Vishen LakhianiFounder of Mindvalley | NYT Bestselling Author | Transforming Lives Globally

Using Smell to Ground Yourself in Times of Stress #Shorts

14 Apr 2023 · 1 min

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Vishen Lakhiani explains how smell grounds you during stress by triggering comforting memories. He saves the scent of hay as his personal lucky smell to calm himself and feel ready, and mentions grandmother's perfume and lavender as other examples of this overlooked tool.

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Smell is really overlooked. I love the sense of smell. You might have a smell that you love that evokes memory. So maybe you have a grandmother. You love her so much, but when you smell her perfume, it's sort of like looking at the picture of your daughter. It conjures up the presence of somebody that you love. Maybe you have a seashell that still has kind of a briny smell, and that reminds you of the beach on Maine where you go every summer, and that calms you down. There are associations like lavender and things where people just have kind of over the years, been like, oh, this is a calming smell. Actually, those are purely associational smells. Don't have, like, you know. So I have a lucky smell. It's a smell that I love. It's the smell of hay. So it's the sweet honey smell. And I only smell it when I need good luck, so I save it. And when I smell that, I'm like, calm down. Take a deep breath. You've got your lucky smell. You're gonna do great. And so that's a kind of a ritual that I have that gives me luck.