Life in Five Senses

How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World

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April 18, 2023 | ISBN 9780593740842

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About the Book

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Happiness Project discovers a surprising path to a life of more energy, creativity, luck, and love: by tuning in to the five senses.

Life in Five Senses invites us into the seismic shift toward a life grounded in sensation, vitality, and innate intelligence.”—GLENNON DOYLE, author of Untamed

 
“An inspiring and practical guide to living in the moment.”—SUSAN CAIN, author of Bittersweet and Quiet

For more than a decade, Gretchen Rubin had been studying happiness and human nature. Then, one day, a visit to her eye doctor made her realize that she’d been overlooking a key element of happiness: her five senses. She’d spent so much time stuck in her head that she’d allowed the vital sensations of life to slip away, unnoticed. This epiphany lifted her from a state of foggy preoccupation into a world invigorated by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.

In this journey of self-experimentation, Rubin explores the mysteries and joys of the five senses as a path to a happier, more mindful life. Drawing on cutting-edge science, philosophy, literature, and her own efforts to practice what she learns, she investigates the profound power of tuning in to the physical world.

From the simple pleasures of appreciating the magic of ketchup and adding favorite songs to a playlist, to more adventurous efforts like creating a daily ritual of visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art and attending a flavor university, Rubin shows us how to experience each day with depth, delight, and connection. In the rush of daily life, she finds, our five senses offer us immediate, sustainable ways to cheer up, calm down, and engage the world around us—as well as ways to glimpse the soul and touch the transcendent.

Life in Five Senses is an absorbing, layered story of discovery filled with profound insights and practical suggestions about how to heighten our senses and use our powers of perception to live fuller, richer lives—and, ultimately, how to move through the world with more vitality and love.
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Praise for Life in Five Senses

“Right now, what the world needs most is people who have come to their senses—who have reunited with the power and wisdom of their bodies. Gretchen Rubin’s Life in Five Senses—woven with research, practice, and a compelling story—invites us into the seismic shift toward a life grounded in sensation, vitality, and innate intelligence.”—Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Untamed and founder of Together Rising
 
Life in Five Senses is a great opportunity to spend time in Gretchen Rubin’s inimitable company. But it’s also an inspiring and practical guide to living in the moment. Many books have tried to teach us the power of the present. But Rubin creates her own tools and forges her own path—one that readers will surely want to follow.”—Susan Cain, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Bittersweet and Quiet

“Gretchen Rubin always helps us notice the seemingly small but vitally important aspects of life that make us happier. In this fascinating exploration of our five senses, she shows us how paying closer attention to our daily experience of the exterior world can shift our interior worlds in remarkable ways. . . . A delightful treat, in every sense (pun intended)!”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

“What a wonderful wake-up call! Thanks to Gretchen Rubin, I’ve been noticing more, savoring more, tasting and smelling more—and it’s made my life far more interesting. My only regret is that I read the ebook of Life in Five Senses instead of the hardcover. I missed the chance to feel the paper, hear the sound of the pages flipping.”—A.J. Jacobs, New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically

“A charming journey through the science and experience of fully engaging your senses of smell, taste, touch, sight, and sound.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast Re:Thinking

“We see, but how often do we really see? We taste things, but how often do we really taste things? Life in Five Senses opens us up to the hidden beauty of the world by allowing us to see and feel in high definition. By using all our senses like we have used them before, we can feel a deeper connection with our own existence and resonate more deeply with the existence of others.”—Scott Barry Kaufman, author of Transcend and host of The Psychology Podcast
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Excerpt

Life in Five Senses

Seeing What Was Missing

A few years ago, an ordinary event shook up my life.

I made a trip to the eye doctor.

One wintry Thursday morning, my eyes felt gummy and sandy when I got out of bed, but I paid no attention to them until I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. I was startled to see that the whites of my eyes had turned an angry pink, and my lashes were clumped together: the distinctive signs of pink eye. I ignored my condition for as long as I could, but eventually I found myself in my eye doctor’s exam room, trying not to touch my face.

How many times had I sat in this chair and counted the certificates mounted against the light wood of the walls? To someone unfamiliar with bulky eye-exam equipment, the complicated shapes might look menacing, but I’d been facing off with those machines since third grade. I cried when I first learned that I needed glasses, but the minute I put them on and discovered that I could make out a bird on a branch and every face on the playground, I loved them.

Finally my doctor breezed in. He checked my (very pink) eyes, confirmed my amateur diagnosis, and prescribed some drops. As we said goodbye, he added casually, “Make sure you schedule a regular checkup soon. As you know, you’re more at risk for a detached retina.”

“Wait, what?” I asked, turning around. “Actually, no, I don’t know about that.”

“You’re extremely nearsighted, which makes it more likely that your retina will pull away from its normal position. It’s a serious problem that could damage your vision, so if it starts we want to catch it right away.” He spoke as cheerfully as if he were giving me a standard reminder to drink enough water or wear sunscreen.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “can you explain that again?” I flashed back to the fact that the nurse had referred to me as a “high myope” just before the doctor came in.

He repeated himself, and I listened with mounting alarm; I had a friend who had recently lost some of his sight due to a detached retina. I became so distracted by my anxiety that as the doctor talked I could hardly hear what he was saying. (I didn’t take notes, and I always take notes.) He finished by saying, “So I’ll see you at your next checkup, okay?”

