Think back to your first time at your school’s dining hall. What first comes to mind? The curly fries that never disappoint? The unlimited supply of margherita pizza? Or that time you found a little friend crawling in your spaghetti?
Psychologist Elizabeth Kensinger of Boston College studies memories for a living. While across the board we’re likely to remember events that have some emotion—be it positive or negative—more than neutral events, it seems like bad memories stick around for longer. You’re more likely to remember the worst parts of a terminated friendship, a class you used to take, or your relationship with your family.
All those times when siblings fight and parents remind them of “all the good times” weren’t cheesy after all. They’re grounded in memory research. We need all the help we can get to remember the good things people have done for us or the positive aspects of the classes we hated but when it comes to remembering pain or anger, we have virtually no problem doing it.
The good news is, our memories are not strong enough to drastically inhibit us. If the pain of childbirth was memorable to a certain extent, no mother would have a second child. If every injury was fresh in your memory, you’d probably never play sports again.
However, we still need to intervene to remind ourselves of the good times. We need less dwelling and more savoring.
According to the father of positive psychology Martin Seligman, savoring is the awareness of pleasure as it occurs. You’re savoring the moment when you are paying deliberate, conscious attention to the experience of pleasure.
Savoring serves two purposes: it maximizes our happiness, but more importantly, it reduces the effects of the negativity bias, or the notion that negative events—regardless of their intensity—affect us more than neutral and positive events. Our strong memory for negative events is just one example of the negativity bias. One reason we may need this innate design is that from an evolutionary standpoint, it protects us from making the same mistake twice.
Randall Terry’s “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me” philosophy embodies this idea. As useful as it may be to remember the ways in which you have been wronged in the past, it’s not a great way to live a relaxed, happy life.
One way to start savoring is by allowing yourself to pay attention to the highlights of your day. The next time you smile, take it all in. Make note of it. Enjoy every second of it. You may even want to take a picture of your happy moment, and I don’t mean a photo you’re trying to look attractive in, but a photo that captures your happiness at that moment. Enjoy every second of that candy bar, don’t just eat it mindlessly in front of the TV. Pay attention to your favorite show, don’t just text throughout the show.
Savor every second.
Image credit: http://johndavidmann.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/baby-flower1.jpg