Happiness Break: Finding Presence Through Your Senses, with Dacher Keltner

Sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste: all of our five senses provide unique pathways to presence and happiness. We spend a few minutes being mindful of each one.

Link to episode transcript: https://tinyurl.com/be39r98y

How to Do This Practice:

Find a comfortable place where you feel safe. Close your eyes or soften your gaze. Take a few deep breths, noticing the sensation of the air as it moves through your nose, into your lungs, and back out again.

1. Sound: For a few breaths, pay attention to the sounds around you. Notice where they are in space.

2. Touch: Put one hand on top of the other. Notice the sensations you feel in your hand as your fingers’ knuckles touch the other, like temperature and texture.. Shift your attention to your cheeks, noticing temperature and the feel of the air.

3. Taste: Now, pay attention to the taste you are experiencing on your tongue. There may be no taste or the taste of saliva.

4. Smell: Move your focus to the smell around you as you take a breath. See how many odors you can identify.

5. **Sight: Finally, focus your gaze on a point eight inches in front of you for a few seconds and see what colors, forms, light, and shadow you notice there.

6. Take a few more deep breaths here and notice if any of your senses feel heightened.

More resources from The Greater Good Science Center:

• Listen to our Happiness Break on body scan meditation: https://tinyurl.com/bd6x8ba5

• How to Focus Under Pressure (podcast) https://tinyurl.com/mxpd6mtd

• Coming to Our Senses: https://tinyurl.com/3d4jkprr

• Hands-On Research: The Science of Touch: https://tinyurl.com/y79vpbre

• 10 Steps to Savoring the Good Things in Life: https://tinyurl.com/2zwb5y8v

We love hearing from you! Tell us about your experience with the five senses meditation. Email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

Find us on Apple Podcast: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

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We're living through a mental health crisis. Between the stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, burnout — we all could use a break to feel better. That's where Happiness Break comes in. In each biweekly podcast episode, instructors guide you through research-backed practices and meditations that you can do in real-time. These relaxing and uplifting practices have been shown in a lab to help you cultivate calm, compassion, connection, mindfulness, and more — what the latest science says will directly support your well-being. All in less than ten minutes. A little break in your day.