Are you ready to try the 5 Days, 5 Senses Happiness challenge?
Read on for details…
There’s no secret that my wife and I absolutely love going to really nice theme parks. Even though we live in Utah, we actually have annual passes to Disneyland.
When the announcement was made that Disneyland and DisneyWorld were both being closed, until further notice we were both a little bit bummed because we were like, “Hey, we actually had a trip planned for a few weeks from now to go to a Disney park.”
It was interesting because a lot of people are feeling a lot of heavy weight right now. There’s a lot of uncertainty going on right now, a lot of people are feeling depressed. Again there is a lot of uncertainty; a lot of people don’t know what the future is going to hold.
For a while, I was really tempted to just feel really down and say, “OK, well my Happy Place is closed, so I have no other way of being happy.” But of course that’s not true.
Then, my wife and I started to think a little bit about it. We realized the reason why we feel so happy and so good when we go to those places is because they literally stimulate all 5 of your senses while you are there.
Think about that for a moment. Every single Land is themed, so it is very visually appealing. Walt Disney had the vision that when you are in one land, it is a total immersion in that land. You would never see a cowboy walking through TomorrowLand, just like you would never see a space person walking through FrontierLand, if that makes sense.
Everything is total immersion so that when you are in that land, you are in that land. This stimulates your sight.
Every land also has unique smells. They will actually pump in specific smells unique to that Land or unique to that ride. For example, on the Pirates of the Caribbean, they will actually pump in salty seawater smell.
When you are walking down Main Street, they’ll actually pump in the smell of vanilla. This stimulates your sense of smell.
When you’re on a ride, each ride has its own unique soundtrack. A lot of times you can go to a lesser-known theme park, and the rides are good, but it’s just the ride. Whereas at Disney parks, each ride has its own unique soundtrack.
If you were to listen to the soundtracks for different rides, you would know what ride it is just by hearing the first few notes of it because they are very themed. That’s sound.
Also, there’s a lot of hands on stuff like souvenirs you can get. In DisneyWorld, many line queues have interactive things to touch and play with while you wait. After many rides, the walkway takes you through a gift shop where again, there’s a lot of tactile stuff. So that’s touch.
And then of course, every land has its own very unique restaurants. Some of them are very well-themed to that part of the park. For example, in New Orleans Square, there are restaurants that serve Cajun-style food like you would find in New Orleans. So that’s taste.
We got to thinking about how we could turn our home into something similar, and we decided, “Why don’t we do something really cool? Why don’t we stimulate all five senses for each month of the year?”
So every Monday we have a Family Home Evening, and the first Monday of the month we will actually take down all of the last month’s decorations. We will have the kids color new decorations themed for that month.
For example, this month is April and celebrating Easter, so they colored Easter eggs and put them up on the wall. We lit a spring-scented candle, so that stimulates our sense of smell. We listen to a soundtrack that corresponds with Springtime, so that it feels like Spring is in the air.
We made some really fun treats, so that stimulates taste. We also put up Easter banners up on our balcony, so as you walk into our home, that’s the first thing you see. That stimulates the sense of sight. All five senses.
We’ve found that whenever we do this, we feel a lot happier.
My invitation to you is as you have some extra time at home, find ways to make your home feel really magical. Find a way to experience this.
Stimulate your sense of smell. You could get some type of candle, or an essential oil you can diffuse throughout the house. Something like that to represent your favorite scent.
Stimulate your sense of taste, and eat a serving of your favorite healthy food.
Stimulate your senses of sight and touch. Put up some really cool decorations. They don’t have to be fancy or expensive. You could go on Google and print off some coloring pages, if you have kids, and help them color and put the artwork up on the wall.
Play your favorite uplifting music in the background, and that will stimulate your sense of sound.
This is what we call the Feel Well Live Well 5 Senses, 5 Days Happiness Challenge.
You do this every single day. Make sure to stimulate all five senses for five straight days.
This is fascinating because every person I’ve given this challenge to, they report back that they are significantly happier. They feel just so much better. If they were depressed, it helped them get their heads above the water.
This helps to make the home a much more magical place. If you are willing to try this challenge, comment below. Give this a try over the next five days. Send me a message at the end of the five days, and let me know what it does for you.
Love you!
Watch “How to Make Your Home as Magical as Disneyland” on YouTube.
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