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Tamar Balkin

Can Savouring Moments Realistically Enhance Our Wellbeing In 2020?

"One day when the light is glowing

I'll be in my castle golden

But until the gates are open

I just wanna feel this moment (oh)

I just wanna feel this moment (oh)

I just wanna feel this moment

Feel this moment"


Feel This Moment by Christina Aguilera, and Pitbull (click here for the song)

Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash


According to the literature, savoring just means that we attempt to fully feel, enjoy, and extend our positive experiences and beliefs.


Take a moment and answer the following questions:


A) When was the last time you savoured something?


B) Did you savour an external event or an internal refection?


C) Did you savour Spontaneously or Consciously?


If you like click here to email me your answers.


 

"It was such a whirlwind for us for about three to four years there that, every time we turned around, we were pulled in 90 different directions, and I look back on that now, and they're such wonderful memories, but you kinda wish that you would've taken the time to savor them a little bit more."

Jay DeMarcus


 

Savoring involves the self-regulation of positive feelings, most typically generating, maintaining, or enhancing positive emotion by attending to positive experiences and beliefs from the past, present, or future. Interesting researchers identified that savouring experiences is separate from savouring beliefs.


Savoring an experience is when your sensations, perceptions, thoughts, behaviours, and feelings when mindfully attending to and appreciating something positive. For example: counting blessings to remind oneself of one’s good fortune; carefully taking a “mental photograph” of a spectacular sunset for later recall, or closing one’s eyes to focus one’s attention and block out distractions while tasting a delicious piece of cake.


Savoring a belief is when you reflect on your ability to enjoy positive experiences, as distinct from your ability to obtain positive outcomes.


How do we actually savour experiences or beliefs?


Savoring the moment requires you to notice and be mindfully aware of the pleasurable features of the experience or belief as well as positive emotions that arise from encountering it.


Remember, just because you are mindfully aware of an ongoing positive belief or experience does not guarantee that you will savor it. To savour the belief or experience you need to regulate and prolong the positive aspects.


Savoring is a great way to develop a long-lasting stream of positive thoughts and emotions, because positive events cannot always be relied on to make you happier.


What does savouring actually do?


The process of savoring itself promotes positive meaning, it broadens our general attentional awareness by shifting awareness from rumination to attention.


How does it work?


Savoring enhances our positive mood, regular readers would be aware that positive moods predispose people to find life more meaningful and that positive moods increase sensitivity to the meaning relevance of situations. Barbra Frederickson’s research has found that positive emotions, open our minds, broaden and expand our awareness, and facilitate the building and development of resources, including knowledge, skills, abilities, and relationships.



 

“Today’s positive emotions do not simply exemplify today’s wellbeing, they also help to create next month’s increases in wellbeing”

Dr Fredrickson



 

So you must be thinking... Let's get real... its 2020!


Researchers have found that the mere contrast between a bad and a good events can lead to an increase in perception of and savoring the positive elements in one’s life without the need to reappraise a negative event.



https://mumbrella.com.au/solotel-encourages-aussies-to-get-back-to-the-pub-for-xmas-657070


 

“The worst experiences in life may come with an eventual upside, by promoting the ability to appreciate life’s small pleasures”

Croft, Dunn, & Quoidbach, 2014

 

How do you savor in 2020?

  • Don’t concern yourself with about needing to find the silver lining in adversity, researchers found savouring is beneficial without reappraisal.

  • Deliberately prioritise savoring in the face of bad things

  • Realise that positive and negative experience are separate spheres of life.

  • This realisation frees up your attentional focus and enables you to find and savor positive experiences and beliefs despite adversity.


 

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome”

(Bradstreet, Norton, & Hopkins, 1897, p. 294).


 


Are there benefits of simply realising that something good can conceivably come from something bad?

  • Understanding that transformation and growth are possible in the midst of struggle

  • So also savour the affective consequences of an awareness of one’s own transformation and growth.



Remember.. capitalise on the present


Researchers have found that the following strategies help us to deepen the impact of savoring a positive experience or belief:

Pause and experience it. Whenever you have experienced something positive and notice yourself feeling good, mentally hold on by thinking about the positive emotions and what caused them. As you are savoring, let your thoughts wander to anything else about the happy experience that makes you feel good. Then, just mentally hold on to whatever feels good. Take a deep breath, and pay attention to how these emotions feel in your body. Let the emotions fade on their own, until you are ready to go back to whatever else you were doing. You may want to also practice gratitude, reminding yourself that you are grateful for whatever or whoever caused these positive emotions. Show it by expressing the positive emotions in your facial expressions and body language. For example, dance, smile, laugh, put on your favourite song or throw your hands up in the air. This can help to prolong the positive feelings. Share it by talking to a friend or the people around you about what you’re feeling. Typically when others respond well to expressions of positive emotions, it further generates more positive emotions for you. Feel free to email or call me to share your positive experiences.



 

References:

Bryant, F.B., Chadwick, E.D. and Kluwe, K. (2011). Understanding the Processes that Regulate Positive Emotional Experience: Unsolved Problems and Future Directions for Theory and Research on Savoring. International Journal of Wellbeing, 1(1). Bryant, F.B. and Smith, J.L. (2015). Appreciating Life in the Midst of Adversity: Savoring in Relation to Mindfulness, Reappraisal, and Meaning. Psychological Inquiry, 26(4), pp.315–321. Bryant, F.B. and Veroff, J. (2007). Savoring : a new model of positive experience. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218–226. Psychology Today. (n.d.). What Is Savoring — and Why Is It the Key to Happiness? [online] Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/click-here-happiness/201807/what-is-savoring-and-why-is-it-the-key-happiness [Accessed 24 Nov. 2020]. ‌ https://mumbrella.com.au/solotel-encourages-aussies-to-get-back-to-the-pub-for-xmas-657070

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