Speaker 1: In general, we are wired for sight, and so it
Speaker 1: has the most real estate in the brain, and often
Speaker 1: when there's a conflict among senses, sight wins.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 2: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 2: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 2: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 2: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 2: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 3: Gretchen Ruben, one of today's most influential observers of happiness
Speaker 3: and human nature. She's the author of many books, including
Speaker 3: the blockbuster New York Times Bestseller's Outer Order in or Calm,
Speaker 3: The Four Tendencies, Better Than Before, and The Happiness Project.
Speaker 3: Gretchen's books have sold more than three point five million
Speaker 3: copies worldwide in more than thirty languages, and she hosts
Speaker 3: the top ranking, award winning podcast Happier with Gretchen Ruben,
Speaker 3: where she explores practical solutions for living a happier life.
Speaker 4: Hi, Gretchen, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 5: I'm so happy to be back talking to you.
Speaker 4: Yes, it is definitely a pleasure to have you back on.
Speaker 4: We're going to be discussing your new book, which is
Speaker 4: called Life in Five Senses. How exploring the senses got
Speaker 4: me out of my head and into the world. But
Speaker 4: before we do that, we'll start, like we always do,
Speaker 4: with the Parable and the Parable. There's a grandparent who's
Speaker 4: talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there
Speaker 4: are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 4: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 4: and bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf,
Speaker 4: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 4: the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second
Speaker 4: and they look up at their grandparent and they say, well,
Speaker 4: which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed.
Speaker 4: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 4: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 4: the work that you do.
Speaker 1: Well, it's very apt for my book Life in Five Senses,
Speaker 1: because what it shows you is that what you direct
Speaker 1: your attention to and what you feed and foster is
Speaker 1: what will grow and what will take over your life.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I found about the Five
Speaker 1: Senses was I wasn't feeding that wolf. I was walking
Speaker 1: around kind of lost in my head, in a fog
Speaker 1: of preoccupation. And then when I found that, I turned
Speaker 1: my attention to the five senses. Well, then they added
Speaker 1: so much vitality and energy and beauty and memory and
Speaker 1: creativity to my life. But I had to take the
Speaker 1: time to feed that wolf because it was there waiting
Speaker 1: the whole time. It was inside me along with the
Speaker 1: other wolves. But I was ignoring it, I was overlooking it.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's very apt parable for what
Speaker 1: I tried to do in the book.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love a book focused on the senses because
Speaker 4: I don't know how I got it into my head,
Speaker 4: but I did a number of years ago. And the
Speaker 4: basic idea was that our senses are kind of the
Speaker 4: portal to now, Like if we want to be more present,
Speaker 4: which all of us talk about. Our senses are a
Speaker 4: direct way to do that, to say, and you reference
Speaker 4: this in your book to say, well, like, be more
Speaker 4: present isn't extraordinarily helpful, but what are five things I
Speaker 4: can see right now?
Speaker 2: Is right?
Speaker 4: And so some of those exercises I have just internalized
Speaker 4: so much, And as I was reading your book, I
Speaker 4: was recognizing, like, yeah, when I walk, I'm always sort
Speaker 4: of looking and what can I see that I haven't seen?
Speaker 4: Or how can I look at this different? Or where's
Speaker 4: all the colors of green that I can see? All
Speaker 4: these different things? And so I love this idea of
Speaker 4: just exploring senses more because it's so important to us
Speaker 4: being present. But before we go into that, I have
Speaker 4: to ask a question, which is that can elephants really
Speaker 4: hear the movement of clouds?
Speaker 5: They can? They can? They know when the storm is coming.
Speaker 4: And they do it by hearing. Mm hmm, that's crazy.
Speaker 5: M hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Isn't it fascinating to think about the senses that other
Speaker 4: creatures must have, Like I love to think about octopuses
Speaker 4: or OCTOPI I'm not sure how you're supposed to say that,
Speaker 4: but they can change all the color on their entire
Speaker 4: body instantly, you know. So they've got these senses, you know,
Speaker 4: controlling all these different suckers. Their sense experience must be
Speaker 4: so radically different. It's just fascinating to think about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a huge amount of interest in this very subject.
Speaker 1: There have been several popular science books written in the
Speaker 1: last few years talking about the superpowers of different kinds
Speaker 1: of creatures, and it really is remarkable. I mean, but
Speaker 1: then you just think of something like your dog. I
Speaker 1: so wish that I could experience my sidewalk. I'm just
Speaker 1: walking around my neighborhood the way my dog does, because
Speaker 1: of course Barnaby is sensing all these things that I'm not.
Speaker 1: But it is fascinating to think about what they're tuned into.
Speaker 1: They can see colors that we don't see. They can
Speaker 1: see things like heat, They can smell things we can't smell.
Speaker 1: They can feel things we can't feel. It is remarkable.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it tends to be that we think we're getting
Speaker 4: an accurate picture of what's out there, right, like I'm
Speaker 4: seeing and hearing in everything. No, I'm not right by
Speaker 4: not by a long shot. There is so much more
Speaker 4: that is outside of me than I can possibly perceive.
Speaker 4: I just love that idea.
Speaker 1: Well, there's that like which is kind of outside the
Speaker 1: realm of your senses, the way we can only see
Speaker 1: this part of the spectrum that's visible to humans. But
Speaker 1: what's astonished to me is how true that is even
Speaker 1: within people. Even people like you think, well, I'm sitting
Speaker 1: in a room, you're sitting in a room. We're basically
Speaker 1: having the same experience, but we really are not. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was just astonished over and over to realize the
Speaker 1: degree to which my brain is shaping my experience. And
Speaker 1: it's my brain, it's my genetics, it's my upbringing, it's
Speaker 1: my culture, it was the conditions you know in utero
Speaker 1: before I was born. All these things are creating a
Speaker 1: different environment, and same with you. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: this is one of the reasons why, like, when somebody
Speaker 1: complains about something, we shouldn't just handwave it and say like, well,
Speaker 1: it's no big deal, or I don't know what you're
Speaker 1: complaining about, or like why are you making such a
Speaker 1: big deal, Because to different people, different sensations just register
Speaker 1: very differently. And I mean, you and I are both podcasters,
Speaker 1: So a funny thing that I found for my life
Speaker 1: of podcasting is you know, when I'm recording, I don't
Speaker 1: hear sirens because I live in New York City and
Speaker 1: my brain is like, you don't need to know about sirens.
Speaker 1: That's you know, just ignore it. But people who are
Speaker 1: like on the microphone with me will be like, hey.
Speaker 4: Let's hold on totally. Yeah. I was just making this
Speaker 4: comment to somebody the other day in that I am
Speaker 4: I think is the term misophenia, somebody who's very sensitive
Speaker 4: to sound. Yeah, so I am naturally a very sound
Speaker 4: sensitive person, but I think recording this podcast has made
Speaker 4: it even worse because I will hear any sound in
Speaker 4: somebody's background. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5: My producer is like that.
Speaker 4: A fly buzzing, you know, two rooms away, and I'm like, uh,
Speaker 4: what's that noise?
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So it's funny how we are all so different. So
Speaker 4: talk to me a little bit about the process by
Speaker 4: which our sense organs pick whichever one you want as yours. Know,
Speaker 4: they're recording a very basic thing, right, and then what
Speaker 4: actually arrives in our brain is something very different. Can
Speaker 4: you talk a little bit about what's going on in
Speaker 4: between those two things.
Speaker 1: Well, the brain is just acting as an editor. It's
Speaker 1: telling us what we need to know. It's helping us
Speaker 1: to pay attention to the things that are important. The
Speaker 1: brain is very focused on change because change is opportunity
Speaker 1: or danger. So if there's a rock flying at my head,
Speaker 1: I'm going to notice that right away.
Speaker 5: There's a rock lying on the ground, well, I'm not
Speaker 5: going to notice that so much.
Speaker 1: You see this with things like touch, like if I
Speaker 1: pull on a tight hat, I'll feel that around my
Speaker 1: head when it's a new sensation, but pretty soon it'll
Speaker 1: fade out of my awareness. One of the most surprising
Speaker 1: ways that you see this is with smell, because you know,
Speaker 1: we've all had the experience of odor fatigue where you're
Speaker 1: smelling something beautiful, like a wonderful dish of your favorite
Speaker 1: food or a beautiful flower something, and you smell and
Speaker 1: you smell, and then you can't smell it anymore. It
Speaker 1: happens over time. We cannot smell our home the way
Speaker 1: a guest smells it. And if you've ever visited somebody's
Speaker 1: house where you're like, wow, how did they live in
Speaker 1: a house that has such a strong smell, it's because
Speaker 1: they don't smell it, and the kind of more persistent
Speaker 1: and strongest smell is the more you adjust to it.
Speaker 1: And so the brain is doing all this. The brain
Speaker 1: is helping, Like if you've ever heard your name, like
Speaker 1: in a crowded room where a lot of people are talking,
Speaker 1: and you're like, your ears perk up because your brain
Speaker 1: is like, hey, that's important to us, like what we
Speaker 1: got to get on that conversation, But to other people
Speaker 1: they wouldn't pick it up in the same way. So
Speaker 1: it's just it's very remarkable the degree to which our
Speaker 1: minds are helping us and intervening for us, but then
Speaker 1: also sometimes maybe making trade offs we wouldn't make, or
Speaker 1: shaping our perception in ways that maybe aren't even accurate.
