[Excerpted from, 9 Keys to Addiction Recovery: Health Psychology ©2023]

Our 3^rd key: our safety net.

We humans are social creatures – even us introverts. (Me, too.) We may be among the most independent – but where did that get us when we were in active addiction? If we couldn’t tunnel out of that on our own, we may not want to attempt recovery alone, either.

If you are an introvert – just do this in the introverted way. There’s no need to be regularly in the company of many; you can arrange to meet with just one, a sponsor or a healthy friend.

Going it alone, though – that’s a non-plan, headed for relapse. You need at least one person whom you can call or text and say, “having a bad day [or moment], need to talk.”

Having a system of truly understanding people – those also in recovery – is ideal, and on this basis the 12-step programs were developed. You can also engage in an online, peer-led recovery room, unless of course Internet is your addiction…then, you’re better off meeting people in the physical world.

Think about your social system. (Again, we’ll do more with this in the exercises section below.) Who makes up your inner circle? Proximity is no longer an issue; even if a person lives far from you, they’re readily accessible by video chat. (Zoom-room 12-step meetings are also now a widespread trend, especially in the wake of the pandemic.)

Think creatively. Is your cat part of your support? A friendly neighbor? How about your ancestors? (More on this in our final key.)

In the biopsychosocial model of recovery, social recovery capital is critically important; make sure that you have at least a few reliable, healthy people, ideally in recovery, so if you’re in need and one isn’t available, you’ve got a couple more to call.

Recovery contagion is a thing. It’s catching, in a very good way. While your recovery is a journey of personal growth and change, it must be socially supported. Best and Ivers (2022) identified 3 key components of recovery capital: personal, social, and community, which are overlapping and integrate with one another; they further delineated recovery as a social and community effort, one requiring a collective capability and producing a social contagion – or, ‘recovery contagion’.

Gilbert (2022) also identified social support as a critical component of recovery capital, including a supportive recovery program such as 12-step; he also included some form of spirituality, or presence of meaning (our first key), and physical capital, or body care (our next key). The Important People and Activities Instrument (Francis et al., 2022) is used to measure ‘social recovery capital’, emphasizing the importance of a supportive social network to recovery; it measures one’s social network in terms of abstinence behaviors, as well as its basic structure and importance to the person in recovery.

Surround yourself in some way with people in recovery, even if your addiction is different – and even if they’re in recovery from mental illness, for example, rather than addiction itself. A recovery mindset, focused on wellness and healthy relationships with self and others, is a contagion to be actively sought out – and shared.

Loneliness is the true pandemic, acknowledged long before Covid, and widespread. Loneliness and isolation are recipes for relapse; in a study by Gutkind et al. (2022), persons with moderate or severe loneliness had a significantly higher alcohol or cannabis use frequency than those who reported seldom or never feeling lonely.

An online group of strangers you’ve never met may be extraordinarily helpful…but people you know in the physical world, who know you, will always be more significant. Keep this uppermost in mind – and (re)construct your social safety net.

One person at a time.

The perception of social support in itself is protective; if we perceive ourselves to be supported by others, we’re less likely to become addicted or to relapse. In their review of 70 research articles on the effects of social connectedness on alcohol use disorder, Mathes Winnicki et al. (2023) looked at 4 socially-related categories: perceived support, emotional intimacy, social rejection and acceptance, and social behaviors. They found a high degree of significance for the first two in particular, perceived support and emotional intimacy, as protective factors against excessive alcohol use.

In India, Rathinam & Ezhumalai (2022) conducted a qualitative interview study of 60 adults in treatment, primarily for alcohol use disorder; they determined that perceived social support was essential for preventing relapse and maintaining recovery. Jia et al. (2023) conducted a 3-month study of 415 adults from 2 drug rehabilitation centers in the Chinese province south of Shanghai; they found that social support, as well as exercise self-efficacy or capability and quality of life, contributed to decreased cravings and relapse behavior, thereby enhancing recovery. (We’ll be looking at the role of exercise in our next key.)

Rural communities constitute a particularly challenging atmosphere for recovery, including barriers to social connectedness and challenges in creating a new social network. In a focus group study by Palombi et al. (2022), conducted in north-central US and including people in both short- and long-term recovery, positive social capital was identified as a critical element for recovery, and treatment or self-help groups as well as clinical support were frequently specified, alongside the need to reduce social isolation and community stigma.

