Allyson Pimentel in a recent meditation podcast reminds us to savour life and the opportunities it presents to experience positive emotions such as joy, appreciation and love. Allyson describes “savoring” as a form of mindfulness with a specific focus and purpose—in savoring we pay attention to the things that we enjoy and relish, lingering on the positive feelings that emerge spontaneously when we focus on what is good in our life. While savoring is pleasurable, it does not deny the reality of what is difficult in our life such as challenging emotions. However, this practice enables us to bring positivity to our life by paying attention to “what feels good, what provides relief”.
There are very clear benefits of savoring, including increased happiness, improved physical and mental health and better performance. Research has shown that both older people and younger students experience greater happiness through savoring, not only from savoring what is present in their life at the moment, but also what they have experienced in the past. Savoring can lead to optimism about the future, improved self-esteem and greater resilience in the face of stress. People who savour life bring appreciation and positivity to their relationships, enhance their performance through clearer focus and concentration, and gain greater access to their intuition and creativity—partly because they are not burdened or blinded by negative thoughts and an inherently, human negative bias.
