Life in Five Senses
Bonus Video Series
As a way to say “thank you” for pre-ordering my forthcoming book, Life in Five Senses, you now have access to this video series featuring five mini experiments to explore your senses.
You can do these experiments in any order you’d like. You can also download and print the Reflection Sheet at the bottom of this page to record your experiences.
Explore your sense of sight
Try This at Home experiment: Turn your smartphone to grayscale; sometimes, we enjoy something more when we enjoy it less.
What you’ll need:
- Your smartphone
- Optional: Reflection Sheet
Explore your sense of hearing
Try This at Home experiment: Add beautiful sounds and clear clatter.
What you’ll need:
- Your smartphone
- Optional: Reflection Sheet
Explore your sense of smell
Try This at Home experiment: Test your sense of smell by plugging nose.
What you’ll need:
- Something with a strong smell
- Something with a strong taste
- Optional: Reflection Sheet
Explore your sense of taste
Try This at Home experiment: Taste a few drops of Heinz ketchup. Can you detect sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami?
What you’ll need:
- Heinz ketchup
- A cup of coffee
- Optional: Reflection Sheet
Explore your sense of touch
Try This at Home experiment: Have fun with cornstarch—squeak it between your fingers, make into a non-Newtonian fluid.
What you’ll need:
- Cornstarch
- Optional: Reflection Sheet
Resources
Explore your five senses with the Happier™ app
Happier™ is a revolutionary tool that offers concrete, actionable steps to help you build a happier life. Get personalized habit-change strategies along with fun daily challenges and ideas to get in touch with your senses.
Dive Deeper
Essential reading on the five senses
- Exploring the 5 Senses: Notes From the Sensonics Smell Test
- Exploring the 5 Senses: A Taste Experiment With Apple & Onion
- Do You Have "Foreground" Senses and "Background" Senses?
- To Research the 5 Senses, I Visited the “Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit”
- I Embrace Anything That Helps Me to Experience the World More Deeply.
- Have You Experienced Changes to Your Sense of Smell?
Essential listening on the five senses
- A Little Happier: I Am Traffic, I Am Nature
- More Happier: An Airport Epiphany, a Mystery Solved, and the Happiness of More Storage
- Podcast 273: Get Grounded in Your Body Through Your Senses, an Idea for a Quick, Inexpensive Gift, and a Conversation about Tough Times with Kate Bowler
- 387: Create a Five-Senses Portrait, Protect Bicyclists, and Ideas for Designing Your Summer
- 398: Rest Your Senses, Give People Time to Themselves, and Find Tranquility by Tuesday
- 404: Holiday Gift Guide, Save Time in a Long Line, and Temple Grandin Talks About “Visual Thinking”