Speaker 1: Like you think about the dress. You know, is it
Speaker 1: white and gold or blue and black. I cannot see
Speaker 1: it blue and black. I know intellectually that is the
Speaker 1: true color of the dress, but my brain will not
Speaker 1: allow me to perceive it. I just can't see it
Speaker 1: that way, even though I know that that's an illusion.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I use that dress in my Spiritual Habits program
Speaker 4: where I show it on the screen and I ask
Speaker 4: people to vote on what do they see, because it's
Speaker 4: the part in the program where I'm trying to make
Speaker 4: the point of we don't see the world as idiots,
Speaker 4: we see it as we are. Right, everything we are
Speaker 4: processing is going through through our filters. Like you said,
Speaker 4: it's a different experience for all of us based on
Speaker 4: so many different things.
Speaker 5: Well, and then also context can matter.
Speaker 1: So my daughter, I love the smell of paper white narcissus,
Speaker 1: which is a very sharp, distinctive smell, but very tied
Speaker 1: to my childhood and kind of Christmas growing up. So
Speaker 1: I finally was like, I'm going to buy one of
Speaker 1: these flowers myself put it in there, and my daughter
Speaker 1: elan Hur was like, what is She had smelled something
Speaker 1: and she was afraid, like we had a dead mouse
Speaker 1: in a wall or something, because she kept smelling this
Speaker 1: terrible smell. Then she realized it was this paper white narcissus.
Speaker 1: She hadn't connected the smell to the flower, and then
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I love that smell. And at
Speaker 1: first she said, oh, I hate that smell. But then
Speaker 1: once she knew that it was from a flower, it
Speaker 1: was not from a dead mouse, then she became much
Speaker 1: more accepting of the smell. So part of it is
Speaker 1: also like is this parmesan cheese or vomit. Is this
Speaker 1: like a very strong floor cleaner or is it pine needles?
Speaker 1: How much we like something, our brain is also giving
Speaker 1: context in which to experience something, maybe as pleasant or not,
Speaker 1: depending on kind of what else we bring to that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. And in so much of you know, the
Speaker 4: Zen tradition that I've studied, In so much, there's this
Speaker 4: idea of really, can you get to the point where
Speaker 4: you experience the world more directly, you know, without as
Speaker 4: many of your filters? And I think in many ways
Speaker 4: that in some ways would be leading towards what you know,
Speaker 4: they might refer to as enlightenment, being that you just
Speaker 4: aren't overlaying all your stuff onto the world and you
Speaker 4: experience it more directly, thus much more freshly and much
Speaker 4: more newly.
Speaker 5: I think that's pretty hard.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's incredibly hard.
Speaker 1: I don't know that the brain would permit that, because
Speaker 1: even bringing no filter is its own filter. So if
Speaker 1: you're saying my filter is no judgment, that itself is
Speaker 1: a decision.
Speaker 5: So it's an interesting question, not one that I think about. Love.
Speaker 1: I love noticing the things that I like them or
Speaker 1: I don't like them, or they're interesting or whatever.
Speaker 5: But that is not the zenway.
Speaker 4: Well, the zenway would be noticing that and saying doing
Speaker 4: a lot of what you do in this book, actually,
Speaker 4: which is can I just experience this thing again more deeply,
Speaker 4: more closely, more focused, so that it comes alive beyond
Speaker 4: being something that we feel like we've seen five hundred
Speaker 4: times before.
Speaker 1: M Yeah, yeah, but what's familiar is easy to ignore.
Speaker 1: And I think that is one of the challenges of
Speaker 1: our life is like, how do you really look? I
Speaker 1: find this with the people that I love as I
Speaker 1: was taking them for grants, and I wasn't really looking
Speaker 1: at them, even though you know, they were so dear
Speaker 1: to me. It's just like, why should I look at
Speaker 1: my husband? I look at it morning, noon, and night.
Speaker 1: Why really pay attention? So I wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: to start to do that.
Speaker 4: I think that idea that you reference throughout the book
Speaker 4: that our senses are particularly alert to changes, and that
Speaker 4: if nothing is changing, then in a sense, we stop sensing.
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously we don't stop sensing, because our sense
Speaker 4: are always going, but it never or very rarely makes
Speaker 4: its way actually into consciousness because our brain just filters
Speaker 4: it out as unimportant. Because it's seen it so many
Speaker 4: times before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think what we want to do is
Speaker 1: to awaken our attention so that we can experience things
Speaker 1: more vividly. I have to say, I'm not a fan
Speaker 1: of things like sit and taste a sip of coffee
Speaker 1: for twenty minutes, or you know, we're like look for
Speaker 1: every color of green. Like some people are very drawn
Speaker 1: to those kinds of exercises. I think my kind of
Speaker 1: exercises are sort of more loose and playful. I didn't
Speaker 1: take a very serious approach to this because I felt
Speaker 1: like part of what I wanted was kind of recess
Speaker 1: and fun and immediacy and energy, whereas I think many
Speaker 1: people might approach this with sort of a meditative you know.
Speaker 1: Like one of the exercises I do for the book
Speaker 1: and I still do to this day because I enjoyed
Speaker 1: it so much, was to visit the Metropolitan Museum every day.
Speaker 1: So I love going to the met And of course
Speaker 1: I'm incredibly fortunate that I have the time and the
Speaker 1: freedom to go, and I also live within walking distance
Speaker 1: of the met so it's you know, I'm so lucky.
Speaker 1: I'm a New York State residence, so I can go
Speaker 1: for free, though I did join. But somebody said to
Speaker 1: me very confidently, well, if you're going to go to
Speaker 1: the met you have to sit on a bench and
Speaker 1: look at it one painting for half an hour.
Speaker 5: And I'm like, no, I don't. Like, maybe one day
Speaker 5: I'll do that.
Speaker 1: And that is definitely a thing a person could do,
Speaker 1: but that's not why I'm going. But this person said
Speaker 1: it was so much authority, as if like that was
Speaker 1: the right answer. I'm like, there's no right answer here.
Speaker 1: There are many ways that you could go to the
Speaker 1: Metropolitan Museum, and the more you go, the more you
Speaker 1: can try. And I'm excited and I'm sure one day
Speaker 1: I will try that and it'll probably be a fascinating experience.
Speaker 1: But I just thought it was funny that somebody was like, well,
Speaker 1: that's the only kind of legitimate thing to do. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: it's not. There's a lot of ways we can connect
Speaker 1: with our five senses, but some with more freedom, some
Speaker 1: with more discipline.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I agree with you that if we turn
Speaker 4: it into too much of a serious exercise, it sort
Speaker 4: of loses a lot of what we're tr trying to
Speaker 4: do exactly.
Speaker 1: It just becomes another kind of discipline. And I'm a
Speaker 1: huge fan of discipline. I'm a very, very disciplined person.
Speaker 1: That's probably one of the reasons I was attracted to
Speaker 1: this because I wanted to let my mind off the leash.
Speaker 1: I wanted more energy and playfulness, and I think through
Speaker 1: the five Census is a terrific way to do it.
Speaker 1: Not to say that you couldn't achieve other aims through it,
Speaker 1: but yeah, for me, I was like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to make this so demanding and kind of dry that
Speaker 1: I missed the point of what I was seeking.
Speaker 4: Right, you say early on in the book, I realized
Speaker 4: I'd grown serious and impatient, too eager to hurry back
Speaker 4: to my deskert my to do list, you know, my
Speaker 4: focus on efficiency and productivity. It left me with a
Speaker 4: heaviness of spirit, a feeling of staleness or stagnation. I
Speaker 4: wanted to stir myself up with the quick hits of
Speaker 4: exuberance that my senses could provide.
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, I have.
Speaker 4: That tendency also, right, I have a tendency towards just
Speaker 4: very focused, very serious, you know, very like turning anything
Speaker 4: into a project, right thing to get better at. You know,
Speaker 4: I started rock climbing. It's into a rock climbing, but
Speaker 4: I loved it for the tactile piece of it, the feeling,
Speaker 4: the experience of being up high all that.
