As we head into the darker days of fall and winter ― not to mention a stressful election cycle ― many of us will be looking for any meaningful way to boost our mood.
Though there isn’t one formula for happiness, experts say there are small, actionable steps you can take to feel a little better, all while coping with negative situations in the world. Enter “savoring” — a therapeutic technique for increasing joy in your day-to-day life.
Essentially, savoring is when you take some extra time to relish a happy or calming moment you’re experiencing. The goal is to deepen the connection to that time and prolong the joy it brings, said Meghan Watson, the founder and clinical director of Bloom Psychology & Wellness in Toronto. This might include giving yourself an extra five minutes in the shower to do a hair mask, or taking a moment to eat lunch outside instead of at your desk.
“I like to think of savoring as just a practice of really attending to, appreciating and even extending your own positive emotional experience,” said Joseé Muldrew, a licensed professional counselor and the founder of The Looking Glass, a private therapy practice in Georgia.
“Some people may have heard savoring associated before with savoring a meal,” Muldrew continued. “But it’s really a concept that’s recognized in the positive psychology space as a vehicle to heighten and then prolong experiences that generate more positive emotions, such as joy, gratitude, acceptance, pleasure, love.”
Savoring is the opposite of sitting with uncomfortable emotions, a practice that therapists commonly recommend to folks experiencing tough times, Watson said. “Instead of sitting with discomfort, you’re sitting with joy, you’re sitting with pleasure, you’re sitting with satisfaction and contentment, and allowing that to really take up as much room as you can,” she said.
Savoring is important, Watson and Muldrew both said, and it can be a simple addition to your regular routine (if it isn’t already). Here’s why and how to do it:
Savoring can help prepare you for harder moments in life.
Muldrew said savoring can be an important way to help build resilience.
“It’s so easy to get swept up in our life ― just with daily stressors, the uncertainty in the world and just negative experiences ― that it can be easy to overlook good and more meaningful moments,” she said. “Taking the time to really savor and process positive experiences more fully and deeply can just help us cope with stress. And it also broadens our internal resources, and your capacity to be able to thrive in adversity.”
According to Muldrew, savoring allows you to keep a reservoir of positive experiences to tap into during distressing moments. This is different from so-called toxic positivity, in which someone seeks to remain relentlessly upbeat at all times.
“The difference is that savoring is not meant to discredit or dismiss the hardship and negative experiences that we naturally encounter in life,” Muldrew said. “It’s not meant to keep you in a state of focusing on only positive elements in your life.” Instead, savoring helps you acknowledge and appreciate both positive and negative experiences, while placing “an emphasis [on] the positive and how that can help you counterbalance some of the experiences that may be a little bit more negative,” Muldrew said.
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It can also help you challenge any perfectionist attitudes.
The next time you’re enjoying a great cup of coffee or feeling the sun on your skin, take time to savor the experience ― even if it’s just one moment in an otherwise not-so-great day.
“That’s important because sometimes we have this rigidity around the good things in our lives, like it can only be good if all of these things are there,” Watson said. For example, you may feel that you can only put your feet up and relax once you finish your entire to-do list — not in the middle of it. Or you may think you can only enjoy a glass of wine after you make your child’s meal, not before.
“The perfectionism bone in many of us, it’s seductive, right? We fall into that trap, and we become very black-and-white about how we experience our joy,” Watson said. Savoring “really allows people to lean into an anti-perfectionistic stance,” she noted.
You’re probably already savoring in your day-to-day, but here’s how to do it intentionally.
“People savor every single day, and they don’t necessarily realize it; it kind of passes them by,” Watson said.
If you’ve ever stopped a friend in the middle of a conversation and told them you’re enjoying your time together, that’s savoring. Or if you’ve ever watched a sunset with your partner and remarked on how beautiful it is, that’s also savoring.
Starting the practice isn’t necessarily hard, but acknowledging that you’re doing it can make all the difference. And in addition to the present moment, Muldrew said you can also savor the past and the future, which makes it even easier.
To savor the past, you can simply recall a happy memory and share it with a loved one, or spend time journaling or making a scrapbook about a joyful experience you once had.
“What you’re doing in that moment is that you’re extending the lifeline of that memory, of that positive experience, and even if it’s something that’s happened previously, you’re now bringing it in and giving it space in this present moment,” Muldrew explained.
To savor the present moment, you can try practicing gratitude when out for a walk, telling your mom that you are enjoying the conversation you’re having, or taking a moment to appreciate the taste of your favorite dinner.
Watson said you can also use your phone or journal to keep a list of “tiny joys,” which are “small things that offer me nourishment, or small things that offer me joy.” This can help bring your attention to the good parts of life — anything from your neighbor’s friendly dog to a freshly vacuumed living room.
To savor the future, Muldrew said you can try “imagining the positive outcomes of the things that you are working towards or anticipating more positive emotional experiences.”
“A lot of times you notice people typically having more anticipatory anxiety, as opposed to anticipating something positive happening in their life, and so that’s the beauty of savoring a future positive experience,” Muldrew said. “It allows you to create mental snapshots and really envision what a successful and meaningful outcome could look like.” She noted that you can do this by creating a vision board, or a collage of images and text representing your goals.
If you have trouble sitting with positive emotions, that’s OK too.
Some people may find it tough to relish these pleasant, joyful moments, Watson said.
“Maybe … you have a trauma history of someone saying that you’re not valuable, or you’ve been abused or harmed in some way, and so savoring pleasure is also painful,” Watson explained.
If this is the case, you can take your time boosting your capacity for savoring, just like folks do when they sit in discomfort. You could talk to a therapist for support or try appreciating joyful emotions for only a few seconds and build up from there.
“Everyone deserves joy in their life, as simple as that,” Watson said.
