The Easiest Way To Make Your Life Better
When we think about changing our lives, we often imagine big goals and long-term changes. But, as it turns out, you can change your life in ten seconds with this science-backed strategy.
“There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
These are legendary lines for a reason - this quote from Hamlet captures so much of the human experience, and one of the most frustrating paradoxes of our nature: so much of the quality of our life lies in the way that we interpret it, and yet we are not naturally inclined to interpret events in a way that serves us.
We get so caught up in life’s passage that we often forget to pause and focus on the many small, beautiful moments that bless us with their existence, in favor of the big hardship, or the next demand, or the hope of perfection.
Savoring is about pausing and appreciating what is, right now, in this moment, even if it is imperfect.
The academic definition of savoring is “the act of mindfully engaging in thoughts and behaviors that heighten the effect of positive events on positive feelings.”
That makes it sound way more complicated than it actually is: savoring is what you do naturally when you inhale the steam off of a cup of tea, when you put your hands close to the fire, when you taste a delicious meal, when you enjoy a glass of water after a hot hike.
Sometimes, when we experience emotions, we lean into them and luxuriate in them, and sometimes, we suppress those emotions if we feel if it is inappropriate. You also might have, like me, another voice in your head that tells you to move on past the moment and get on to the next one, dammit, because life is about being productive!
Research has found that savoring:
Improves the quality of our relationships
Improves our mental health
Improves our physical health
Enhance your gratitude
Facilitate greater mindfulness
Enhance your ability to get into ‘flow’ states
Inspires greater creativity
It also helps to guard us against one of our deep-seated cognitive biases that keep us from happiness: the impact bias. This is our tendency to overestimate the impact that events in the future will have upon our happiness. We believe that it is the big life events — the wedding, the new job, the new house — that will make us happy, but it is actually the small moments that have the greatest impact on our well-being.
How to Savor
There are so many different ways to savor, but here’s the quick and dirty instructions: take ten seconds and lean into your positive emotions, as though you’re bringing the picture of your life into focus. Go deep, hang onto your thoughts, and bring a deliberate quality to your thinking, drawing the positive into view. You can savor anything: the present moment, but also the future and the past.
There are four types of savoring:
Basking: being receptive to praise and congratulations
Thanksgiving: expressing gratitude
Marveling: losing yourself in the wonder of the experience
Luxuriating: engaging your senses fully
The secret to increasing your happiness is to just pause and use one of these strategies, for about 5-10 seconds, as often as you can.
Try these savoring strategies.
Savoring Strategy #1: Share with others
Seek out other people to share your experience, reminisce about a shared memory, or to collectively anticipate something in the future.
Savoring Strategy #2: Memory building
Take a moment to actively store images in your brain so that they will be fresh in the future, an activity which was delightfully called 'taking mental pictures' by the television show The Office.
Savoring Strategy #3: Self-congratulation
If you achieve something meaningful or positive, take the time to bask in your accomplishments. Tell yourself how proud you are of yourself! Each week, you can also take a moment to write down your biggest accomplishments of the week.
Savoring Strategy #4: Sensory-perceptual sharpening
Focus your senses on the specific stimuli that you want to savor, which will help you to narrow your focus. If you have ever been so immersed in a sunset so beautiful that all sound receded, all thoughts quieted, and sense of self faded away, you have experienced this type of savoring.
Savoring Strategy #5: Temporal awareness
Sometimes savoring can be bittersweet, of the bittersweetness of a beautiful moment that will inevitably pass away quickly. Reminding yourself of this truth can help you to remember to focus on where you are, right now. One study asked college seniors to bring awareness to the bittersweetness of their last few weeks at college by savoring twice a week; these students reported greater well-being than those who tried to repress the thought of the rapidly-approaching future.
Savoring Strategy #6: Count your blessings
Bring awareness to what you are grateful for in a specific moment. Acknowledge your great good fortune, especially if it is the result of the kindness of others.
