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(soft music)

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Welcome to "Hadley Presents."

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I'm your host, Ricky Enger, inviting you to sit back, relax,

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and enjoy a conversation with the experts.

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In this episode,

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New York Times bestselling author, Gretchen Rubin, joins us

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to discuss bringing attention to our senses

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in order to deepen our experience of the world.

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Welcome to the show, Gretchen.

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Fantastic to have you.

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Thank you.

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I'm so happy to be talking to you today.

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I am really excited.

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You are a writer, you're a podcaster,

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and you've actually been an answer

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on the "Jeopardy!" game show,

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which to me is like the highest accolade ever.

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Oh, me too.

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Believe me, that was quite a day when that happened.

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So, before we get into talking about the subject

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that you're writing about lately,

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why don't you just give us a brief intro,

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kind of an overview about the kinds of things

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that you like to write and speak about?

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Yes.

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For more than a decade, I've been writing and researching,

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and, as you say, podcasting on my podcast,

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"Happier with Gretchen Rubin",

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engaging with people really about the subject of happiness

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and human nature.

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So I'm interested in why do we do what we do?

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How can we change if we want to change?

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Why do we frustrate ourselves sometimes,

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or puzzle ourselves?

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Or why do other people frustrate us or puzzle us?

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So I'm always trying to understand a human nature

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and really how we can have as much happiness as we can,

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given our circumstances and our nature.

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I started with my book, "The Happiness Project",

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and the subject is so fascinating that I've just gone deeper

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and deeper and deeper ever since.

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What led you then to start thinking about

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the senses,

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which is I understand you're kind of really into that lately

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and you're writing a book about that.

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So how did you come on that and decide to do that?

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I was having an experience,

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and I think it's not uncommon of having a feeling

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of sort of being both absent-minded and absent-bodied.

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I would go through an experience

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and feel like I hardly remembered what happened.

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You know, I would eat food without remembering it.

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I was like hyperstimulated

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with everything being very, very intense

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and processed and heightened,

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but at the same time, kinda feeling thin.

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And this, I became interested in the five senses

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before the pandemic period,

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but, of course, that also kind of shined a spotlight

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on things in ways that I hadn't predicted.

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Like the way I have always been very like a huge fan

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of the sense of smell.

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Like I love the sense of smell,

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but for many people they sort of took it for granted.

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And oh, boy, when that became a symptom of COVID,

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people realized, I talked to so many people

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who had fortunately temporarily lost their senses of smell

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and like how that changed their understanding

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of their environment.

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So I became very interested in how to turn

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to the five senses for a greater sense of vitality,

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of appreciation for the ordinary moment,

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and also to engage with other people,

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because we often do engage

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with other people through our five senses.

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In fact, that was one thing that surprised me.

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I hadn't real...

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I mean, you know, like, oh, yeah,

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we all get together for a meal,

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but I hadn't realized what an opportunity there is

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to think about, well, how could I take a particular sense

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and organize an experience around it

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that would help me draw closer to others

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For our audience

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and it's primarily people who are losing their vision

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or who have lost vision,

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one thing that happens a lot when somebody hears,

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oh, you're losing your vision or you lost your vision,

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there's this immediate sense of everything

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is so much better now for your other senses.

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Like you could hear a rabbit breathing

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from six miles away or whatever.

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And it's almost this expectation

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that the other senses become super human.

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And I'm just curious, has there been research

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or like any hypotheses about what really does happen?

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Well, it seems to be very much the case

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that the brain does start to rewire

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and it will start to use parts of the brain differently.

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If one sense is not processing information

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and that sort of brain power isn't needed,

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it will use that, the circuitry will start to change

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to try to make use of that kinda that resource.

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But this idea that you get super human abilities, you know,

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like the rabbit breathing six miles away.

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Now, that doesn't happen.

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But it is very true that people start to focus on it more

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and to recruit those senses

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maybe in a way that others do not need to.

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So for instance, people who have vision loss

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may become more aware of how sound bounces off of surfaces

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in order to help them be aware

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that maybe there's something blocking their path.

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This is something that cited people could perhaps do,

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but they don't draw upon that ability.

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Yeah, and I think that's an

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interesting theme, right,

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is that we could all do it,

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but we don't necessarily pay attention to what we could do.

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Absolutely.

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And I think you've put your finger right on it.

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It's that these capacities are, you know, within our reach,

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and I certainly felt this to be the case for myself,

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but I sort of didn't bother to try to tap into them

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or to try to explore their reaches or to see what I could do

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or even to just enjoy them kind of on the ordinary course

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of life, because I just was, you know, not paying attention.