Speaker 1: Of course, I never thought about rock climbing as a
Speaker 1: touch exercise. What a great example I wish I thought
Speaker 1: of that. I'm gonna write that down.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But I noticed after like two sessions, I was like,
Speaker 4: maybe I should get a rock climbing coach. I was like,
Speaker 4: just just stop. Does it make any difference whether you
Speaker 4: can climb? You know, I don't remember the scale of
Speaker 4: five point one versus a five point three, Like, not
Speaker 4: for what I'm trying to do, not for the reasons
Speaker 4: I'm here. It's the same reason like I've taken up
Speaker 4: surfing and I love it and I want to get
Speaker 4: better at it. But I have to watch again my
Speaker 4: desire to get too serious, because what I like about
Speaker 4: it is the sensation of it. You know, I love
Speaker 4: being in the water and the sun and the sounds
Speaker 4: and the sense elements of it. And I know that
Speaker 4: for myself. When I start to get too serious about it,
Speaker 4: as like I've got to I got to get better,
Speaker 4: my window of attention shrinks down, very, very small. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and I'm kind of back into my usual way of
Speaker 4: relating to the world.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I think that's an outstanding example. It sounds like
Speaker 1: you and I are very much the same. And that's
Speaker 1: one of the things with the MET, Like people kept
Speaker 1: saying to me, well, what were the rules and like
Speaker 1: what counted, And I'm like, I tried to just avoid
Speaker 1: all that because I'm exactly like you if it's like
Speaker 1: it's got to be this long, I've got to do this.
Speaker 1: What I did do is I went through the whole
Speaker 1: met like room by room, because I'm like, I felt
Speaker 1: like I needed to plot it out, but I didn't
Speaker 1: have like, oh, you have to do this much in
Speaker 1: a day. I tried to keep because I think you're
Speaker 1: exactly right. For some people, it's a real temptation, which
Speaker 1: is to sort of professionalize everything, like try to make
Speaker 1: it good and try to make it regulated and achieve.
Speaker 1: And I think you're right, Like, if you tend in
Speaker 1: that direction, it's very helpful to have a practice where
Speaker 1: you're very deliberately letting yourself stay loose, stay unfocused, just
Speaker 1: kind of roll with it, not try to up your
Speaker 1: game all the time.
Speaker 5: It's an interesting temptation totally.
Speaker 1: Yes, that I think people don't talk about very much,
Speaker 1: but maybe there are many of us who experience this.
Speaker 1: But I absolutely know what you mean where it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't want rock climbing to become like my next
Speaker 1: career where I have to, like, you know, up my
Speaker 1: game all the time.
Speaker 4: I'm a guitar player, and early on I played guitar
Speaker 4: and bands and I wrote songs. I mean, I had
Speaker 4: an ambition with it, and then there came a time
Speaker 4: where it became very clear that that just wasn't the
Speaker 4: right ambition for me. So I had to go through
Speaker 4: a really deliberate process of undoing all that so that
Speaker 4: I could get back to playing the guitar, because I
Speaker 4: like to play the guitar. Yes, you know where I
Speaker 4: wasn't like every time I played something that sounded kind
Speaker 4: of cool, I wasn't like, oh that could be something.
Speaker 4: I got to make that into something. Now I'm almost
Speaker 4: to the opposite extreme where I capture almost nothing. You know,
Speaker 4: I just play, and you know, if I play something pretty,
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, if I can remember it next time,
Speaker 4: I'll play it again. And so it was that same thing,
Speaker 4: which is I'm taking something that should be an enjoyment
Speaker 4: for me, and I'm turning it into a job.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think if you have this relentless aspect to your nature,
Speaker 1: it can be exhausting. It's exhilarating and it's satisfying to
Speaker 1: have that kind of relentlessness, that it can become draining
Speaker 1: and overwhelming and just sort of take the fun out
Speaker 1: of things.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I hadn't really thought of in the context that you're saying,
Speaker 1: of playing an instrument or rock climbing, but I see
Speaker 1: exactly how that would apply. It's very interesting. This is
Speaker 1: my hope for the book. Like with everything I write,
Speaker 1: it's not like what I do is so important. It's
Speaker 1: supposed to be like this is going to help you
Speaker 1: think about yourself. This is something you could try in
Speaker 1: your own way. I've never done rock climbing in my life,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't matter because you're thinking about your own
Speaker 1: rock climbing. And so my hope is that people will
Speaker 1: bring their own sensory experiences and interests and challenges to it.
Speaker 1: Sort of get excited because I think a lot of
Speaker 1: times we can learn from other people. We get ideas,
Speaker 1: and even if we wouldn't do what they would do
Speaker 1: we kind of get an idea for ourselves. That's maybe
Speaker 1: even more exciting when you're bringing your own creativity and
Speaker 1: your own ingenuity to something. They need a little spark
Speaker 1: to get you thinking along those lines.
Speaker 4: Yeah, You've got a lot of very creative ways of
Speaker 4: engaging with your senses that I had never thought of.
Speaker 4: And I've thought about this a fair amount, and so, yeah,
Speaker 4: there's a bunch of new things I'm interested in trying.
Speaker 4: There's a theme throughout the book that our senses are
Speaker 4: a way to connect to now, to being present. They're
Speaker 4: a way to connect to the world around us, but
Speaker 4: they're also a way of connecting more deeply with the
Speaker 4: people around us. Will you share a little bit about
Speaker 4: why that is and maybe give us a couple examples.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was one thing I really hoped that I
Speaker 1: could achieve from going deep into my five senses, because,
Speaker 1: of course, ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree it's relationships
Speaker 1: with other people that really contribute the most to our happiness,
Speaker 1: So this is very important. Aim is to connect with
Speaker 1: more people and more deeply with people, and I did.
Speaker 1: I found the sensory experience is a great way to
Speaker 1: connect with other people in all kinds of ways. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, if some of these are classic, like we
Speaker 1: all get to meals with other people. You know, that's
Speaker 1: universal in human culture, is that eating together is tied
Speaker 1: to you know, hospitality and fellowship. And then like we
Speaker 1: go sightseeing together, right, Like we'll go to a museum together,
Speaker 1: and we'll go to a concert together, and we'll listen
Speaker 1: to something together. So sharing a sensory experience is a
Speaker 1: great way to connect with other people.
Speaker 5: But then I also.
Speaker 1: Found like it's very useful as a way to connect
Speaker 1: with people through memory. So like I did a fun
Speaker 1: exercise for myself to connect with memories, as I divided
Speaker 1: my life into sort of four stages, and then I
Speaker 1: wrote down all the tastes I remembered from those times,
Speaker 1: either that were the most distinctive or that.
Speaker 5: Were my favorites at that time.
Speaker 1: But then what made it even more of an is
Speaker 1: I called my sister Elizabeth, and I said, well, let's
Speaker 1: talk about let's talk together about what we remember from
Speaker 1: our childhood. And I mean we just were laughing and talking.
Speaker 1: I mean I had forgotten all about you know, the
Speaker 1: foods that we ate on lung car trips and like
Speaker 1: how we would beg our grandparents to buy a strawberry
Speaker 1: pop tarts and cinnamon pop darts and the cereal that
Speaker 1: we ate, you know, when we were little. This kind
Speaker 1: of reminiscence is a really great way if you want
Speaker 1: to connect with, say, coworkers or people you don't know well,
Speaker 1: because it tends to be very personal and kind of
Speaker 1: fun to talk about, but it's not intimate in a
Speaker 1: way that can make people uncomfortable. If you say to
Speaker 1: somebody like, is there a food that you can get
Speaker 1: in your hometown that you really can't get anywhere else
Speaker 1: you go. You got to go back to your hometown
Speaker 1: to get it. That's a fun thing and it brings
Speaker 1: people closer, but most people wouldn't feel uncomfortable with that,
Speaker 1: Whereas I think sometimes when people are sort of like
Speaker 1: do these get to know you questions, sometimes it can
Speaker 1: be tricky. So it's fun to have something where everybody like,
Speaker 1: what was your favorite candy as a kid?
Speaker 5: Like people just like talking about that stuff.
Speaker 1: It's a really fun way to connect with people or
Speaker 1: talking about their preferences. Like a question I'd love to
Speaker 1: ask you is, if you really need to focus and
Speaker 1: be productive, what kind of sound environment do you like
Speaker 1: do you like silence? Do you like a busy hum
Speaker 1: like in a coffee shop? Do you like music with lyrics?
Speaker 1: Do you like music without lyrics? And people have a
Speaker 1: lot of thoughts, you know, people are very specific and
Speaker 1: some people will like shape their sound environment depending on
Speaker 1: what kind of work they're doing. How about you, what's
Speaker 1: your preferred sound environment for deep work?
Speaker 4: Either quiet or instrumental music, but no words, no words
Speaker 4: won't work, and even the instrumental music needs to be
Speaker 4: relatively spare.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 4: I'm sound sensitive and I love music, so I just
Speaker 4: get my attention. I need something that's just kind of there.
Speaker 1: Back to this idea that we all experience things differently.
Speaker 1: So I'm talking to a friend of mine, who, like you,
Speaker 1: is really really into music, and I was saying, hen,
Speaker 1: when I go to a restaurant, I'm very sensitive to
Speaker 1: the noise level, which is a very common thing. Like
Speaker 1: the number one complain of restaurants is they're too noisy.
Speaker 1: And he was like, oh, but for me, it's it's
Speaker 1: like the music selection, whereas I just tune out the
Speaker 1: music if it's not too loud. But he was like that,
Speaker 1: He's like to me, that's a huge part of the experience,
Speaker 1: just like the food. If I don't like their choice
Speaker 1: of music or I love their choice of music, that's
Speaker 1: a major element in why I would choose a restaurant
Speaker 1: or not. And I was like, Wow, as somebody who
Speaker 1: is not a huge music lover, I wouldn't have thought
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 5: But of course it makes sense.