Adolescents and young adults may be even more in need of a positive social support system for recovery, when peer influence is at an all-time high; social influences, substance use, and loneliness have all been correlated (Bonar et al., 2022), while a Norwegian study of 2,588 youth and young adults (Haugstvedt, 2022) found social support to be protective for mental health risk including addiction. Adolescent smartphone addiction has also been associated with loneliness, with a character trait of loneliness as a predictor while state or conditional loneliness and smartphone addiction contribute to one another (Hu & Xiang, 2022).

Parents are also an important part of adolescents’ social recovery capital, if the parents themselves are healthy, of course. In a study of youth in recovery, Hennessy et al. (2022) identified 3 components of parental support: locus of control (parents’ leverage on youth participation in treatment), parent growth (from denial to insight and education), and sober/supportive home (including improved relationship and shared time for recovery efforts).

Adolescent social networks have their own unique role. The study of Jurinsky et al. (2023) highlighted change as the nature of adolescence, no more so than in recovery where social networks are highly changeable through every stage; at the heart of this network is the shared commonality of struggle with addiction and unconditional acceptance of one another.

And so, what steps can we take to (re)create a healthy and supportive social network, and to build our social recovery capital?

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Exercises:

We begin with clarification: a sociogram. In the center of a blank sheet of paper, write your name, and draw a circle around it, leaving room for a few other names to be added within. Draw another ring around this one, and at least two more, until you have a sort of target design of concentric circles. In the central circle with your name, add the names of those in your current inner circle – those you feel are your closest relationships. Put each name closer to yours or to the outer edge of that circle accordingly. Then, the next layer, and more names; and, so on, for the other layers, including the area outside that last layer if you wish. These are the people in your life; acquaintances aren’t included. Some of these you may actively dislike, but they’re still somehow in your life. Plot your map accordingly. When finished, reflect. Which names would you like to have closer to yours? Which ones further away? How do you want to alter this social system of yours?

Meditate on what a healthy social system looks like. Sit comfortably, distractions minimized, mind quiet, your breathing slow and steady. Begin with the idea of social system. Contemplate, in this peaceful state, what you’d like your own social network to be. Do you have a really close friend? Do you want one? Do you like a lot of people around, or just one or two? What about those you can always count on, the one you call when you feel uncomfortable, or need help? When you can do no more with this, take a deep, cleansing breath to be alert again. Then, reflect in your journal.

Naturally, you’ll want to build a recovery-oriented social network. This can include people in recovery, ideally some who are long-term; it can also include anyone who understands the concept of recovery and can be supportive to you, whether your therapist or other treatment providers, your family or friends who’ve taken the time to learn what they can, or other individuals who are positive influences. Any type of recovery program you’re in is a good place to start; think also about anyone who’s known you for a long time and can be supportive to your recovery.

Pick one healthy activity that interests you. Find a group for that activity and join them. It could be a sport or other outdoor activity, or a hobby, movie club, graphic design – whatever really interests you. In getting involved in a group of likeminded people, you have a new potential circle of friends.

Volunteer, or similar. In getting involved in an activity that helps someone else (or those puppies at the animal shelter), you’ll also meet other people doing the same, who can be a healthy part of your new social system.

If you’re religious or spiritual, or were in the past, consider joining a relevant group; this can be an instant new social network that will surely be supportive of your recovery.

References:

Best D and Ivers J (2022). Inkspots and ice cream cones: a model of recovery contagion and growth. Addiction Research & Theory 30:3, 155-161. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2021.1986699

Bonar EE, Walton MA, Carter PM et al. (2022). Longitudinal within- and between-person associations of substance use, social influences, and loneliness among adolescents and emerging adults who use drugs. Addiction Research & Theory 30:4, 262-267. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2021.2009466

Francis MW, Bourdon J, Chan G et al. (2022). Deriving a Measure of Social Recovery Capital from the Important People and Activities Instrument: Construction and Psychometric Properties. Alcohol and Alcoholism 57:3, 322-329. https://doi.org/10.1093/alcalc/agac014

Gilbert WC (2022). Voices from the rooms and programs: Recovery capital speaks. Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions 22:1, 53-67. https://doi.org/10.1080/1533256X.2021.1946332

Gutkind S, Gorfinkel LR, and Hasin DS (2022). Prospective effects of loneliness on frequency of alcohol and marijuana use. Addictive Behaviors 124:107115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.107115

Haugstvedt H (2022). ‘With a little social support…’: Assessing the moderating effect of social support on risk factors and mental well-being among youth. European Journal of Social Work. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2022.2152188

