How to Feel Happier – According to Science. Using Positive Memories to Increase Positive Emotions

How to Feel Happier - The Proven Way to Increase Positive Feelings

Memories are powerful. Far from being the passive remnants of our history, our memories actively shape our experiences, our relationships and our life stories that we are yet to create. Now, exciting new research has found that our positive memories can also be used to increase positive emotions.

We are wired to remember the things that bring us pain. This is our ancient, highly effective, sometimes annoying, warning system, designed and finely tuned by evolution to keep us safe. By remembering the things that have caused us trouble, we’re more likely to avoid them and keep ourselves alive. This is a great thing for our survival, but not such a great thing for our feel-goods. (Evolution can be a pity sometimes.)

Our capacity for remembering the positive isn’t as easily triggered as the negative, but research has found that with deliberate effort, we can change this and use positive memories to work hard for us. Our positive memories can give us access to a remarkable repertoire of resources that can shape our experiences in positive ways, and strengthen our mental health. 

Research has found that by savoring our positive memories we can increase positive emotions. It also has the capacity to reduce anxiety by reducing the way we attend to and experience threat, and it can ease the symptoms of depression by letting the world be seen less through a more optimistic, happier filter.

The Research

The study was published in the journal Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice. As part of the study, participants were asked to remember a recent positive memory of being with another person. The memory was then expanded through a technique called the Social Broad Minded Affective Coping (BMAC) technique.

The research found that by savouring a positive memory, there was a kind of ‘re-experiencing’ of the event contained in the memory. Senses were re-engaged and the emotions associated with the memory were re-experienced. As well as this, the meaning contained in the positive memory helped to push against any negative beliefs that tried to push their way through and cause trouble. Feelings of warmth, social safeness (how connected you feel to others) and calm were increased, while negative feelings were decreased.

How do I use my positive memories to feel happier?

To nurture positive feelings through positive memories, think of a recent positive memory and expand it by remembering it through each of your senses. Here’s how:

  1. Think of a recent positive memory of being with another person.
  2. Move around the memory, engaging all senses as you do. Let it broaden in your mind.
  3. Where are you?
  4. What do you see?
  5. Turn your focus on the other person. 
    • Focus on his or her face. What do you see?
    • Try to get a sense of the positive feelings the other person was experiencing.
    • What are they wearing?
    • What are they doing?
    • How does the other person in the memory feel?
    • What is that like for you – that other people think or feel this way about you?
  6. What do you hear?
    • From the other person?
    • In the environment?
  7. What can you smell?
  8. Does your memory involve any tastes?
  9. Can you touch anything in your memory? How does it feel to do that?
  10. What is the strongest and most positive part of the memory? Let the feeling expand in you. Sit with the feeling and enjoy it for a few moments.

(The full social broad minded Affective Coping Script that was used in the study can be found the Appendix at the end of the study here.)

Building a beautiful brain through experience.

Research over the last decade has shown us that we have an enormous and ongoing capacity to change our brains. Positive memories activate positive emotion. The more you do this, the more your brain will change to accommodate this. It’s called experience-dependent neuroplasticity. Over time, it will become easier to access positive emotion by expanding positive memories, and to nurture the positive experience that comes from that.

And finally …

Healthy living is about more than avoiding trouble. It is about the way we perceive and respond to the world around us, and how we interpret the things that happen. Our emotions provide a filter for everything we experience. We are hardwired for that filter to be a negative one, but by deliberately accessing our positive memories and letting them we can also make sure that our positive filter has a heavy hand in the way we live our lives.

3 Comments

Minda Caldwell

This works. The more you focus on positive experiences, no matter how small, does exude a sense of satisfaction within and without.

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Lisa

I can’t believe I had such a difficult time trying to recall a happy memory.

Reply
Hey Sigmund

Lisa you’re probably not alone with that. If it’s difficult to turn your focus to happy memories that are already there, take the opportunity now to create some happy ones – let it be about you for a while.

