The Art of Savoring: How to Amplify the Positivity in Your Life

We’ve all savored a meal. You can picture in your mind. Anticipating that good bite, getting the dopamine hit when it hits your stomach. But savoring life can be just as delicious.But what is savoring exactly? To put it simply, it’s the practice of fully feeling, enjoying and extending the positive moments and memories in our lives. You can savor the past (reminiscing), the future (anticipating) or the present (absorbing a good moment). Savoring is a cousin to its very (understandably) hyped cousin gratitude, which asks you to add the feeling of thankfulness to the experience. The skill of savoring means you need to practice it before you’re a natural at it. But the good news? It’s short and simple. And yet, this little-skill-that-could:*increases creativity, *boosts happiness, *fends off stress, *and increases connection in relationships. With that list, why wouldn’t you practice it?Bonus! For those of us who’ve been told “you worry too much” (Sarah raises hand), savoring might be especially helpful. People prone to anxiety often feel anxious even when they feel good. In session we might hear this as, “Things are going too well. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.” We talk to a recent college graduate Felicia Rosen who studied savoring for her senior thesis. She’s a big time research assistant at the Child Mind Institute in Manhattan now, but Skidmore College is where her love of psychology research began. Felicia shares what they found when they asked students with clinical levels of anxiety to build a savoring practice. (Spoiler, it helps.) She’ll also chat about how she used savoring to help create more balance and joy in her own college experience. Stay tuned until the end and you’ll hear Sarah and Liz share practical ways to begin savoring the past, the present and the future. We’ll also create some savoring tools on social media so make sure to follow @collegeisfinepodcast on TikTok and Instagram if you’d like some help strengthening your savoring skills!

Resources:

https://positivepsychology.com/savoring/

For more about Felicia Rosen and Skidmore’s psychology research:

https://childmind.org/bio/felicia-rosen/https://www.skidmore.edu/psychology/resources/index.php