Hennessy EA, Jurinsky J, Simpson H et al. (2022). Parenting to provide social recovery capital: A qualitative study. Addiction Research & Theory 30:5, 368-374. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2022.2055000

Hu Z and Xiang Y (2022). Who Is the Chief Culprit, Loneliness, or Smartphone Addiction? Evidence from Longitudinal Study and Weekly Diary Method. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-022-00892-0

Jia D, Zhang K, and Xu Y (2023). The Relationship Between Social Support and Relapse Tendency Among Those Who Struggle with Drug Addiction: Multiple Mediators of Exercise Self-Efficacy and Health-Related Quality of Life. Journal of Drug Issues. https://doi.org/10.1177/00220426231152912

Jurinsky J, Cowie K, Blyth S et al. (2023). “A lot better than it used to be”: A qualitative study of adolescents’ dynamic social recovery capital. Addiction Research & Theory 31:2, 77-83. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2022.2114076

Mathes Winnicki BM, Hinds Z, Newberger NG, et al. (2023). Prospective associations between perceived social connection and alcohol use: a scoping review. Addiction Research & Theory 31:4, 250-259. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2022.2140799

Palombi LC, Irish A, Bowen EA et al. (2022). ‘That’s got me to where I am today’: Examining the role of social capital in rural recovery. Addiction Research & Theory 30:4, 268-278. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2021.2021400

Rathinam B and Ezhumalai S (2022). Perceived Social Support Among Abstinent Individuals with Substance Use Disorder. Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Mental Health 9, 81-87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40737-021-00237-5

[Excerpted from, 9 Keys to Self-Esteem: Positive Psychology ©2023]

Our next key for self-esteem is gratitude.

Gratitude, like mindfulness (and also kindness, which we’ll see next), has become a popular concept of late. And sometimes, when something becomes too popular and seemingly overused, we begin to think less of it. But gratitude, the experiencing and expressing of it on a regular basis, can’t be overstated – and shouldn’t be underestimated. The power of gratitude has been proven time and again in the research, as we’ll soon see.

Being grateful involves a certain measure of mindfulness. In order to feel grateful, we first need keen attention – to notice our lives. If we aren’t mindful, we may get through a day without any experience of gratitude, and feeling as though nothing warranted it. But if we’re paying attention, we find that a stranger said good morning to us, we got out of bed without oversleeping, we had a great lunch, a friend sent a text and 6 more people liked that Instagram post, the sun was shining – or it was a rainy day, and wasn’t that dreamy, or maybe we need rain, and on, and on.

Every day is absolutely filled with opportunities to be grateful, beginning with the fact that we woke up in the first place.

Adopting a mindset and a practice of gratitude doesn’t turn us into one of those rose-colored glasses people, those annoying (and unrealistic) types who only see the good side. Far from it; we know the negatives, which is why those positives, however big or small, lift our hearts. And a day filled with tiny moments of joy is, at the end of it, a joyful day indeed. Even if nothing special happened.

Some days are just dark. But I’m still breathing. I’m still here. And hopefully, there was someone I could reach out to, who listens and cares. Gratitude.

For some, life is a struggle. If you’re dealing with chronic illness, it can seem that there’s nothing to be grateful for; if you’re experiencing depression, maybe the fact that the day is sunny – or that you woke up – doesn’t inspire gratitude.

In fact, it’s the very act of seeking those moments and opportunities for gratitude that are the benefit. This is another way of approaching our days, and our lives, mindfully; we’re looking at the details of it square in the face, noticing, focusing our attention, and in this case, seeking and discovering reasons to be thankful.

Gratitude sits in the positive psychology virtue of transcendence. A gorgeous word, that. To transcend is to fundamentally alter ourselves, time and space, our world. In strengths of transcendence we expand beyond our everyday selves, we grow our capacities, we are interconnected with everyone and everything, we no longer have noticeable boundaries. From Latin, it means ‘beyond’ (trans-) and to climb, or movement upward (‘scandare’); we move beyond ourselves, and we reach the heights.

Gratitude.

And what does recent research tell us?

The connection between trait as well as state gratitude and wellbeing has been demonstrated in multiple studies (Gabana et al., 2019; Homan & Hosack, 2019; Nezlek et al., 2019; Rash et al., 2011), including larger meta-reviews of prior studies conducted by Jans-Beken et al. (2020) and Portocarrero et al. (2020) – and even in the midst of the recent pandemic (Datu et al., 2022).