Speaker 1: If you love music and you're very tuned into music,
Speaker 1: it would be just as important as the decor of
Speaker 1: the restaurant, or the smells of the restaurant, or the
Speaker 1: noise level of the restaurant, how uncomfortable the seats are.
Speaker 1: All these things matter. But to me, I never thought
Speaker 1: about it. For him, he made his choices based on that.
Speaker 4: That's interesting. I do always notice the music, but I've
Speaker 4: never actually connected the dots in my mind to say, like,
Speaker 4: I like a restaurant because the music they play.
Speaker 5: Oh interesting, Because.
Speaker 4: You were writing about the noise and restaurants, I feel
Speaker 4: the same way. It's very hard for me to tune out.
Speaker 4: And it occurred to me, like, do any of the
Speaker 4: rating services like rate the volume of a restaur Is
Speaker 4: there any sort of like restaurant volume rat or something.
Speaker 4: Do you know of anything. Does that exist?
Speaker 5: Do you know?
Speaker 1: I don't know, And that's very interesting. I imagine that
Speaker 1: it does exist because everything exists. But you definitely will
Speaker 1: see that in reviews, like that a restaurant is noisier.
Speaker 5: That it's quiet.
Speaker 1: One thing that's like kind of an interesting hack if
Speaker 1: you're trying to pick a restaurant, is that sort of
Speaker 1: more old fashioned restaurants tend to be quieter because there's
Speaker 1: sort of this new trend for like concrete and wood
Speaker 1: and glass and tile open kitchens and that sense sound
Speaker 1: bouncing around, and if you're in a place that has
Speaker 1: like thick carpeting, tablecloths, heavy drapes, you know that will
Speaker 1: muffle sound. And so if you're thinking like, oh, do
Speaker 1: I want the new trendies pot or do I want
Speaker 1: like the old fashion, you know, like Italian restaurant. If
Speaker 1: you care a lot about noise, you want to look
Speaker 1: for what is the look of the restaurant that will
Speaker 1: tell you a lot about the sound.
Speaker 4: That's a very simple heuristic to try and sort of
Speaker 4: figure that out, because you're right, I mean, the environment
Speaker 4: has everything to do with the sound.
Speaker 1: Well, and one of the things which is just interesting
Speaker 1: is sound is often used to manipulate us, and so
Speaker 1: in some restaurants they turn it up loud because people
Speaker 1: eat and drink more quickly when the music is loud,
Speaker 1: but they tend to taste things less, so if they're
Speaker 1: trying to turn their tables quickly, they'll play louder music.
Speaker 1: And in grocery stores they play slow music because people
Speaker 1: move more slowly. We're so affected by music, they'll move
Speaker 1: more slowly. And the more time you spend in a store,
Speaker 1: the more you tend to buy. And so often music
Speaker 1: that is put into our environment is meant to shape
Speaker 1: our behavior in ways that we may not be aware of.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think there was something about playing Barry Manilow
Speaker 4: or classical.
Speaker 1: Music, yes, yeah, to get people away so people wouldn't
Speaker 1: loiter in front of like convenience stores, or like a
Speaker 1: friend of mine did that in college when he wanted.
Speaker 5: To clear people out after a party.
Speaker 1: He would like, pick some song and nobody liked, and
Speaker 1: just play it on a loop until people just you know,
Speaker 1: ran shrieking to escape. It's an interesting question. Music is
Speaker 1: universal in human culture, and no one is really quite
Speaker 1: sure why, because if it's not something that's necessary for survival.
Speaker 5: Why is it so ubiquitous? But it does have a
Speaker 5: huge influence.
Speaker 1: It helps us with work, it helps us synchronize with
Speaker 1: other people. There's a huge amount of effect that it has.
Speaker 1: But from an evolutionary standpoint, it's a little bit puzzling.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of theories about that.
Speaker 4: You developed something called a manifesto for listening. Yes, share
Speaker 4: a little bit about why you did that and what's
Speaker 4: on it.
Speaker 1: Well, I find that when something's really important, it helps
Speaker 1: me to kind of crystallize my thoughts by writing a
Speaker 1: manifesto or a list or you know, I have twelve
Speaker 1: personal commandments, and I just find that that process helps
Speaker 1: me really understand my own believes, my own conclusions, and
Speaker 1: I realize, like, of everything we do to use our
Speaker 1: sense of hearing, really listening to other people is one
Speaker 1: of the most important things. And it sounds very passive,
Speaker 1: like I'm just listening to somebody talk. It's very very demanding.
Speaker 1: I made it manifesto for listening of everything that I
Speaker 1: wanted to remember, and it really does help me to
Speaker 1: remember you know, how to listen attentively, even something as
Speaker 1: simple as like when you're listening to someone like show
Speaker 1: them with your body, like face them full on, put
Speaker 1: down anything that is like a distraction, like a newspaper,
Speaker 1: a cell phone, or a book, so that people are like,
Speaker 1: you know, you assume the position I'm listening. So it's
Speaker 1: full of things like that that I try to remember.
Speaker 4: There's a bunch of great ones on there. I think
Speaker 4: it might be the last one when in doubt, stop
Speaker 4: talking one are.
Speaker 5: The hardest ones.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I find that very hard to do
Speaker 1: when there's like an awkward pause or you know, if
Speaker 1: it feels uncomfortable, and sometimes you just have to let
Speaker 1: the silence stretch out.
Speaker 4: That is one of the most basic and simple rules
Speaker 4: to being a better listener, right is just to listen
Speaker 4: and not talk as much. You know, it's always good
Speaker 4: to know where you fall on the spectrum. I think
Speaker 4: there are some people who have a tendency to talk
Speaker 4: too much who might need to modulate it down. There's
Speaker 4: other people who have a tendency to not say anything
Speaker 4: in a conversation they might need to modulate it up.
Speaker 4: So it's not always a good rule.
Speaker 1: But I'm so glad you said that. That's a very
Speaker 1: important thing to remember, which is that not everyone faces
Speaker 1: the same challenges, and not everyone has the same faults,
Speaker 1: and so you know, you have to always think for yourself,
Speaker 1: you know, do I need to do more listening or
Speaker 1: do I really need to do more talking? Because one
Speaker 1: of the ways that we show intimacy with people is
Speaker 1: that we disclose. And if you've ever been with somebody
Speaker 1: who just peppers you with questions and refuses to say
Speaker 1: anything about themselves, you feel very shut out by that.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel intimate. The person doesn't feel interested in you.
Speaker 1: It feels like they're kind of controlling you by interviewing you,
Speaker 1: and so there has to be this give and take.
Speaker 1: My own personal problem is talking too much. So that's
Speaker 1: what my manifesto for listening focuses on, which is really
Speaker 1: being that attentive listener to someone who's talking.
Speaker 4: Yep, let's talk a little bit about smell.
Speaker 5: M I love this sense of smell.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's funny. As I was reading your book and you
Speaker 4: were saying like sound is your sort of underrated areas,
Speaker 4: but smell was one of your known favorites. I was like,
Speaker 4: I think I'm kind of the opposite, Like I'm super
Speaker 4: super sound oriented and smell oriented not as much. But
Speaker 4: your book helped me realize partially why. It's because of that.
Speaker 4: Did you call it olfactory fatigue? It's difficult for me
Speaker 4: to hang onto a smell sometimes long enough to really
Speaker 4: savor it or be with it, because it seems like
Speaker 4: I notice it and then it fades quickly. And so
Speaker 4: just knowing that that's the nature of smell makes me
Speaker 4: willing to engage with it slightly differently, knowing like, yeah,
Speaker 4: of course that happens. That's the way it works. It's
Speaker 4: not like you have a broken smeller, right.
Speaker 1: No, it's frustrating when you want to keep smelling something
Speaker 1: and you just can't. I mean, that's the thing about
Speaker 1: a smell. You can't gorge on it, you can't bookmarket it,
Speaker 1: you can't save it for later. It's like right here,
Speaker 1: right now, and then it's going to go. It's true
Speaker 1: of all the senses, but particularly the sense of smell.
Speaker 1: I think it's a reminder of you better appreciate what's
Speaker 1: happening right now, because it will not persist for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: You talk about one way being putting on perfume or cologne,
Speaker 4: and you know, I love it like the minute I
Speaker 4: put it on, but then minute later I have forgotten
Speaker 4: it and I don't notice it again right all day. Right,
Speaker 4: So I'm kind of like, well, how valuable is this
Speaker 4: really for me?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: But what are ways that you learn to engage with
Speaker 4: smell differently as a result of this experiment versus kind
Speaker 4: of what you already knew to do knowing it was
Speaker 4: one of your favorite senses.
Speaker 5: Well, I learned much more about it. The more you know,
Speaker 5: the more you notice.
Speaker 1: And I did love my sense of smell, but I
Speaker 1: didn't really pay that much attention to it other than
Speaker 1: thinking like, oh, this feels good or this feels bad.
Speaker 5: So I did take a perfume.