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I’ve loved working with @sccrcentre over the last 10 years. They do profoundly important work with families - keeping connections, reducing clinflict, building relationships - and they do it so incredibly well. @sccrcentre thank you for everything you do, and for letting me be a part of it. I love what you do and what you stand for. Your work over the last decade has been life-changing for so many. I know the next decade will be even more so.♥️

In their words …
Posted @withregram • @sccrcentre Over the next fortnight, as we prepare to mark our 10th anniversary (28 March), we want to re-share the great partners we’ve worked with over the past decade. We start today with Karen Young of Hey Sigmund.

Back in 2021, when we were still struggling with covid and lockdowns, Karen spoke as part of our online conference on ‘Strengthening the relationship between you & your teen’. It was a great talk and I’m delighted that you can still listen to it via the link in the bio.

Karen also blogged about our work for the Hey Sigmund website in 2018. ‘How to Strengthen Your Relationship With Your Children and Teens by Understanding Their Unique Brain Chemistry (by SCCR)’, which is still available to read - see link in bio.

#conflictresolution #conflict #families #family #mediation #earlyintervention #decade #anniversary #digital #scotland #scottish #cyrenians #psychology #relationships #children #teens #brain #brainchemistry #neuroscience
I often go into schools to talk to kids and teens about anxiety and big feelings. 

I always ask, ‘Who’s tried breathing through big feels and thinks it’s a load of rubbish?’ Most of them put their hand up. I put my hand up too, ‘Me too,’ I tell them, ‘I used to think the same as you. But now I know why it didn’t work, and what I needed to do to give me this powerful tool (and it’s so powerful!) that can calm anxiety, anger - all big feelings.’

The thing is though, all powertools need a little instruction and practice to use them well. Breathing is no different. Even though we’ve been breathing since we were born, we haven’t been strong breathing through big feelings. 

When the ‘feeling brain’ is upset, it drives short shallow breathing. This is instinctive. In the same ways we have to teach our bodies how to walk, ride a bike, talk, we also have to teach our brains how to breathe during big feelings. We do this by practising slow, strong breathing when we’re calm. 

We also have to make the ‘why’ clear. I talk about the ‘why’ for strong breathing in Hey Warrior, Dear You Love From Your Brain, and Ups and Downs. Our kids are hungry for the science, and they deserve the information that will make this all make sense. Breathing is like a lullaby for the amygdala - but only when it’s practised lots during calm.♥️
When it’s time to do brave, we can’t always be beside them, and we don’t need to be. What we can do is see them and help them feel us holding on, even in absence, while we also believe in their brave.♥️
Honestly isn’t this the way it is for all of us though?♥️

#childanxiety #parenting #separationanxiety
Big feelings can be so beautiful. And so tricky. 

We want our kids to know that all feelings are okay, and we also want to support them to handle those feelings in positive ways. This is going to take time. We were all born with feelings, but none of us were born able to regulate those feelings. That will come with time and lots (lots!) of experience. 

In the meantime, the way we respond to their big feelings and the not-so-adorable behaviour it can drive, can be key in nurturing their social and emotional growth. So let’s talk about how.

Proactive Parents is a community event hosted by @mindfullaus . I’ll be providing parents, caregivers and educators with the skills and tools to better understand big feelings and the behaviour it fuels.

Understanding how to respond when young people are overwhelmed can drive calm and connection over conflict. Ultimately, our responses have enormous potential to build important neural pathways that will strengthen them for life.

This presentation will explore the powerful ways parents and carers can, quite literally, influence the strengthening of the brain in ways that will build self-control, emotional regulation, and resilience in their children for life.♥️

When: Sunday 25 Feb 2024, 10am-2pm
Where: West Gippsland Arts Centre, Vic
Buy Tickets here: https://sales.wgac.com.au/event/379:2410/379:3923/
(Or Google: karen young young people and their big feelings west gippsland)

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