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So I think you're exactly right

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that there's a lot more sensation

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that we can experience once we start paying attention

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to what our senses could offer us.

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So how would somebody go about doing that then?

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So if we understand that, okay,

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we would experience things so much differently

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and maybe so much in a more rich way if we paid attention

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to the census, how then do we go about actually doing that?

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'Cause I don't know that it comes naturally.

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That's a really interesting question.

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Of course, that was like sort of central to my book.

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And there were a couple things that I found.

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One is just turning your attention to it

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and really trying to say to yourselves,

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I really wanna pay attention to the things that I hear.

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And sometimes the one way to do that

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is just to sort of stop periodically

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and really say, well, what do I hear?

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One of the things that's fascinating about the brain

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is it's trying to help us by filtering out things

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that it thinks that we don't need to know

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or don't interest us.

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So for instance, I was doing a podcast interview

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in my apartment.

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I live in New York City.

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And all of a sudden, the interviewer said,

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"Okay, let's pause for a minute then."

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And I said, "Why?"

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And she said, "Don't you hear that?"

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And I said, "What?"

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And then all of a sudden,

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I heard that there was a loud siren

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going right past my door,

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and my brain had just filtered that out.

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I didn't need to hear that.

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And she said to me, "Oh, if you're in Los Angeles,

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people don't hear the helicopters."

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Because that's what they don't need to hear.

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So part of it is trying to train,

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or, you know, what am I hearing right now?

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What am I smelling right now?

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I'm walking outside of my house, what do I smell?

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I smell leaves.

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I smell dirt.

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You know, did somebody just walk by?

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And, you know, I live in New York City,

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so I smell cigarette smoke.

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Trash day,

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I know when it's Wednesday morning 'cause it's trash day.

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Another thing that I think is really interesting,

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and I'm sort of trying to figure out how idiosyncratic I am,

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is for me, I realized I had certain senses

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that I was very attuned to.

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Like I mentioned

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that I've always been very attuned to smell.

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I love smell.

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I like even bad smells.

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I'm very interested in even bad smells.

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I care a lot about smells.

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But then there were other things

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that I didn't pay as much attention to.

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I'm not a very hearing focused person.

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So there are people who, you know, spend hours and hours

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listening to music and they love it.

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And that really wasn't me.

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And so part of it was trying to bring more attention

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to my background senses to try to find ways.

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Once I realized that, I thought,

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well, what can I do to bring more pleasure

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and more attention to my sense of hearing?

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And I did get a lot more pleasure and attention

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once I started looking for ways to amplify that.

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And you think, oh, how do I not know myself, right?

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I just hang out with myself all day.

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I didn't realize how touch focused I was

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until I really started thinking about it.

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I began realizing, wow, I really care a lot

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about how things feel and I really am curious

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and I'm always kind of sneaking out my fingers

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to touch things.

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When I go to a museum, it's really hard for me

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to resist rubbing certain sculptures,

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'cause I'm like, oh, I just wanna feel that cool marble.

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I just, what does that feel like?

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And so I realized that I actually did love the sense

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of touch much more

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than I even had been consciously aware of.

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So I think sometimes by saying to yourself, like,

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how can I tap more into the things I love?

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And how can I find new ways to tap into things

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that I maybe I kind of ignore

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or don't pay as much attention to as I could

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and see if I could bring those more into the foreground?

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I love that.

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And especially the point about how we all have senses

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that we naturally pay more attention to

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just as part of our own personalities or what we're into.

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I had never thought either about sitting back

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and I know what my senses are,

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but do I really pay attention

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to how much I do certain things?

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Like I was sitting here kind of touching my sweater

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just as a matter, of course, and realized,

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oh, I'm doing that.

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Yes.

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Oh, but then I started talking to a friend of mine.

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I was like, "Well, how do you feel about silky?"

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He hates silky.

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How do you feel about being immersed in water?

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Doesn't like to be immersed in water.

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How does he feel about plushness?

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Loves plushy.

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He's like a thin robe is no robe at all.

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And we like got so into it, you know?

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But this is something that you don't think about

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to talk about.

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I'm not that interested in flavor and taste.

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And this is something

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that many people like really wanna talk about.

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And I mean, sure, I like something that tastes good,

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but when I think about people who are like super curious

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to go to a new restaurant or love new cuisines

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or new recipes or dying to try,

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like if they hear about an ingredient they've never tried,

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they're really curious.

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Or if they see a movie and people are eating food,

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they wanna eat it themselves,

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or, you know, they read a book and people are talking

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about, you know, something that they've never tried.