Speaker 1: Class, and that was just fascinating because just learning so
Speaker 1: much about it and you know, kind of exercising it.
Speaker 1: There was sort of introduction in class, and then there
Speaker 1: was the advanced class. And in the advanced class we
Speaker 1: would just put blotters in these vials and smell them.
Speaker 1: And what was interesting is some people were really good
Speaker 1: at saying, oh, this reminds me of like a cedar
Speaker 1: closet on a hot summer day, or this smells like
Speaker 1: wet Kleenex or whatever. And then for some people you
Speaker 1: could smell it. But it was harder to sort of
Speaker 1: characterize it or to kind of identify it, you know.
Speaker 1: And it was funny because even the professor was like, listen,
Speaker 1: you guys, you're not going to be able to do
Speaker 1: this by the end of this class.
Speaker 5: This is very advanced.
Speaker 1: Like to be able to really have any kind of
Speaker 1: facility with this very very difficult takes a long time.
Speaker 1: Not just this class that you would take, which was reassuring,
Speaker 1: but it was just fascinating. I found out I can't
Speaker 1: really smell musk, which turns out to be not that uncommon,
Speaker 1: but I'm like, I didn't know I was missing a
Speaker 1: whole smell.
Speaker 5: It was like it was like.
Speaker 1: The end first new clothes, because everybody was acting very normal,
Speaker 1: like oh.
Speaker 5: This that the other thing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't smell anything. He was like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: some people can't smell musk. So that was one of
Speaker 1: the things that I did. But back to your idea
Speaker 1: of the neglected sense, Like this is one of your
Speaker 1: neglected senses, so you were aware of that, but often,
Speaker 1: like I find that this is something that maybe we
Speaker 1: don't really understand about ourselves, is what's our most neglected sense.
Speaker 1: So I did this very fun quiz and it's free
Speaker 1: and it's quick. You can go to Gretchen Ruber dot
Speaker 1: com slash quiz and take it and it will tell
Speaker 1: you what is your most neglected sense. So maybe for
Speaker 1: you it's smell. For me, I thought my most neglected
Speaker 1: senses were hearing and tasting, and indeed I thought it's
Speaker 1: probably tasting, you know. I checked my own quiz, and
Speaker 1: that's what my quiz show me was that it was tasting.
Speaker 1: And this is a useful thing to know because often
Speaker 1: there's low hanging fruit, as your question suggests, if you
Speaker 1: don't spend that much time thinking about your sense of
Speaker 1: smell or dialing into it, that's a lot of opportunity.
Speaker 1: Like you're like, well wearing perfewer clone that kind of
Speaker 1: fades away. That's not really and I feel like that
Speaker 1: does that much for me. But maybe if you brought
Speaker 1: some plants into your office and you had kind of
Speaker 1: the smell of fresh plants and earth, that would be
Speaker 1: interesting to you. Or maybe you want to have a
Speaker 1: nostalgia smell and get something just because you love the
Speaker 1: smell from childhood, Like I have a little bottle of
Speaker 1: Johnson's baby lotion that I don't use.
Speaker 5: I just smell it because I love that smell.
Speaker 1: So maybe you're like, well, maybe I'll have something that
Speaker 1: I keep around just because I love the smell lava soap.
Speaker 1: There are just these funny things. I'm from Kansas City, Missouri,
Speaker 1: and there's a kind of a popcorn store that everybody
Speaker 1: goes to called Topsy's, and I got something. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I have to have this smell for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. So I put some popcorn into a ziploc bag.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know if this stuff will rot
Speaker 1: away or how long I can keep it, but just
Speaker 1: that smell is so valuable to me. It brings back
Speaker 1: so many memories. And so when you identify your most
Speaker 1: neglected sense, then that sort of shows you, oh, well,
Speaker 1: maybe this is something I can tune into. Because for
Speaker 1: our appreciated sense, just like with you and sound and hearing,
Speaker 1: we tend to already have a lot of interest in it.
Speaker 1: We learn about it, we talk about it with other people,
Speaker 1: we cultivate it, which is great and it's good to
Speaker 1: do more of that. But the neglected sense gives us
Speaker 1: a new opportunity too.
Speaker 4: I just got two ideas as you were talking about
Speaker 4: one was my father passed. It's i mean within the
Speaker 4: last month.
Speaker 5: Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.
Speaker 4: Thank you. However, I have a smell that I very
Speaker 4: much associate with him, which is Aqua Velva cologne or
Speaker 4: I think they still make it, yes, but I never
Speaker 4: smell it normally. So it occurred to me like, well,
Speaker 4: I could get some of it, not with the intention
Speaker 4: that I'm going to wear it, right, but to smell
Speaker 4: it as a memory thing for him. And then the
Speaker 4: second thing that you said was I never thought to
Speaker 4: smell my plants. I have plants. Yeah, I love them,
Speaker 4: I look at them, I touch them all the time.
Speaker 4: I love to touch plants. Trees were at the Atlanta
Speaker 4: Botanical Gardens recently, and I just I'm walking around touching everything.
Speaker 4: But I never thought to smell my own plants. I mean,
Speaker 4: if I see a flower, I'll smell the flower. But
Speaker 4: never occurred to me that smelling my own plants would
Speaker 4: be just sounds that's a weird thing to say. It
Speaker 4: sounds strange smelling my own plants, but.
Speaker 5: Or smelling the dirt.
Speaker 1: Once you've watched you know, they had that kind of
Speaker 1: dirthy smell that's very pleasing.
Speaker 5: Here's the suggestion about your father.
Speaker 1: So in the book, I talked about how I did
Speaker 1: a five census portrait of my husband Jamie. For each
Speaker 1: of the five senses, I picked five of those sensations
Speaker 1: that I most associated with him, which was a wonderful exercise,
Speaker 1: lots of fun, very creative.
Speaker 5: And then I have a.
Speaker 1: Podcast, The Happier with Gretchen Ruben Podcasts, so we talked
Speaker 1: about doing that on the podcast. But here's what could
Speaker 1: be useful to you is someone wrote in said that
Speaker 1: she did it for someone who had recently died, because
Speaker 1: you want to feel that somehow you're capturing their like
Speaker 1: concrete essence and really thinking, like, well, this cologne comes
Speaker 1: to your mind right away, but what are some of
Speaker 1: the other things, or like what are the favorite tastes?
Speaker 1: Because you feel like you'll never forget. But there's something
Speaker 1: about organizing it in like a portrait that really makes
Speaker 1: you feel like you're capturing that person. And she was
Speaker 1: also saying that her children were so young that they
Speaker 1: would not remember this beloved family member, and she felt
Speaker 1: that like by creating this portrait of these very concrete things,
Speaker 1: she could really capture the essence of this person and
Speaker 1: show it to them. And I thought that was such
Speaker 1: a great idea. And here's another interesting thing. Someone was
Speaker 1: saying about just smell and its association. Someone was saying
Speaker 1: how her mother had dementia, so it was very hard
Speaker 1: to have a conversation. They just kind of looped and looped.
Speaker 1: But then she said, oh, do you remember your bathpowder?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 1: And they talked about and the mother remembered the bath powder.
Speaker 1: And then the next time they spoke, she said, somehow
Speaker 1: that clicked in a way, and everybody talked behind music
Speaker 1: is very good. Yeah, people, yeah, having memory loss, and
Speaker 1: so this is another way to connect with people maybe
Speaker 1: who are having certain kinds of challenges. But with these memories,
Speaker 1: these sensations can maybe help bridge.
Speaker 5: That, ye or hang on to those memories.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a really interesting idea. My partner, Ginny's mother
Speaker 4: last fall passed from Alzheimer's and we'd been with her,
Speaker 4: you know, primary caregivers for about six years. And I
Speaker 4: noticed that me playing the guitar for her, she enjoyed that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it felt like nearly to the end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And could she remember the words? A lot of
Speaker 1: times people can remember the words to lyrics even when
Speaker 1: they came.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean after a while she was nonverbal,
Speaker 4: but you know, it just felt like there was some
Speaker 4: sense that like it was just her favorite thing was
Speaker 4: for me to play guitar for her.
Speaker 5: Oh you know, Oh what a beautiful memory.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But again, like with the five cents of Portrait, you
Speaker 1: could write down like what were her Like what was
Speaker 1: the song you always played for her? Because that's the
Speaker 1: kind of memory. It's like we forget, we remember. I
Speaker 1: feel like with memory I felt with the senses, I
Speaker 1: started remembering a lot of things that I had never forgotten,
Speaker 1: but that I forgot that I remembered because I never
Speaker 1: went looking for them. And with the five senses, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I remember the smell of my grandparents' garage,
Speaker 1: or the smell on my grandparents kitchen, or you know
Speaker 1: these little things, or you know my dog's dog bed
Speaker 1: when I was growing up. You just forget, you remember.
Speaker 1: I was with some friends from high school and we
Speaker 1: were all talking about the locker room and the basement
Speaker 1: of our high school, and it was like, man, I
Speaker 1: forgot all about that locker room. I hadn't thought about
Speaker 1: it in so long, but the minute we started talking
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 5: Oh, I could smell it. I could smell it right
Speaker 5: in my nose. It all came back.
