. And we talk about this in our classroom.

36:24Depending on your mood and where you are mentally, laughter can either feel like you're in on the joke and part of the in-group and connecting. And it can also feel like you're on the outside and someone is making fun of you or someone is cutting you out of the group. And it's so fascinating how we're wired across cultures to tune into laughter. So in France, listening to people speak French, I can pick up on laughter immediately. It stops me no matter where I am. And yet if I were to walk down the street with my favorite shirt and hear laughter, I wouldn't think they're judging me. But if maybe I had a rough morning and things weren't going my way, I could hear laughter again and feel like, uh-oh, there's something on my shirt or something I'm doing wrong culturally that's making me outcast.

37:09So what was most fascinating or surprising in all of the sensory research for you? What stood out as something that was unexpected? Well, a minor thing was the magic of ketchup. Like ketchup is magic. And there's a good reason that it is the secret ingredient in so many foods like pad thai and barbecue sauce, because it hits all five of the five basic tastes. It's sweet. It's sour. It's salty. It's bitter. It's umami. It's really hard to do. You can like a margarita will get you four, but no umami. So that was like a little thing where I'm now I, you know, ketchup is so ubiquitous and that we all have just ketchup packets falling out of our pockets.

37:51I didn't realize like what, what an extraordinary achievement ketchup was, but on a more profound note, I think you were asking for a more transcendent answer. What I was really astonished by. So of course my hypothesis going into this was that I would, could make myself happier by connecting to the five senses. But what really astonished me is in just what almost any aim that I had I could harness the five senses to do it So if I wanted to calm myself down, I could do it through the five senses If I wanted to give myself energy, I could do it through the five senses If I wanted to spark my creativity, I could do it through the five senses If I wanted to fall asleep if I wanted to be more productive If I wanted to connect with other people if I wanted to listen better just about anything There was a way to do it through the five senses And what I like about it is, first of all, it's very concrete because sometimes with these aims, they can feel kind of transcendent and abstract.

38:41And it's not that anybody doesn't agree that they're a good idea. It's kind of like, okay, well, what do I do tomorrow? The five senses, this is stuff that we can do without spending any time, energy, or money. It's like very much within our, like, you know, really within our grasp, literally. And it feels very tangible. And also it feels fun. I think a lot of people would approach the five senses in kind of a meditative way or like a very like, you know, sophisticated way. Like, let's have a sip of coffee for 20 minutes and really analyze it. But I think you can also just do it in a fun way. And I found it so energizing and freeing and playful.

39:15And I found I was connecting with people and we were just having fun together and laughing like through whatever sense we were sharing. And I think for a lot of people, they're really eager for that. That's why so many things build themselves as immersive, because as much as people go on about the metaverse, people are really more interested in the universe. And so I was just really surprised on how it was this tool that could be applied in so many ways. It was so flexible, and yet it was so easy and fun to use, which sometimes things that are very useful take a lot of discipline or a lot of effort to deploy.

39:54This one, The Five Senses, turned out to be a lot of fun. Let's unpack that because there's a few examples that I'd love to explore. One that really stood out to me, and I think a lot of people in our audience will be struggling with this, is those cravings that we have, whether it's for salty or sweet. Oftentimes, they feel insatiable. I need to have that extra M &M. I need to have that extra Pringle. You shared that just engaging in other scents entirely could diminish that craving that you're having, which is counterintuitive when you think about how strong that craving is for that one sense.

40:28Absolutely. This is something that I stumbled upon, an effect that I stumbled upon, but it turns out it works really well. I've heard from a lot of people. So say it's the middle of the afternoon and you have that urge to have an unhealthy snack. So you're feeling restless or bored or listless and you want to give yourself a little charge. So you're turning to the sense of taste, which is a classic, classic move. But what you can do is you can turn to a different sense instead. So like John loves music. So maybe he saves new music to listen to in kind of that down period. Or I love the sense of smell.

41:00So I could go smell something really wonderful. Like I have a whole collection of smells or like something that's just like a really strong smell, like a smell of pickles, which is a really strong, good smell. Or if you love the sense of touch, you could like, you know, use therapy dough or run your hands through beautiful soft yarn if you're a knitter or whatever. And I'm not sure it could be that this is just a distraction and it works like in my book, Better Than Before, I talk about the strategy of distraction. So it just, you're on the way, you know, you're headed to the fridge, you're headed to the cabinet to get the crinkly package.

41:32And, and because now, now you're going to do something else that just distracts you. That's the strategy of distraction. So that's a good strategy. Or it could be that it really is that the body is seeking stimulation, that you are craving some kind of sensory stimulation. It's like a cell phone that needs to be plugged into the wall. You need a little shot of energy. And so you're just trying to give yourself some stimulation and you can substitute one for the other. I don't know which is truly an operation. It's probably a combination of both, but whichever is at work, it is effective. And you can just, instead of, you know, heading for the vending machine, you do something else.

42:14You give yourself a different source of sensory stimulation, and then your urge to snack goes away. Now, calming anxiety is a big one for a lot of our audience members. And I'd love to hear a little bit more how you tapped into your senses to help with anxiety? Well, one of the best ones is the sense of touch. And there's so many ways you could do it. Now, I think nowadays people are very aware of things like fidget spinners, therapy dough, pop toys, weighted blankets. A lot of people find those effective. Hugging a person appropriately, or like petting a dog or a cat, that also is very, very calming.