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They really wanna try it.

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Yeah, that doesn't really happen to me.

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And other people are like, are you kidding?

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I thought this was just like a basic part of human nature.

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I'm like, no, not so much for me.

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00:10:06.450 --> 00:10:09.510
So we all use our senses

264
00:10:09.510 --> 00:10:12.570
just as we communicate with each other.

265
00:10:12.570 --> 00:10:14.310
One thing that can happen though

266
00:10:14.310 --> 00:10:17.880
is people are losing their vision.

267
00:10:17.880 --> 00:10:19.470
Let's say, they're really accustomed

268
00:10:19.470 --> 00:10:22.170
to looking at the facial expressions

269
00:10:22.170 --> 00:10:26.040
or these really subtle bits of body language,

270
00:10:26.040 --> 00:10:28.080
and suddenly those things are gone.

271
00:10:28.080 --> 00:10:32.490
They can feel like, oh, I am missing so many social cues.

272
00:10:32.490 --> 00:10:35.040
You know, that can be overwhelming

273
00:10:35.040 --> 00:10:36.330
and kind of nerve wracking.

274
00:10:36.330 --> 00:10:40.590
But, I guess, we don't just communicate non-verbally, right?

275
00:10:40.590 --> 00:10:42.390
So what are some other things

276
00:10:42.390 --> 00:10:44.490
that people can pay attention to

277
00:10:44.490 --> 00:10:46.860
to feel those connections still,

278
00:10:46.860 --> 00:10:51.090
even without the facial expressions and body language?

279
00:10:51.090 --> 00:10:51.923
Well, that's true.

280
00:10:51.923 --> 00:10:52.950
That is a big loss

281
00:10:52.950 --> 00:10:54.930
because the face is kind of a user interface

282
00:10:54.930 --> 00:10:56.700
and we do gaze into people's faces

283
00:10:56.700 --> 00:10:59.850
to try to like even things like what are they looking at?

284
00:10:59.850 --> 00:11:00.810
You know, a lot of times

285
00:11:00.810 --> 00:11:02.190
if you know what someone's looking at

286
00:11:02.190 --> 00:11:04.020
that tells you what they're interested in,

287
00:11:04.020 --> 00:11:06.000
it can kind of give you an insight into their thoughts.

288
00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:08.430
And so, of course, it is a real challenge

289
00:11:08.430 --> 00:11:10.290
not to have those cues available to you.

290
00:11:10.290 --> 00:11:13.410
Now, fortunately, people's voices also contain a huge amount

291
00:11:13.410 --> 00:11:16.470
of information, much more often than we're aware of.

292
00:11:16.470 --> 00:11:19.710
Like even with strangers or even with just a few words,

293
00:11:19.710 --> 00:11:21.390
we can get really good insight into someone,

294
00:11:21.390 --> 00:11:24.150
whether someone's sick, whether they're drunk,

295
00:11:24.150 --> 00:11:25.710
how educated they are.

296
00:11:25.710 --> 00:11:27.570
You know, sometimes with regional accents,

297
00:11:27.570 --> 00:11:29.460
you can tell where they're coming from.

298
00:11:29.460 --> 00:11:32.340
There's a lot of information that can come from that.

299
00:11:32.340 --> 00:11:35.070
And also just with intonation, you know,

300
00:11:35.070 --> 00:11:36.750
how quickly people are speaking,

301
00:11:36.750 --> 00:11:38.880
how dramatically they're speaking.

302
00:11:38.880 --> 00:11:42.930
My mother was saying when she was watching TV

303
00:11:42.930 --> 00:11:46.290
and it was a foreign television show,

304
00:11:46.290 --> 00:11:48.660
and so she couldn't understand what they were saying,

305
00:11:48.660 --> 00:11:50.070
so she had the subtitles on.

306
00:11:50.070 --> 00:11:51.360
But she said that the funny thing was

307
00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:53.640
is that she had to adjust the volume

308
00:11:53.640 --> 00:11:56.160
just as if she were listening to their voices,

309
00:11:56.160 --> 00:11:57.330
because she said like,

310
00:11:57.330 --> 00:11:59.880
if she couldn't hear what they were saying,

311
00:11:59.880 --> 00:12:02.400
just knowing the words that they were saying

312
00:12:02.400 --> 00:12:03.720
didn't give her any insight

313
00:12:03.720 --> 00:12:05.850
into what was actually happening.

