How our senses can help us savour

The bathhouse invites you to come as you are and take what you need. Building a little slowness and gentle immersion into our routine can create a feeling of spaciousness, but how do you hang on to this feeling? After two hours of melting away stresses, how can we bring a little of the bathhouse back to our homes or busy workplaces?

Anchoring is a technique which can be used to ground the mind and body into a remembered feeling. There are different methods for anchoring, which include different sensory techniques.

Somatic anchoring often involves some kind of movement or physical gesture to connect the mind with the body. It’s also possible to anchor without having physical reminders, to take our minds to another place or invoke a sense of wonder for wellbeing.

Here are a few ways our senses can help us savour, and return to a feeling:

Anchoring with objects

Many of us already carry comforting landscapes with us. Little reminders of somewhere safe and familiar may help us settle into a sense of calm or a feeling of belonging. The connection between place and memory is why we hold onto keepsakes and bring things home from holidays; rocks collected from rivers, tiles in shapes and colours inherently Portuguese.

Alexis Wright keeps a “museum of objects” from her home and travels on her writing desk, to help invoke a sense of place and stay in a world of numerous possibilities. In an excerpt of Dream Geographies, she describes this practice as a “vast inland world of the heart and mind, it’s like country, all-flourishing, all-blooming, all-embracing, all-encompassing in its compassion.”

To savour the time you have at the bathhouse, think about the thing that you touch and carry, the objects that complete your experience. Maybe it’s the slippers you choose to wear from room-to-room and back home, something you take home with you, a little extra greenery in your bathroom, or a little bowl of almonds by your laptop to remind you of taking time in the relaxation area with a book and nibble.

Anchoring through scent

Scent and memory are deeply intertwined, making fragrance a powerful tool for anchoring—a technique that evokes specific feelings or memories to calm the mind and body. The ritual of lighting a candle, burning incense, or diffusing essential oils creates a grounding moment of mindfulness, connecting you to the present. Our blend of frankincense, labdanum and rose might be how you bring yourself back to the bathhouse in the middle of a stressful day.

Anchoring through touch and repetition

When we use a little gesture to reinvoke a feeling, we are microdosing on the calming ritual or routine. Here is an example of the motions you might go through if you’d like to experience anchoring through touch and repetition:

• Identifying how you want to feel (such as calm, stable, in control).

• Choosing a gesture such as placing a hand on your heart, a little tapping across the chest, or the soft sensation of rubbing together the tips of the fingers.

• Reinforcing this movement when they feel in the emotional state you would like to return to.

• Replaying the gesture when you would like to reinvoke the feeling.

Starting this practice could happen while you are in your favourite yoga pose in a class, when your cat is on your lap in front of the fireplace, or in the Hammam, breathing in a light mist and savouring the gentle terracotta light.

Anchoring through environment

The bathhouse is not only an opportunity to relax into water, but immerse into space that has been designed for you to unfurl. Natural and built environments have an impact on our ability to find and hold onto stillness.

Takeshi Moirkawa is a researcher who has spent years looking into the benefits of forest walks in the Japanese prefecture Ibaraki. He found that even a short walk through green space could have lasting effects for psychological wellbeing. The impact was also deepened when individuals were able to find a sense of ‘fascination’ in their surroundings.

While the need for ‘green space’ in cities has been well established, there is increasing understanding of how ‘blue space’ can also add value. Bodies of water are able to cool the landscape, invite a diversity of bird and plant life and soothe our retinas.

“How the mind and body are restored is a very personal phenomenon,” says Takeshi Morikawa. Whether it’s a large body of water or just a reminder to take a bath at home, slowly down and savouring water as a small injection of wilderness might help stretch out the feeling of reprieve we get from bathing in water.

Using sound and atmosphere to anchor

We can also anchor without movement. In still meditation, an anchor could also be a memory of a person, place or feeling. Evoking feeling through visuals is something we do all the time with film, books and music. Listening to Catalan guitar might take us back to Spain, or a nostalgic movie back to the 90s. In a passage that pointedly recalls the sounds, smells and feeling of summer, Comedian Tim Ross savours “the sound of a bag of ice hitting the pavement, that feeling of salt on skin and even the smell of prawns on bin night.”

Feeling the steam rise from a warm cup of tea might be the thing that reminds you of our relaxation lounge. Or it could be the sound of light chatter, gentle splashing, water trickling.

Next time you bathe with us, see what you can notice, what ties you to that melting feeling you walk away with. A little gentle movement, wading your hands through the water in front of the body or lightly rubbing the temples, may be a remedy you can easily repeat to reinvoke the same sensations. You might find your senses lead you back to what feels healing.

Words by Hannah Bambra

Gifts to support anchoring

Sense Of Self Essential Oil House Blend : Designed to take you straight back to the bathhouse. Our moody House Blend Essential Oil is the signature Sense Of Self mix and combines frankincense, labdanum and rose. It is nostalgic, woody and warm.

Sense of Self Gift Voucher: Redeemable across all Sense Of Self services and in-store retail.

Further reading

Dream Geographies - Alexis Wright 

Memory and moving sideways - Paintings by Alex Roulette 

The Science of Healing Places - Dr. Esther Sternberg

The impact of spacial design on the self - Katherine Brabbon