Why savoring is hard: negativity bias

Want to miss (or forget) life’s sweetest moments? Easy: don’t savor anything. My late mother, an artist, knew this was a terrible strategy for happiness. Through her art, she was an expert at savoring—and the first to teach me its benefits.

In this episode of Office Hours, I connect her lesson to what we now know from behavioral science: because of our built-in negativity bias, we tend to overlook positive experiences unless we make an effort to notice them. I’ll share three simple ways to do that—so you can experience your life more deeply, remember it more clearly, and find meaning even in the hard moments.

Want to go deeper on this—and other ideas from the podcast—and actually put them into practice? If you’re ready to do that work in person, I’ve partnered with MEA, a transformational science-backed retreat center, to bring these principles to life through a series of retreats in Santa Fe. You can find the details at retreats.arthurbrooks.com.

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Where to find Arthur Brooks: 

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(09:52) What savoring really is

(10:39) How savoring affects your brain and body

(14:54) How savoring shapes your memory

(17:16) Negativity bias and why it’s hard to savor

(20:18) #1: Savor in all three time zones

(24:34) #2: Expand your savoring techniques

(27:21) #3: How I do it–what are you looking forward to

(29:12) How to savor difficult experiences to support growth

(31:19) Q&A: Making space for relationships in a demanding season of work

(32:39) Q&A: Finding a religion that resonates

(34:08) Q&A: Finding a calling

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Referenced:

• The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness: themeaningofyourlife.com

• Meaning Membership: https://hub.arthurbrooks.com/the-meaning-membership 

• Arthur’s newsletter: https://www.arthurbrooks.com/newsletter 

• The Happiness Scale: https://learn.arthurbrooks.com/the-happiness-scale 

• The Pursuit of Happiness with Arthur Brooks: https://www.thefp.com/s/the-pursuit-of-happiness-with-arthur

• Savoring the past: Positive memories evoke value representations in the striatum: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4254527

• The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation: https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Mindfulness-Introduction-Practice-Meditation/dp/0807012394

• ...References continued at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.arthurbrooks.com/office-hours⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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