314
00:12:05.850 --> 00:12:08.730
So if you read a book, it's sort of like he whispered,

315
00:12:08.730 --> 00:12:11.130
she said angrily, like, you have all these cues.

316
00:12:11.130 --> 00:12:12.510
But if you just see the words on the page,

317
00:12:12.510 --> 00:12:13.920
even if you see the people's faces

318
00:12:13.920 --> 00:12:16.770
and their body movements, are they laughing?

319
00:12:16.770 --> 00:12:17.850
Are they joking?

320
00:12:17.850 --> 00:12:19.140
Are they angry?

321
00:12:19.140 --> 00:12:20.850
Is there tension?

322
00:12:20.850 --> 00:12:23.220
You really don't know unless you hear their voices.

323
00:12:23.220 --> 00:12:25.590
Even if that information,

324
00:12:25.590 --> 00:12:28.080
the language doesn't have meaning to you,

325
00:12:28.080 --> 00:12:30.660
the human connection part of it, you can tap into.

326
00:12:30.660 --> 00:12:33.090
And so hearing what people are saying

327
00:12:33.090 --> 00:12:35.700
does convey a lot of information

328
00:12:35.700 --> 00:12:38.790
that can help you make sense of their thoughts

329
00:12:38.790 --> 00:12:41.130
and their intentions and give a lot of clues

330
00:12:41.130 --> 00:12:44.790
even beyond the content of what their actual words hold.

331
00:12:44.790 --> 00:12:46.890
One thing I've noticed you and I have in common

332
00:12:46.890 --> 00:12:50.010
is that we're both smell oriented and-

333
00:12:50.010 --> 00:12:51.690
Oh, good, you're smell oriented too.

334
00:12:51.690 --> 00:12:52.523
Okay.

335
00:12:52.523 --> 00:12:53.880
Yes, very much so.

336
00:12:53.880 --> 00:12:55.290
Like, I was thinking about this,

337
00:12:55.290 --> 00:12:57.000
I read one of your blog posts and I was like,

338
00:12:57.000 --> 00:12:58.650
oh, that is so true.

339
00:12:58.650 --> 00:13:00.390
You know, I could walk into a room

340
00:13:00.390 --> 00:13:03.480
and smell like Ralph Lauren Polo and go,

341
00:13:03.480 --> 00:13:07.170
oh, it smells like 1990, and suddenly be transported back

342
00:13:07.170 --> 00:13:10.140
into this period of my life.

343
00:13:10.140 --> 00:13:12.210
Can you talk a little about,

344
00:13:12.210 --> 00:13:15.570
and maybe it's not just smell, maybe other senses too,

345
00:13:15.570 --> 00:13:20.570
how are they responsible for triggering memory?

346
00:13:21.690 --> 00:13:22.523
Well, this is one of the most

347
00:13:22.523 --> 00:13:24.060
fascinating aspects

348
00:13:24.060 --> 00:13:27.540
of the senses is how they do tie us to the people,

349
00:13:27.540 --> 00:13:30.270
the places and the times that we love.

350
00:13:30.270 --> 00:13:31.890
And claims are often made for smell

351
00:13:31.890 --> 00:13:35.460
that smells the most intense or creates the most emotion.

352
00:13:35.460 --> 00:13:37.620
And I have to say that I'm a little dubious of that.

353
00:13:37.620 --> 00:13:39.630
Like not that I would diminish smell,

354
00:13:39.630 --> 00:13:42.420
which I think is very powerful in invoking memories,

355
00:13:42.420 --> 00:13:45.360
but I think that the other senses also can invoke memories.

356
00:13:45.360 --> 00:13:49.200
So like if I said, if I smelled my kindergarten classroom

357
00:13:49.200 --> 00:13:52.710
or I ate what I ate for lunch in kindergarten,

358
00:13:52.710 --> 00:13:55.290
I think they would both invoke a lot of memories for me.

359
00:13:55.290 --> 00:13:58.440
I think all the senses have this power to evoke memories.

360
00:13:58.440 --> 00:14:03.440
And it is really fun to kind of systematically ask yourself,

361
00:14:03.660 --> 00:14:07.560
you know, how you can tap into memories,

362
00:14:07.560 --> 00:14:10.320
sensory memories to conjure up a lost time.

363
00:14:10.320 --> 00:14:11.790
So for instance, one thing that I did

364
00:14:11.790 --> 00:14:13.980
is I did a taste timeline.