Speaker 4: It just made me think, like, I wish I had
Speaker 4: thought to do that with her, like some smelling things. Yes,
Speaker 4: that that would have been that have right. Yeah, there
Speaker 4: are other ways in than music, to your point, senses
Speaker 4: in general would be really helpful. Yeah, so let's talk
Speaker 4: about the connection between smelling and tasting.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Well, sadly, I think a lot of people became very
Speaker 1: much more aware of this during COVID because people often
Speaker 1: thought that if they had COVID they had lost their
Speaker 1: sense of taste, but it was actually because their sense
Speaker 1: of smell had been affected. And if we have just taste,
Speaker 1: that's the five basic taste. There's some controversies. There's other
Speaker 1: tastes waiting in the wings, hoping to be you know,
Speaker 1: enter the cannon of five. But traditionally, the widely accepted
Speaker 1: tastes are a sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and then the
Speaker 1: latest entrant umami, which now has been accepted for more
Speaker 1: than one hundred years. But if you are just to
Speaker 1: have something on your tongue, you're going to get a
Speaker 1: very simple taste. Flavor is when you have tastes plus smell,
Speaker 1: because we can actually smell things while we're eating through
Speaker 1: our nose through our mouth. A really fun way to
Speaker 1: test this is to take something that has a complex flavor,
Speaker 1: like a jelly bean, like a jelly belly, you know,
Speaker 1: there's like those crazy jelly bellies, and plug your nose,
Speaker 1: put it in your mouth, and you will just taste
Speaker 1: something sweet. It will taste just very sweet, and then
Speaker 1: if you unplug your nose, then it will blossom into
Speaker 1: cherry or root beer or you know, banana dacorie or
Speaker 1: whatever flavor you're having. Because when that smell comes, then
Speaker 1: you get that complex flavor. So to really appreciate something
Speaker 1: of food or beverage, you need to have smell plus taste.
Speaker 1: So when COVID took away people's sense of smell, it
Speaker 1: also very much affected their sense of taste.
Speaker 4: Interesting, I did not know that. I did not know
Speaker 4: that was the mechanism of action that caused them to
Speaker 4: feel like they couldn't taste. In your research on this,
Speaker 4: is there anything about their smell or taste right after
Speaker 4: you swallow, Because it seems to me that it gets
Speaker 4: slightly more intense for me right after the food has
Speaker 4: left my mouth.
Speaker 5: Oh, good perception.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a bunch of research about like saliva
Speaker 1: that I have to say. I did not plum that work,
Speaker 1: but there is work to be found if you're curious
Speaker 1: about that. I really applaud your subtlety of your noticing.
Speaker 1: That's really good. I never have noticed that myself. I'll
Speaker 1: try that the next time I eat.
Speaker 4: I think that's the next book, The Science of Spit
Speaker 4: by Gretchen Reach.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: Well, and it's also probably like the timing of your
Speaker 1: breathing and it's all very you know, the body is amazing,
Speaker 1: the way everything's so interconnected. Oh, but there is a
Speaker 1: myth about tastes that like different parts of your tongue
Speaker 1: are like, you know, this is the salty part, and
Speaker 1: this is the sugar part.
Speaker 5: That's not true. Not true, that's not true. Now the
Speaker 5: whole tongue, it's like it's all mixed together.
Speaker 4: It's so fascinating. The things that make it into very
Speaker 4: popular mm that sounds scientific that are simply not true.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's that the science at the
Speaker 4: time believed that, and then it's later disproved and the
Speaker 4: common knowledge never catches up. I just it's always fascinating
Speaker 4: to me when those things sort of linger, you know,
Speaker 4: when you look a little bit deeper. It's sort of
Speaker 4: like the twenty one days to build a habit.
Speaker 5: Yes, no, oh my gosh, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like, but we know that's not true, right,
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, you don't need to have a laboratory
Speaker 1: full of guinea pigs running that to be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that doesn't work well.
Speaker 4: Since we're just kind of moving through the senses sort
Speaker 4: of an order like your book does, let's hit touch.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 1: Touch is interesting because I feel like it's the most
Speaker 1: different from the other four. The other four are located
Speaker 1: on the head, touches for our whole body, and the
Speaker 1: skin kind of feels like packaging to me. It doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like a sense organ the way like the ear does.
Speaker 1: But touch is extraordinarily important and very very sophisticated to
Speaker 1: help us make sense of what we're sensing. Some places
Speaker 1: it's very sensitive, like on the fingertips, and then other places,
Speaker 1: like in the middle of your back, it's not very sensitive.
Speaker 1: Back to this idea of neglected sense, I assumed when
Speaker 1: I started this that I wasn't that tuned into touch.
Speaker 1: I was like, I never think about it and I
Speaker 1: don't really care about it. But so one fascinating thing
Speaker 1: for me was to realize I'm super super focused on touch.
Speaker 1: How did I not know that about myself?
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess that's why I read a book called Life
Speaker 1: in Five Senses, because I'm the kind of person who
Speaker 1: doesn't even notice that she's extremely focused on the sense
Speaker 1: of touch. But I realized all kinds of funny things,
Speaker 1: like you know how every once in a while you
Speaker 1: look in your closet and you think, Okay, what did
Speaker 1: this stuff?
Speaker 5: What do I wear? What do I not wear? How
Speaker 5: could I wear stuff more? And I was thinking, well,
Speaker 5: I have these blouses that I really like, and yet
Speaker 5: I never wear them. Why not?
Speaker 1: And then I was thinking about it, and then I thought, well,
Speaker 1: it's because they're cotton. They're like kind of white cotton shirt,
Speaker 1: and I don't like that feeling of that. And now
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, well, I'm not going to buy that
Speaker 1: kind of shirt because even though it looks good and
Speaker 1: I feel like, oh, this would be useful, I don't
Speaker 1: like to wear them because I don't like the feeling
Speaker 1: on my skin. On the other hand, when I looked
Speaker 1: at my closet and I saw things that I didn't
Speaker 1: wear often, they were a beautiful color, and I thought, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is because I love this color. I buy something
Speaker 1: even though it doesn't really fit or look good because
Speaker 1: I'm so entranced by the purple or the brown or.
Speaker 5: Whatever or the combination.
Speaker 1: And then in the end, I'm like, it doesn't look good,
Speaker 1: so I never feel like wearing it, but the touch,
Speaker 1: or like I had the sweatshirt, I should get rid of.
Speaker 1: This sweatshirt is way too old, it's really ratty, and
Speaker 1: I just couldn't give it up. And then I realized
Speaker 1: because it was the perfect stretchiness, softness, weight, like it
Speaker 1: had side pockets, like the feel of it was perfect,
Speaker 1: and I just ignored how bad it looked because I thought, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just the ideal hoodie, so who could
Speaker 1: give it up? But all these kinds of thing I
Speaker 1: had not noticed, not noticed at all.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, there's so many things to that sense of
Speaker 4: a piece of clothing and its touch. You know, there's
Speaker 4: the material, but like you said, there's it's weight, it's
Speaker 4: how it falls on your body. I mean, I'm not
Speaker 4: even talking about from a look perspective. It's just a
Speaker 4: feel thing. And I'm kind of the same way. I
Speaker 4: noticed that there are a number of things in my
Speaker 4: closet that I just never put on, and it is
Speaker 4: almost always because I don't like the way it feels.
Speaker 4: So I'll occasionally be like, well, you know you never
Speaker 4: warn that thing. You bought it, you should put it on,
Speaker 4: and I'll put it on, and like five minutes later,
Speaker 4: I'm like, nope, I now I know why I didn't
Speaker 4: wear it. It's because, for whatever reason, it just doesn't
Speaker 4: feel right now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is an example of this phenomenon,
Speaker 1: but in general, we are wired for sight, and so
Speaker 1: it has the most real estate in the brain, and
Speaker 1: often when there's a conflict among senses, sight wins.
Speaker 5: And I wonder if for you and me when.
Speaker 1: We're making these mistakes, when we're like in the store
Speaker 1: buying these items, I wonder if we think of it
Speaker 1: as a site exercise. I am here, I'm looking at
Speaker 1: myself in the mirror. How does this look? How does
Speaker 1: this fit?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: Whereas you and I should be shutting our eyes and
Speaker 1: saying I'm not going to get distracted by the way
Speaker 1: that it looks. Let me really focus on the way
Speaker 1: that it feels, because it might be that for people
Speaker 1: like you and me who are making these mistakes, maybe
Speaker 1: if we shut out the site and really said, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I'm going to tune into that, it might help
Speaker 1: us identify things.
Speaker 5: I bought a pair of pants that I loved. It
Speaker 5: was this blue.
Speaker 1: Oh they were amazing and I love them, and I
Speaker 1: bought them just instantly in the store. I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I can't wait to buy these. I got
Speaker 1: them home and they were so scratchy. It was like,
Speaker 1: did they do this on purpose? Because this can't be accidental.
Speaker 1: I had to I wore them with like heavy tights,
Speaker 1: but it didn't matter. This scratchiness went right through, like
Speaker 1: to the point I was getting a rash from them,
Speaker 1: Like why was this even ever manufactured this way?
