Have you ever had the experience of how a piece of music can bring back a memory? Or how the smell of a specific perfume brings back an old emotion?

You have experienced anchors. Any time we are in an intense emotional state, if a specific stimulus is introduced at the peak of that state, the things become linked. The theory for this comes from behavioural psychology, all the way back to Pavlov. Pavlov did experiments with dogs, where he would present a piece of meat and the dogs would salivate, and at the same time he would ring a bell. What he found was that all he had to do in the future was ring a bell and the dogs would salivate - the 2 things had become neurologically linked.

The same thing can happen with people - for example, if someone is in a very intense state (for example, laughter), if someone was to touch them on the shoulder as they experienced the peak of that state, touching the person on the shoulder would be likely to be linked to the laughter and a simple touch on the shoulder would cause the other person to fall down laughing.

The stimulus could be a touch, a sound, a smell, a visual cue or even a taste. Maybe you know someone who responds in a certain way to a specific tone of voice, or a certain gesture.

In NLP, this means that we can help someone to develop a resourceful anchor, for example they would be able to squeeze their fingers together and experience a feeling of comfort, which they could use any time they want to experience a more resourceful state.