365
00:14:13.980 --> 00:14:17.370
So I went back to my childhood, my daughter's childhood,

366
00:14:17.370 --> 00:14:20.460
my college days, law school,

367
00:14:20.460 --> 00:14:23.700
my first years of being married, and then kind of today,

368
00:14:23.700 --> 00:14:24.533
and thought about, well,

369
00:14:24.533 --> 00:14:27.030
what were the kind of typical things that I ate then,

370
00:14:27.030 --> 00:14:29.280
you know, that were sort of that period?

371
00:14:29.280 --> 00:14:30.750
And it was like when I was in law school,

372
00:14:30.750 --> 00:14:32.940
I drank Diet Peach Snapple all the time,

373
00:14:32.940 --> 00:14:34.590
'cause my law school cafeteria

374
00:14:34.590 --> 00:14:36.660
didn't have any sort of standard soft drinks.

375
00:14:36.660 --> 00:14:38.580
So that was my favorite.

376
00:14:38.580 --> 00:14:40.890
And boy, I went out and bought myself a bottle

377
00:14:40.890 --> 00:14:44.700
of Diet Peach Snapple, and it came back to me with a rush,

378
00:14:44.700 --> 00:14:47.310
just like that law school feeling.

379
00:14:47.310 --> 00:14:48.540
Or I called my sister,

380
00:14:48.540 --> 00:14:51.870
and this is how we can use census to engage our memories

381
00:14:51.870 --> 00:14:53.970
and then also to engage with other people.

382
00:14:53.970 --> 00:14:54.803
I called my sister

383
00:14:54.803 --> 00:14:57.630
'cause, of course, she goes back almost the whole way

384
00:14:57.630 --> 00:14:59.760
with me and I said, "What did we eat as kids?

385
00:14:59.760 --> 00:15:00.593
Do you remember?"

386
00:15:00.593 --> 00:15:01.426
And she's like, "Yeah, yeah.

387
00:15:01.426 --> 00:15:02.259
I remember how we used

388
00:15:02.259 --> 00:15:04.470
to always eat that like Colby Longhorn cheese

389
00:15:04.470 --> 00:15:05.520
that came in the wax?"

390
00:15:05.520 --> 00:15:06.780
I was like, "Oh, yeah."

391
00:15:06.780 --> 00:15:09.030
Or like, "We'd always get Cheez-Its on our..."

392
00:15:09.030 --> 00:15:10.410
We would go visit our grandparents

393
00:15:10.410 --> 00:15:11.340
in North Platte, Nebraska.

394
00:15:11.340 --> 00:15:13.050
And she said, "Remember how we always get Cheez-Its

395
00:15:13.050 --> 00:15:13.883
for the car?"

396
00:15:13.883 --> 00:15:16.530
I was like, "Oh, I forgot about the Cheez-Its

397
00:15:16.530 --> 00:15:18.420
on the car rides."

398
00:15:18.420 --> 00:15:21.930
I think you can try to paint a sense portrait of somebody.

399
00:15:21.930 --> 00:15:23.400
Like think about, well,

400
00:15:23.400 --> 00:15:25.560
like you and I both love the sense of touch,

401
00:15:25.560 --> 00:15:26.760
what senses of touch.

402
00:15:26.760 --> 00:15:29.370
Like with my husband, his hair is kind of very bristly

403
00:15:29.370 --> 00:15:33.090
on the top of his head, or the feeling of his back,

404
00:15:33.090 --> 00:15:34.890
you know, when he's asleep at night.

405
00:15:34.890 --> 00:15:38.310
You know, like paint a portrait of someone,

406
00:15:38.310 --> 00:15:40.110
what smells do you associate with somebody?

407
00:15:40.110 --> 00:15:41.250
I mean, their own smell,

408
00:15:41.250 --> 00:15:43.230
but then also like the smell of their shampoo

409
00:15:43.230 --> 00:15:46.530
or their toothpaste or their laundry detergent

410
00:15:46.530 --> 00:15:47.970
or, you know, your dog smell.

411
00:15:47.970 --> 00:15:49.260
You know, they have all kinds of smells.

412
00:15:49.260 --> 00:15:51.360
Some good, some not so good.

413
00:15:51.360 --> 00:15:54.240
So I think we really can use the five senses

414
00:15:54.240 --> 00:15:56.610
as a way to access memories

415
00:15:56.610 --> 00:15:58.560
that maybe we've forgotten that we remembered.

416
00:15:58.560 --> 00:16:00.390
You know, a lot of times there's a lot more there.

417
00:16:00.390 --> 00:16:04.650
We just don't go hunting for it in our memory banks.

418
00:16:04.650 --> 00:16:05.820
That's fascinating.