Speaker 5: It didn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: And yet in the store I hadn't even noticed for
Speaker 1: one second because I was so focused on the way
Speaker 1: they looked.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great idea to close your eyes, because
Speaker 4: you're right, site does tend to be sort of dominant,
Speaker 4: and it's a very common thing. You know, you'll see
Speaker 4: people tasting things close their eyes.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I close my eyes when I'm listening very often, you know,
Speaker 4: because I know that it allows the sense I want
Speaker 4: to focus on to be a little more clear.
Speaker 5: Yes, and we do that.
Speaker 1: We will shut down one sense to help us pay
Speaker 1: more attention to others. So exactly, that's why for a
Speaker 1: concert the lights will dim. I'm a fearful driver, so
Speaker 1: I'll turn off the radio when I'm driving so i
Speaker 1: can see better. I found it's interesting, like when I'm
Speaker 1: very stressed out, as I said, I love smell. I
Speaker 1: wear perfumed to bed. I like, will smell things all
Speaker 1: the time. But when I'm really stressed out, I stop
Speaker 1: doing that. And I think it's because I'm trying to
Speaker 1: bring the sensory load down, so I don't even give
Speaker 1: myself these pleasures. It's just like, oh, I want less stimulation,
Speaker 1: so I will take that out of the equation to
Speaker 1: help me manage it. So I think you're right. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's try that. This is a new idea for he Okay,
Speaker 1: next time we're.
Speaker 4: In a dressing room, close your eyes.
Speaker 1: Shut your eyes, like do a couple deep knee bends.
Speaker 1: See how that thing feels.
Speaker 4: Yep, I've gotten a little bit better at least I
Speaker 4: at least now contemplate it more than I used to.
Speaker 4: But I have gone as far as the eye shutting.
Speaker 4: So that's a good idea, similar to this idea that
Speaker 4: you know, when we shut down one sense, the other
Speaker 4: senses have more I don't know what you want to
Speaker 4: call it, energy acuity whatever you mentioned in the book.
Speaker 4: Also an idea of noticing that if you satisfy one sense,
Speaker 4: you may pacify a craving or a desire from another sense.
Speaker 4: Say a little bit more about that. That's really interesting.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this was.
Speaker 1: Something that I just discovered from my own experience. So
Speaker 1: I think like a lot of people, you know, I
Speaker 1: sort of get this urge to graze often sort of
Speaker 1: in the middle of the afternoon where it's not that
Speaker 1: I'm hungry, but maybe I'm bored or I'm restless, or
Speaker 1: i just want to give myself a break, and so
Speaker 1: that I'm wandering through the kitchen, you know, opening a
Speaker 1: cabinet or opening up the fridge, or maybe you're at
Speaker 1: work and so you're like checking out the vending machine.
Speaker 1: And what I found is that what worked for me
Speaker 1: was just to overwhelm and stimulate another sense instead, because
Speaker 1: the thing about those treats is for some people they're healthy,
Speaker 1: but for some people they're reaching for unhealthy treats, and
Speaker 1: they would really like to resist that temptation. So it's like,
Speaker 1: because I do love smells, I have like a whole
Speaker 1: collection of just smells. They're not even perfumes, they're just smells.
Speaker 1: Somebody said to me, what do you do with this thing?
Speaker 1: I'm like, I just smell it. But by overwhelming and
Speaker 1: kind of gratifying a sense, then that other desire goes away.
Speaker 1: And I wonder I for someone like you, like if
Speaker 1: you love to listen to new music or you have
Speaker 1: like a playlist of songs that you sort of save,
Speaker 1: you could tap into your sense of hearing.
Speaker 5: And now I don't know.
Speaker 1: If this works because it's a distraction, so your mind
Speaker 1: is moved away from the fridge to your playlist, or
Speaker 1: whether it really is truly like by overwhelming is what
Speaker 1: we're looking for is the kind of stimulation maybe the
Speaker 1: kind of like jolt of energy that comes to our
Speaker 1: brain by stimulating a sense that we're getting it in
Speaker 1: a different way. I'm not sure which is at play.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're both at play. But I found that it
Speaker 1: really works, and so it's a great thing to try
Speaker 1: if you're feeling like, Okay, I just can't break my
Speaker 1: habit of the mid afternoon snack or like the after
Speaker 1: dinner snack, try this because it seems to work really,
Speaker 1: really well, and it's easier to pick something healthy and
Speaker 1: then you just, you know, you don't want to do
Speaker 1: something to make yourself feel better that just ends up
Speaker 1: making you feel worse in the long run, So this
Speaker 1: is a way to feel good about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a really interesting idea because, yeah, on one level,
Speaker 4: the principle being if you're going to take something away,
Speaker 4: you want to put something in its place, right, but
Speaker 4: to be specific about the thing that you put in
Speaker 4: its place being another sense m m thing is a
Speaker 4: really interesting twist on that basic idea.
Speaker 1: I do think there is something energizing about things that
Speaker 1: come to us through our senses. When we really tune
Speaker 1: into that, there's a kind of vitality that we feel.
Speaker 1: And I think that when we're reaching for that snack,
Speaker 1: that's often what we're seeking. That we want to be like,
Speaker 1: you know, we want to get plugged into the wall
Speaker 1: like a cell phone, and so it's like, Okay, how
Speaker 1: are you going to do that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yep, You're exactly right. That is often what
Speaker 4: it is is either vitality or just turning off temporarily.
Speaker 5: Yeah right, so kind of a moment of sort of respite.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, where I just can sort of set aside
Speaker 4: whatever I'm working on or worried about or thinking about
Speaker 4: and transition. I love that idea. Let's talk about your
Speaker 4: five census journal.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this is interesting because it's a different way to
Speaker 1: sort of again pay attention. We keep coming back to
Speaker 1: this idea of like how do we pay attention? And
Speaker 1: I'm actually creating a journal that'll be like beautifully printed out,
Speaker 1: like I'll have that in a couple months to offer.
Speaker 1: But I've never seen anything like that. So I just
Speaker 1: kind of created my own. For every day. I would
Speaker 1: just write see here, smell, taste, touch, and I would
Speaker 1: just write down one remarkable thing. It could be best,
Speaker 1: it could just be notable, could be really bad, like
Speaker 1: whatever I sort of wanted to remember.
Speaker 5: And it was really fun.
Speaker 1: It helped me pay attention throughout the day because I
Speaker 1: would think, ooh, this would be great for my five
Speaker 1: census journal because I heard church bells when I was
Speaker 1: walking around downtown. I hadn't heard those before, or maybe
Speaker 1: I had heard them, but i'd never noticed them. Probably
Speaker 1: that is probably what it's true. But what I found
Speaker 1: too that surprised me. And I'm sure you know about
Speaker 1: this research that the gratitude journal, right, everybody's always saying
Speaker 1: keep the gratitude journal, and it's definitely true that gratitude
Speaker 1: is very important for a happy life. But I myself
Speaker 1: have to say that I did not find the gratitude
Speaker 1: journal to be a helpful exercise. I find it very annoying.
Speaker 1: I have to say, this ends up being a kind
Speaker 1: of gratitude journal, and I felt much more like I
Speaker 1: was paying homage to the world and really noticing the
Speaker 1: world and recording the majesty of nature and other people
Speaker 1: in the world in a way that for me gave
Speaker 1: me a sense of gratitude and made me feel like
Speaker 1: I was reflecting a sense of gratitude more than just
Speaker 1: like a straight up gratitude journal did, which, as I say,
Speaker 1: when I was writing the Happiness Project, it's such a
Speaker 1: common thing and people recommend that I was like, am
Speaker 1: I the only person who can't stand heard gratitude journal.
Speaker 4: Yep, yep. Well, I've always thought of it. When I
Speaker 4: have kept what we would call a gratitude journal or whatever,
Speaker 4: That's not the word I've used. I've always used the
Speaker 4: word appreciation, and because that points me towards the smell
Speaker 4: of a cup of coffee, the taste of something.
Speaker 5: Right, Oh, interesting distinction.
Speaker 4: Yeah, some of the deeper research on gratitude, if you
Speaker 4: look at it, they'll say that specificity is the key driver.
Speaker 4: If you're not specific enough, it becomes just a mental
Speaker 4: exercise that after a while doesn't have much benefit. But
Speaker 4: if you're really specific, it's helpful. And I think that's
Speaker 4: what the senses are is they allow us to be
Speaker 4: much more specific about that thing. And so I agree
Speaker 4: one hundred percent when I do you know gratitude practice.
Speaker 4: I mean, sure, there's you know, the obvious stuff on there,
Speaker 4: like I'm grateful for my health and my son's health, right,
Speaker 4: and but so much of it has always been appreciation.
Speaker 4: You know what did I appreciate today? But I love
Speaker 4: the idea of a five senses journey because we see
Speaker 4: what we're looking.
Speaker 1: For, yes, exactly, well, and that's back to the brain.