42:48And one of the things that was interesting about writing Life in Five Senses is there were aspects of my own behavior or my own experience that I never really noticed or never really understood. Like, you know, I was just sort of a mystery to myself and a lot of things became much clearer. And one of the things that I had kind of noticed about myself, but not really, and I certainly didn't understand why I was doing it, is how I would hold a pen. So I'm a writer, but I type. I almost never write with a pen. But if I was standing behind a stage before I was giving a big talk, or if I was walking into a party where I didn't know anyone or I was in a stressful meeting, I would hold a pen.

43:29And there was no paper. I was never actually using the pen, but I would find myself holding a pen. And what I realized is that holding a prop helps people to feel grounded. And when I started asking around, people would say, oh yeah, I always hold a clipboard because I get rattled at work. And if I hold a clipboard, that makes me feel grounded. Or like a teacher was saying during the pandemic, when she switched to teaching virtually, she's very stressed about it. And she held a stone in her hand and she would move the stone from one hand to the other. And that made her feel grounded. A lot of people use a mug or a water bottle, because again, it's like, there's kind of a nice weight to it.

44:04You hold it in your hand. It helps you to feel grounded. And once you realize that, well, then it's a tool that you can use deliberately because I was sort of instinctively grabbing a pen, but I wasn't thinking like, oh, I know this is going to be stressful. Let me make sure that I have my pen in my hand and that's going to help me make me feel more grounded and calmer. And now I can do that. And once you know that, you can sort of figure out what is the prop that works for you in your circumstance. And it really helps. Now we touched on your husband and the senses, but I'd love to hear for our parents in the audience, how you involved your children in the sensory exploration.

44:40Oh yeah. Well, my children, they would call themselves innocent bystanders. They got dragged into so many experiments. But after the first few, they became very enthusiastic because it was so fun. So for touch, we made a non-Newtonian fluid out of cornstarch, which is so fun. We did dining in the dark, which is where you wear a mask over your face. You go to a restaurant, you wear a mask over your face. So you're eating in the dark. That was bonkers. I involved my daughters in a lot of smell games, like blindfolding and trying to identify smells. I actually have a board game called Follow Your Nose where it has little cylinders.

45:15It's so fun to do. We didn't even compete. We just tried to identify them. So fun to do. I could not get them to do ammonia inhalants. You know how you read about Victorian smelling salts? It's always like, but what do smelling salts smell like? And what do they do exactly? And so I found out that today, you can buy them today too. They're marketed as ammonia inhalants. So I tried to get my daughters to do that with me. They were not interested. It's bonkers, by the way. It's a really weird sensation. It definitely makes you kick your head back. We tried the M-Berry. This is a tablet that you dissolve on your tongue and it makes sour things sweet.

45:56Bonkers. That's so fun to do. So yeah, I was very fortunate that I had these willing participants to do these exercises with me. Now, outside of going to the Met every day, what have you implemented in your own life to involve more of the five senses? One thing that I do that's very helpful is I keep a five senses journal. So like it just says seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. And so each day I'll write down one notable example. So it doesn't have to be the best or my favorite. It's just like, oh, I, you know, I was just in the San Francisco airport and they have this like very, the texture of the floor is very interesting or whatever it might be.

46:38And this just helps me stay attuned to sensations because I'm always thinking, oh, oh, there's one. Oh, that's interesting. Maybe that's my most notable touch sensation. And it actually sort of functions as a gratitude journal because I was somebody who tried to keep a gratitude journal. I was deeply annoyed by the exercise of keeping a gratitude journal, but this really turns out to be a kind of gratitude journal because you feel like you're sort of paying tribute to the beauty and richness of the world. So that's one thing that I do. I do go to the med every day and that's kind of my recess time.

47:10And when I go there, I'm very, I'm very like unstructured. I tend to be very kind of rigid. So it's very unstructured. And I really am deliberately tapping into all my five senses as I go through. A lot of it is just, you know, once you start noticing it, I'm just much better at stopping and paying attention. But I do worry, like, it's easier to say you're changed and feel changed than to stay changed. So I do feel like you've asked the million dollar question, which is, okay, what does your three look like? Can I keep it up? Now that the book is out, the research is over. Exactly. Yeah. I feel like I will because I get so much pleasure from it.

47:51I feel it in reading the book and then talking about the senses, even Johnny and I before this, sharing our experiences and understanding what his primary sense is and recognizing it in me. And now me and my wife, as we're traveling here in Paris, like thinking about all the senses in a different light. It really does enrich your experience. And thank you so much for sharing the book with us and coming back on the show. Johnny and I love asking, and I know you answered in the past, but I'm curious now with your five senses, what do you believe your X factor is? I think my ability to notice the very ordinary.

48:22I think it's very hard to notice the very ordinary. And I do think that I spend a lot of time trying to notice what's very obvious. I love that. and where can our audience go to find the quiz and more about your latest book? Yes, go to GretchenRubin.com. You can find everything there, the quiz. You can go to GretchenRubin.com slash quiz or you can just find it on the website. And there's excerpts of the book and all kinds of information, discussion guides, audio clips about all my books, more information there than you ever want. You can follow me on social media. I'm everywhere at Gretchen Rubin or you can listen to my weekly podcast, which is called Happier with Gretchen Rubin, where I talked to my sister, Elizabeth, who is a television showrunner in Hollywood about practical ways to be happier.

49:09Thank you again, Gretchen. It was a pleasure. Thank you.

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