“He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise.
— Henry David Thoreau
About this Activity
The Savoring Activity is focused on developing your capacity to attend to, appreciate, and enhance the positive experiences in your life. You’ll select one day of the week to be especially focused on this practice. On that day, you’ll also return to this app and write about your experiences as well as your goals, plans, and actions for how to savor more in the forthcoming week.
Savoring can be described as the capacity to attend to, appreciate, and enhance the positive experiences in our lives. By learning to savor – to recognize and rest in the good – we can enhance our experiences and enjoyment thereof. Some of the exercises to enhance and promote savoring that have been developed are quite simple and require only that we develop our capacity for thinking about positive events. For example, we can heighten our focus on and awareness of the experience of walking or eating a meal; or we can take a few moments to remember a past positive experience or to anticipate a future one.
The Practice
Getting Started
The first thing that we recommend is to select the day (or days) of the week on which you want to do this activity. It's best to write down the days or add them to your calendar. A core aspect of these activities is writting down your thoughts. If you are doing the activity in the app, we provide forms to write and save your thoughts. If you are doing the exercise on your own, it is best to have a notebook or word document dedicated to this activity.
Instructions
This exercise takes six weeks to complete. Over the course of the next six weeks you'll work on improving your savoring abilities by setting aside some time each week to practice savoring in a focused way and then writing about that experience. To do this, on the selected day each week you will commit to paying closer attention while doing some activity, such as having a meal or going for a walk, to your present experience and try to recognize the good in it.
First Entry
You get your first chance to practice savoring right now. First, make sure that you are someplace comfortable and take a few moments to clear your mind. Then, think back over your past week, your day up until now, and your current surroundings. As you reflect, try and notice as many positive things around yourself as possible. Spend a few minutes doing this, then write down those positive things, your experience of them, and how you recognize the good in them.
Weekly Practice
On the day that you selected to do the activity, it's good to start the day with remembering your goal. As part of this, make sure that you are someplace comfortable and take a few moments to clear your mind. Then, think back over your past week, your day up until now, and your surroundings. As you reflect, try and notice as many positive things around yourself as possible. Throughout the rest of your day, try to keep this same intention in mind and notice the good.
The Science
This exercise is grounded in research on cognitive well-being. Regular practice has been shown to increase positive emotion, enhance resilience, and deepen your sense of connection.
Key References
- Bryant, F. B. & Veroff, J. (2007): Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experiences. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Smith, J. L., Harrison, P. R., Kurtz, J. L., & Bryan, F. B. (2014). Nurturing the capacity to savor: interventions to enhance the enjoyment of positive experiences. In: A.C. Parks and S.M. Schueller (eds.). The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Positive Psychological Interventions. John Wiley and Sons: West Sussex, U.K. p. 42-65.