Speaker 1: When the brain knows, oh, this is interesting information, it
Speaker 1: will highlight that. So when my brain was like, yep, oh,
Speaker 1: are there any interesting sounds happening, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'll notice those church bells where. I mean, I've walked
Speaker 1: around downtown a thousand times and I never noticed the
Speaker 1: church bells. But of course they were ringing. It's not
Speaker 1: like they just started doing that. You know, probably start
Speaker 1: in seventeen fifty.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Right, And so you're exactly right. It's a practice that helps.
Speaker 1: The brain to attend because it knows that you want
Speaker 1: to have that information.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I never thought to take it to all senses.
Speaker 4: I will do periodically that picture a day idea because
Speaker 4: it makes me look for beauty.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: It's you know, I'm not trying to produce any particular picture, right,
Speaker 4: It's just that by doing it, my brain is sort
Speaker 4: of looking like what's But I never thought to expand
Speaker 4: it to all the senses until I read that Five
Speaker 4: Senses journal, And it does make total sense why that
Speaker 4: would tune you in so much more.
Speaker 5: I think the photo a day is a great exercise.
Speaker 5: A lot of people like to do that.
Speaker 1: It doesn't cover all four senses, but it is something
Speaker 1: that many people take great pleasure in and there is
Speaker 1: a creative thing, and it's also pretty easy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I'm a fan of that.
Speaker 1: And some people sort of take the view that if
Speaker 1: you're taking a picture of something, you're not really engaging
Speaker 1: with it, But the research shows that a lot of
Speaker 1: times people are engaging more deeply when they take photographs.
Speaker 1: And again, like so many things, it's what is the
Speaker 1: spirit you bring to it? Yes, is there opportunity cost?
Speaker 1: Is it driving out other things? But if you feel
Speaker 1: like you know, I walk to the river every day
Speaker 1: and take a picture of it, and in that way,
Speaker 1: I'm sort of like creating a don't break the chain
Speaker 1: and a memory of my life, I'm like that sounds
Speaker 1: good to me. The fact that you're using your phone
Speaker 1: to do it, I don't object to that. I feel
Speaker 1: like sometimes people feel like technology doesn't bring us any benefits,
Speaker 1: and I think it used wisely, it definitely can.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think the taking picture thing for me is
Speaker 4: another way of seeing differently than you would see normally.
Speaker 4: Like you know, you talk in the book about closing
Speaker 4: one eye or squinting, or you know, I often like
Speaker 4: to look and see like where are all the shadows?
Speaker 4: Where are all the edges? Right?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 4: Because it causes me to actually look and I think
Speaker 4: photography for me, yeah, often will do that too. It's
Speaker 4: just it causes me to look more closely than I
Speaker 4: normally would look because I'm thinking about the light and
Speaker 4: I'm thinking about the angle it's bringing me into, at
Speaker 4: least in the way that I'm trying to do it,
Speaker 4: closer contact with the object I'm looking.
Speaker 1: At right right, Well, again, the more we know, the
Speaker 1: more we notice, and so right, because you're bringing more
Speaker 1: to it, you get more from it.
Speaker 4: Yep, We've only got a couple of minutes here, but
Speaker 4: I would like to pivot out of the five senses
Speaker 4: to a phrase that you have in the book that
Speaker 4: I love. And it may be a phrase that you've
Speaker 4: had for a while, but I haven't caught it in
Speaker 4: your work before, and it just jumped out at me
Speaker 4: and it was I must both accept myself and expect
Speaker 4: more from myself. And I love that phrase because I'm
Speaker 4: always thinking about that balance, you know, and that tension.
Speaker 4: You know, how do I accept me in my life
Speaker 4: just the way it is, and how do I also
Speaker 4: continue to expect more out of myself and talk to
Speaker 4: me about how you think about doing both those things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it took me a long time to come up
Speaker 1: with that formulation because I was very much kind of
Speaker 1: caught in this tension, which I think is a deep
Speaker 1: tension within a happy life, which is, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: we want to accept ourselves. We want to recognize the
Speaker 1: natural limitations of our nature. We don't want to be
Speaker 1: lost in sort of you know, frustration or you know,
Speaker 1: fantasy that on the other hand, you want to go
Speaker 1: out of your comfort zone. You want to have an
Speaker 1: atmosphere of growth. You don't want to be limited, you
Speaker 1: don't want to just sort of handwave anything that feels
Speaker 1: uncomfortable of saying like well, I'm not the kind of
Speaker 1: person who does that or that's not me. I finally
Speaker 1: was able to put it into words after months of
Speaker 1: trying of like fussing with the with the language. It
Speaker 1: is that you want to accept yourself and expect more
Speaker 1: from yourself. And you know, sometimes people will say to
Speaker 1: me like, well, how do you know, Like what is
Speaker 1: that line? And like everyone has to decide that for themselves,
Speaker 1: because it's different for everyone, and only only I can
Speaker 1: know what is when I'm accepting myself and when I'm
Speaker 1: expecting more from myself, and that would be very different
Speaker 1: from someone else. But there are a lot of these
Speaker 1: tensions within happiness. It's again sort of like do you
Speaker 1: think about the present or do you think about the future. Well,
Speaker 1: some people are sort of like, well, just think about
Speaker 1: the present, it's all we have. It's like, yeah, but
Speaker 1: a life where you only think about the present is
Speaker 1: not a very good life.
Speaker 4: I mean, I took that to its furthest extent with
Speaker 4: my heroin addiction. Right, that was exactly the whole game, right,
Speaker 4: It's all about right this very second, And yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: taken too far, that is ruinous.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: And then on the other hand, you don't want to
Speaker 1: be too focus on the future because you know the
Speaker 1: future may never come and you may be able to
Speaker 1: predict the future, and you know you want to enjoy
Speaker 1: the process and all we do have is now. So
Speaker 1: there are these tensions that I think are sort of
Speaker 1: the great challenge of our lives, which is to navigate
Speaker 1: our way through for ourselves.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think back to what we talked about earlier,
Speaker 4: and you talk about so often this idea of self knowledge.
Speaker 4: You know and knowing more is it doesn't always provide
Speaker 4: the answer, but it is helpful for me to kind
Speaker 4: of know. Oh yeah, I tend to be very oriented
Speaker 4: towards the future versus the present moment, right or I
Speaker 4: tend to just accept myself and not really push myself
Speaker 4: as much as I need to versus someone else who
Speaker 4: might be Like you know, my tendency is to be
Speaker 4: too much on the expecting things from myself. So if
Speaker 4: I at least know where I naturally go. It's not
Speaker 4: always that black and white. I remember from Carol Dweck's
Speaker 4: research on the growth mindset. You could have a growth
Speaker 4: mindset in one area of your life and not the other.
Speaker 4: So it's not like this advice always applies across the board.
Speaker 4: But knowing where our tendencies are can be helpful in
Speaker 4: the first step of that discernment.
Speaker 5: Right, Yes, No, I think that's really true. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The more we know ourselves, the more we can shape
Speaker 1: our lives to help us to be happier.
Speaker 4: You know, one of the things I'm fascinated by in
Speaker 4: your work is continuing to find new ways to know yourself. Hmmmm.
Speaker 1: Yes, I am always looking for to know myself, absolutely
Speaker 1: that's true.
Speaker 5: That is true.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, So just before we end, do you want
Speaker 4: to give us what your current favorite sense experiment is?
Speaker 4: Can you pick one out of your big list, like
Speaker 4: or the next one that you plan to do, or
Speaker 4: just leave us with one very simple experiment.
Speaker 1: Well, a very very simple one is light a match,
Speaker 1: and like, people love to light matches and know I
Speaker 1: know why because it's so censory. It's like you touch it,
Speaker 1: you see it, you smell it, you hear it.
Speaker 5: Just so satisfying.
Speaker 1: So that's an easy one, I would say hard. One
Speaker 1: that I really loved was visiting the met every day.
Speaker 1: And people might be like, well, you know, no to
Speaker 1: self live within walking us into the Met. But I've
Speaker 1: talked to many people who have done this with a
Speaker 1: park with a high I talk to a guy who
Speaker 1: goes to the drug store every day, Like, there's just
Speaker 1: something I'm very interested in, the power of repetition and
Speaker 1: familiarity and watching things change.
Speaker 5: Very slowly over time.
Speaker 1: I thought that was very idiosyncratic, but it's turned out
Speaker 1: that a lot of people are drawn to that. And
Speaker 1: so if that sounds like the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: would be interesting to you, you might really think about
Speaker 1: the same thing about taking a photo every day.
Speaker 5: I think a lot of people do that.
Speaker 1: When you do something every single day, it has a
Speaker 1: special power. You will experience it with all your five
Speaker 1: senses or you can so I love doing something every day.
Speaker 4: Awesome. Well, I think that is a great place to
Speaker 4: wrap up. Thank you so much for coming on, Gretchen.
Speaker 4: It's always a pleasure to talk to you. The book
Speaker 4: is called Life in Five Senses. How exploring the senses
Speaker 4: got me out of my head and into the world.
Speaker 4: And it was a fun book. And this was a
Speaker 4: fun conversation.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Thank you. I so enjoyed it.
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