419
00:16:05.820 --> 00:16:10.020
And it maybe in part explains why people are so nostalgic

420
00:16:10.020 --> 00:16:13.890
about snacks or foods that are gone.

421
00:16:13.890 --> 00:16:14.723
Oh

422
00:16:14.723 --> 00:16:17.190
Yeah, well, there's this thing I saw where you can order,

423
00:16:17.190 --> 00:16:18.660
it's like nostalgic candy,

424
00:16:18.660 --> 00:16:21.510
and you can order like 1950s candy, 1960s candy,

425
00:16:21.510 --> 00:16:22.980
1970s candy.

426
00:16:22.980 --> 00:16:24.600
And you just see the labels.

427
00:16:24.600 --> 00:16:26.820
And so I was just looking up Cherry Mash.

428
00:16:26.820 --> 00:16:28.530
A friend of mine was saying how he liked Cherry Mash,

429
00:16:28.530 --> 00:16:30.360
was very old-fashioned candy.

430
00:16:30.360 --> 00:16:32.002
And just seeing a picture of it,

431
00:16:32.002 --> 00:16:33.060
I mean, I wasn't even tasting it,

432
00:16:33.060 --> 00:16:34.920
I was just seeing a picture of the packaging

433
00:16:34.920 --> 00:16:37.530
and I was like filled with nostalgia

434
00:16:37.530 --> 00:16:39.660
for being in the grocery store when I was little

435
00:16:39.660 --> 00:16:41.850
and seeing it, you know, in the aisle.

436
00:16:41.850 --> 00:16:44.850
I think people do feel very nostalgic for the things

437
00:16:44.850 --> 00:16:46.890
that they ate at different times of their lives,

438
00:16:46.890 --> 00:16:49.230
or tasted or smelled or heard or thought.

439
00:16:49.230 --> 00:16:50.340
I mean, music.

440
00:16:50.340 --> 00:16:53.790
Think about the music of the music you listen to, you know,

441
00:16:53.790 --> 00:16:55.680
as a kid in the car, you know,

442
00:16:55.680 --> 00:16:58.050
or that your parents listened to.

443
00:16:58.050 --> 00:16:59.430
My father loved listening

444
00:16:59.430 --> 00:17:01.830
to the Mamas and the Papas and the Beach Boys.

445
00:17:01.830 --> 00:17:04.830
Whenever I hear that music, I'm taken back to my childhood

446
00:17:04.830 --> 00:17:07.110
just the way certain kinds of music takes me back

447
00:17:07.110 --> 00:17:07.943
to college.

448
00:17:07.943 --> 00:17:09.480
Or children's music takes me back

449
00:17:09.480 --> 00:17:10.680
to when my kids were really little

450
00:17:10.680 --> 00:17:13.830
and I was, you know, listening to The Wiggles or whatever.

451
00:17:13.830 --> 00:17:15.360
Yeah, I think there's so much

452
00:17:15.360 --> 00:17:18.270
that we don't think about consciously,

453
00:17:18.270 --> 00:17:21.870
but then as we're talking about it, it's this, oh, yeah,

454
00:17:21.870 --> 00:17:26.870
well, of course, it seems like a thing that, well,

455
00:17:26.880 --> 00:17:30.090
why haven't I been paying attention to that before?

456
00:17:30.090 --> 00:17:33.900
And it's not maybe so difficult to then sit back

457
00:17:33.900 --> 00:17:37.740
and think about how can I bring more attention

458
00:17:37.740 --> 00:17:41.490
to what my senses are telling me.

459
00:17:41.490 --> 00:17:43.680
So as we're kind of wrapping up,

460
00:17:43.680 --> 00:17:44.940
you've done a lot of research.

461
00:17:44.940 --> 00:17:46.650
I know your book is not out yet,

462
00:17:46.650 --> 00:17:49.110
so you can't necessarily give spoiler alerts.

463
00:17:49.110 --> 00:17:52.080
What the most surprising thing

464
00:17:52.080 --> 00:17:53.760
that you discovered in your research?

465
00:17:53.760 --> 00:17:55.500
What just kind blew you away,

466
00:17:55.500 --> 00:17:57.570
like, I never thought about that?

467
00:17:57.570 --> 00:17:58.403
Well, just so many facts about the body

468
00:17:58.403 --> 00:17:59.236
for one thing.

469
00:18:00.810 --> 00:18:02.490
I mean, the body is so extraordinary.

470
00:18:02.490 --> 00:18:04.950
Of course, we all know, oh, the body is so amazing.

471
00:18:04.950 --> 00:18:07.620
But I was like, wow, the body is so amazing.