“Okay, thanks,” I said, stunned, and continued out the door.

By the time I was outside, something in me had shifted. I felt frightened. My sight! Until this conversation, I had never given much thought to my sense of sight beyond making sure my contact-lens prescription was up-to-date.

As I headed home through the soft dusk, I realized that it had been a long time since I’d noticed the New York City streetscape that I loved. What if it dimmed or even vanished for me?

I turned a corner, and in an instant, all my senses seemed to sharpen. It was as if every knob in my brain had suddenly been dialed to its maximum setting of awareness. I gazed through my sticky eyes at the luminous gray sky above the buildings and at the frilly purple leaves of the ornamental kale in the tree boxes. I picked out every sound in the weekday city racket of sirens, jackhammers, horns, and shouts. I smelled a heady mixture of car exhaust, marijuana, and honey-roasted peanuts from a Nuts4Nuts cart.

Never before had I experienced the world with such intensity—it was extraordinary. As I continued through the streets, waves of exhilaration made me want to laugh out loud or say to a passing stranger, “Look at the trees! Aren’t they beautiful?” For too long, I realized, I’d been taking it all for granted—the colors, the sounds, the feel of everything around me.

My walk home took only twenty minutes, but those twenty minutes were transcendent. I kept thinking, “This experience is now, it’s here; and it’s also past, never to be repeated.”

In that time, I woke to a profound truth: I had my one body and its capacities right now, and I wouldn’t have them forever. In college, I’d read a cheap edition of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady on a top bunk with no proper reading light; now I had to enlarge my smartphone’s font to answer my emails. One day I might no longer hear my husband Jamie’s loud yawns, or see our dog, Barnaby, triumphantly race through the apartment with his beloved Abominable Snowman toy in his mouth. Already, our daughter Eliza was out of the apartment, and we had just a few years left with Eleanor under our roof.

I was a dutiful caretaker of my body—careful to get enough sleep, to exercise, to eat healthy food, to get my checkups and vaccines, to wear sunglasses and a seatbelt. But was I appreciating my body and its powers? Was I savoring each day of my life as it was unfolding? Was I paying attention to the people I loved?

As I pressed the keypad to let myself into our apartment building, I accepted the truth that, until now, I’d ignored: I was running out of time. Shadows had begun to slant eastward, over Central Park and over my life. I didn’t want to come to the end and think, “So many things happened to me. I wish I’d been paying attention.”

I came home to an empty apartment. Before long, I heard Jamie calling me from the front hallway, and I jumped up to greet him. “Hello!” I said, with a rush of love. “How was your day?” When I gave him a kiss, I noted the rough stubble on his cheek, and as we talked, I found myself gazing into his face with an intensity that let me register the green of his eyes and the gray in his dark hair as I hadn’t for a long time.

I waited for Eliza and Eleanor to return from dinner with their grandparents. When they walked through the door, they seemed taller than I remembered, as though I’d looked at them without really seeing them for months.

“Hello!” I said, as I gave each of them a long hug. “Hi,” they answered, with some surprise at my enthusiasm. As I pulled Eliza close, then Eleanor, I noted the scents of their different shampoos, one honey, one plum. When they were little, I’d been so physically engaged with my daughters, constantly carrying, bathing, feeding, rocking, and cuddling them. Now that they were older, I more often kept my distance. Too much time had passed since I’d held them tight.

I resolved to make a change.

My pink-eye infection cleared after a few days, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d experienced.

For years, I’d been studying human nature and reflecting on how we can build happier lives: the science of the soul. One of my most important realizations was that we can build a happy life only on the foundation of self-knowledge. The more my life reflected my own temperament, values, and interests, the happier I became, so I spent a lot of time trying to know myself better. Before starting this process of self-examination, I’d assumed, “How difficult can it be to know myself? I hang out with myself all day long!” But self-knowledge is hard.

To know myself better, I asked myself questions: “Whom do I envy?” “What do I lie about?” “What did I do for fun when I was ten years old?” “How do I put my values into action?” I also followed dozens of happiness-boosting resolutions: “Revive a dormant friendship,” “Follow the one-minute rule,” “Celebrate minor holidays,” and “Choose the bigger life.”

Despite all these efforts, over the past few years, I’d started to realize that I felt stuck in my head—disconnected from the world and other people, and also from myself. I traveled all the way from New York City to Los Angeles to see my sister Elizabeth, but when I got back, I realized I hadn’t once noticed her characteristic way of gesturing with her hands, and I had no idea if she was still wearing her signature circle necklace every day. Had I really looked at her at all?

I’d been trying to figure out what was missing from my life, and that unforgettable walk home from the eye doctor revealed the answer: I needed to connect with my five senses. I’d been treating my body like the car my brain was driving around town, but my body wasn’t some vehicle of my soul, to be overlooked when it wasn’t breaking down. My body—through my senses—was my essential connection to the world and to other people.

About the Author

Gretchen Rubin
Gretchen Rubin is one of today’s most influential observers of happiness and human nature. She’s the author of many books, including the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers Outer Order, Inner Calm; The Four Tendencies; Better Than Before; and The Happiness Project. Her books have sold more than 3.5 million copies worldwide, in more than thirty languages. She hosts the top-ranking, award-winning podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin, where she explores practical solutions for living a happier life. Raised in Kansas City, Rubin lives in New York City with her husband and two daughters. More by Gretchen Rubin
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