Life in Five Senses
How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World
On Sale April 18, 2023
The #1 New York Times bestselling 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.
The #1 New York Times bestselling 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.
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 rediscovered 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 Flavor University, Rubin show us how to experience each day with depth, delight, and connection. In the rush of daily life, she finds, our five senses offer us an immediate, sustainable way to cheer up, calm down, and engage the world around us—as well as a way 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.
Get bonus content when you pre-order
As a bonus for pre-ordering Life in Five Senses, Gretchen Rubin created an exclusive five-video series with quick, easy experiments you can use to explore your own senses. Click below to fill out a form with your pre-order details, and you’ll receive an email with instructions to access the video series and more bonus content.
REVIEWS & BUZZ
“Gretchen Rubin always helps us to 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)!”
“What a wonderful wakeup 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 electronic version instead of the hardcover. I missed the chance to feel the paper, hear the sound of the pages flipping.”
– A.J. Jacobs, Author of The Year of Living Biblically
“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.
“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 body. Rubin’s Life in Five Senses—woven with compelling story, research, and practice—invites us into that seismic shift to a life grounded in sensation, vitality, and innate intelligence.”