472
00:18:07.620 --> 00:18:10.860
It is extraordinary, the powers of our bodies.

473
00:18:10.860 --> 00:18:12.450
But I think the thing that surprised me most

474
00:18:12.450 --> 00:18:16.710
really was this way that I could tap into the five senses

475
00:18:16.710 --> 00:18:18.240
to really engage with other people,

476
00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:20.160
because when I started this, I really thought about it

477
00:18:20.160 --> 00:18:23.310
as me being my own body, moving through the world

478
00:18:23.310 --> 00:18:25.890
and wanting to engage with the world more deeply.

479
00:18:25.890 --> 00:18:28.560
What I found is that it actually ended up making me engage

480
00:18:28.560 --> 00:18:30.540
with other people more deeply.

481
00:18:30.540 --> 00:18:33.450
I did this thing just the other night with some friends.

482
00:18:33.450 --> 00:18:35.500
I had two couples over, my husband and I,

483
00:18:36.602 --> 00:18:38.100
'cause I had gone to Flavor University

484
00:18:38.100 --> 00:18:39.330
and they would give us samples,

485
00:18:39.330 --> 00:18:41.010
like here, three kinds of chips,

486
00:18:41.010 --> 00:18:42.420
let's taste them and compare them.

487
00:18:42.420 --> 00:18:46.260
We're like, here's skim milk, 2% milk, whole milk and cream,

488
00:18:46.260 --> 00:18:47.310
and oat milk.

489
00:18:47.310 --> 00:18:49.530
Let's compare and contrast.

490
00:18:49.530 --> 00:18:51.060
Everybody had such a fun time,

491
00:18:51.060 --> 00:18:53.760
like we were laughing and talking and reminiscing,

492
00:18:53.760 --> 00:18:56.100
and it brought up a whole different way

493
00:18:56.100 --> 00:18:57.390
for us to engage with each other.

494
00:18:57.390 --> 00:18:58.890
I felt like I got to know people

495
00:18:58.890 --> 00:19:00.630
in a completely different way,

496
00:19:00.630 --> 00:19:02.700
even though these were friends that I'd had for years.

497
00:19:02.700 --> 00:19:05.550
It's just like it got us talking about something

498
00:19:05.550 --> 00:19:07.620
in a very different way.

499
00:19:07.620 --> 00:19:09.510
And it was very fun in low stakes.

500
00:19:09.510 --> 00:19:10.590
It wasn't like, oh,

501
00:19:10.590 --> 00:19:12.930
now, we're gonna play competitive Trivial Pursuit,

502
00:19:12.930 --> 00:19:14.490
or something like this was just like,

503
00:19:14.490 --> 00:19:15.840
what do you think of this potato chip?

504
00:19:15.840 --> 00:19:18.150
And it's like, I think this is a pretty good chip.

505
00:19:18.150 --> 00:19:19.980
And some people will be like, I think this is too salty.

506
00:19:19.980 --> 00:19:23.070
But for some reason, this is fascinating, right?

507
00:19:23.070 --> 00:19:24.420
Or like, I stunned everybody.

508
00:19:24.420 --> 00:19:26.430
I was like, what is this mysterious liquid?

509
00:19:26.430 --> 00:19:28.590
And everybody's like, what is this?

510
00:19:28.590 --> 00:19:29.610
It's Red Bull.

511
00:19:29.610 --> 00:19:31.290
A lot of people had never tried Red Bull,

512
00:19:31.290 --> 00:19:33.540
which, of course, is a hugely popular beverage,

513
00:19:33.540 --> 00:19:36.420
but it was like, so this is what Red Bull tastes like.

514
00:19:36.420 --> 00:19:38.070
I did not know that.

515
00:19:38.070 --> 00:19:39.690
I gave them all a taste of ketchup

516
00:19:39.690 --> 00:19:42.240
'cause ketchup has all five tastes,

517
00:19:42.240 --> 00:19:45.180
sweet, salty, sour, umami, and bitter.

518
00:19:45.180 --> 00:19:46.380
Yeah, it's got a little bit of everything.

519
00:19:46.380 --> 00:19:48.570
And people were like, this is amazing.

520
00:19:48.570 --> 00:19:51.331
Like, there's a reason everybody loves ketchup.

521
00:19:51.331 --> 00:19:54.120
They were like, "It's so complex."

522
00:19:54.120 --> 00:19:57.090
I was just very surprised that something as simple

523
00:19:57.090 --> 00:19:59.580
as sitting around talking about catch up

524
00:19:59.580 --> 00:20:03.060
could be this actually feel like a really meaningful way

525
00:20:03.060 --> 00:20:04.950
to engage with people.

526
00:20:04.950 --> 00:20:06.330
But something that was a little different,

527
00:20:06.330 --> 00:20:09.690
you know, a little bit unexpected, a little bit surprising.

528
00:20:09.690 --> 00:20:11.460
I just had foreseen that at all

529
00:20:11.460 --> 00:20:14.010
when I was looking ahead to writing the book.

530
00:20:14.010 --> 00:20:16.770
I didn't imagine myself doing anything like that.

531
00:20:16.770 --> 00:20:19.050
So it's sort of been interesting that over the course

532
00:20:19.050 --> 00:20:22.350
of the research, I've been more and more drawn

533
00:20:22.350 --> 00:20:26.700
into those kinds of exercises and seeing the value

534
00:20:26.700 --> 00:20:30.570
in that kind of thing in terms of enriching our lives.

535
00:20:30.570 --> 00:20:31.560
That is so cool.

536
00:20:31.560 --> 00:20:33.870
Our senses as just this amazing way

537
00:20:33.870 --> 00:20:35.370
to bring us all together.

538
00:20:35.370 --> 00:20:36.630
I love it.

539
00:20:36.630 --> 00:20:40.200
So as people are listening to this and saying,

540
00:20:40.200 --> 00:20:42.840
where can I learn more about what Gretchen does?

541
00:20:42.840 --> 00:20:44.880
I wanna read all the blog posts, all the books,

542
00:20:44.880 --> 00:20:46.380
and listen to everything.

543
00:20:46.380 --> 00:20:49.440
Where can people go to find out what's going on with you

544
00:20:49.440 --> 00:20:52.290
and what you have done and what you will be doing?

545
00:20:52.290 --> 00:20:54.000
Well, as you mentioned, I have a podcast

546
00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:55.410
called "Happier with Gretchen Rubin",

547
00:20:55.410 --> 00:20:58.350
where every week I talk about, you know, kind of concrete,

548
00:20:58.350 --> 00:21:00.480
manageable ideas about how to be happier, healthier,

549
00:21:00.480 --> 00:21:02.280
more productive, and more creative.

550
00:21:02.280 --> 00:21:03.960
I also have written many books,

551
00:21:03.960 --> 00:21:06.900
which are available in print and in audio.

552
00:21:06.900 --> 00:21:09.240
Almost all my book, I think, except for maybe my first book,

553
00:21:09.240 --> 00:21:10.350
they're all available in audio.

554
00:21:10.350 --> 00:21:13.260
And except for one, I narrated them all myself.

555
00:21:13.260 --> 00:21:16.140
And then I'm online at gretchenrubin.com

556
00:21:16.140 --> 00:21:17.460
and that's sort of a clearing house

557
00:21:17.460 --> 00:21:19.140
for everything that I've got.

558
00:21:19.140 --> 00:21:22.650
I've got a lot of stuff but it's all gathered there.

559
00:21:22.650 --> 00:21:23.483
Excellent.

560
00:21:23.483 --> 00:21:25.020
And we'll have that in our show notes.

561
00:21:25.020 --> 00:21:26.730
And Gretchen, I wanna thank you.

562
00:21:26.730 --> 00:21:30.030
This has been so much fun just chatting about our senses

563
00:21:30.030 --> 00:21:32.790
and really how much more they give to us

564
00:21:32.790 --> 00:21:34.080
than we think about.

565
00:21:34.080 --> 00:21:35.100
Absolutely.

566
00:21:35.100 --> 00:21:36.780
Oh, I so enjoyed talking to you.

567
00:21:36.780 --> 00:21:37.876
Thanks so much.

568
00:21:37.876 --> 00:21:38.910
(bright music)

569
00:21:38.910 --> 00:21:40.440
Got something to say?

570
00:21:40.440 --> 00:21:43.530
Share your thoughts about this episode of "Hadley Presents",

571
00:21:43.530 --> 00:21:46.110
or make suggestions for future episodes.

572
00:21:46.110 --> 00:21:47.760
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573
00:21:47.760 --> 00:21:52.020
Send us an email at podcast@hadley.edu.

574
00:21:52.020 --> 00:21:57.020
That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T @hadley.edu.

575
00:21:57.300 --> 00:22:00.277
Or leave us a message at 847-784-2870.

576
00:22:03.690 --> 00:22:04.879
Thanks for listening.

577
00:22:04.879 --> 00:22:07.879
(bright music ends)