Gratitude has been further associated with an increase in life satisfaction (Datu et al.; Rash et al.), also indicated in a neurobiological study of Kong et al. (2020) in which trait gratitude directly affected those areas of the brain associated with life satisfaction. Gratitude contributes as well to sustained mental health (Bohlmeijer et al., 2021), and when in combination with self-esteem, predicts psychological wellbeing (Sharifi & Moltafet, 2021).

In their summary of existing research, Emmons et al. (2019) stated that gratitude has demonstrated a wide range of psychological and relational benefits across the lifespan, and deem it foundational to mental health and wellbeing. Studies have indicated a slightly lesser benefit in collectivist than in individualist cultures, as recently demonstrated by Shin et al. (2020); possible reasons for this are complex and require further study.

So, how can we cultivate our gratitude, and thereby our self-esteem?

Once you begin focusing on all those small things throughout the day for which you’re grateful, you’ll find the floodgates open. This is a skill that almost builds itself. And every time you find yourself feeling critical – of others, of yourself, of life – think of something for which you’re grateful.

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Exercises:

A gratitude journal is a classic. (Eventually, it seems we need a journal for everything.) If you’re using a journal for other areas, then simply include a list of 3 things for which you’re grateful, every day.

Tell someone you’re grateful for them. Tell them why. Tell one person, a different person, each day.

When you say ‘thank you’ – to the cashier at the market, to someone holding the door for you, to any random person throughout the day – engage just a bit more, and rather than saying it as a social convention, look at the person and say it with conviction. Your heart will know, so to speak, that you genuinely feel grateful in that moment.

Meditate on gratitude regularly. Sit quietly, calm your mind, minimize potential for distraction, close your eyes, and focus on your breathing. When you feel some measure of serenity, bring to mind the idea of gratitude. Don’t try to analyze it, but just keep it as your focus. People and things for which you’re grateful will float in and out of your awareness, and just let that happen, without going down any one path. When you notice that your attention has wandered (for it will – this is natural), simply bring it back to your breathing, and then again to the concept of gratitude. Afterward, reflect on your new awareness, in the manner of your choice.

Post on social media about something for which you’re grateful. (‘Today, I’m feeling grateful for—‘) You’ll not only grow your own gratitude in that moment, but you’ll encourage others to do the same.

References:

Bohlmeijer ET, Kraiss JT, Watkins P et al. (2021). Promoting Gratitude as a Resource for Sustainable Mental Health: Results of a 3-Armed Randomized Controlled Trial up to 6 Months Follow-up. Journal of Happiness Studies 22, 1011-1032. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00261-5

Datu JAD, Valdez JPM, McInerney DM et al. (2022). The effects of gratitude and kindness on life satisfaction, positive emotions, negative emotions, and COVID-19 anxiety: An online pilot experimental study. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being 14:2, 347- 361. https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.12306

Emmons RA, Froh J, and Rose R (2019). Gratitude. In MW Gallagher & SJ Lopez (eds.), Positive psychological assessment: A handbook of models and measures (pp.317-332). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000138-020

Gabana NT, Steinfeldt J, Wong YJ et al. (2019). Attitude of Gratitude: Exploring the Implementation of a Gratitude Intervention with College Athletes. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology 31:3, 273-284. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200.2018.1498956 

Homan K and Hosack L (2019). Gratitude and the self: Amplifying the good within, Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 29:7, 874-886. https://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2019.1630345

Jans-Beken L, Jacobs N, Janssens M et al. (2020). Gratitude and health: An updated review. Journal of Positive Psychology 15:6, 743-782. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2019.1651888

Kong F, Zhao J, You X et al. (2020). Gratitude and the brain: Trait gratitude mediates the association between structural variations in the medial prefrontal cortex and life satisfaction. Emotion 20:6, 917-926. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000617

Nezlek JB, Krejtz I, Rusanowska M et al. (2019). Within-Person Relationships Among Daily Gratitude, Well-Being, Stress, and Positive Experiences. Journal of Happiness Studies 20, 883-898. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-018-9979-x

Portocarrero FF, Gonzalez K, and Ekema-Agbaw M (2020). A meta-analytic review of the relationship between dispositional gratitude and well-being. Personality and Individual Differences 164:110101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110101

Rash JA, Matsuba MK, and Prkachin KM (2011). Gratitude and Well-Being: Who Benefits the Most from a Gratitude Intervention? Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being 3, 350-369. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-0854.2011.01058.x

Sharifi Z and Moltafet G (2021). The Prediction of Psychological Well-Being Based on Gratitude, Social Support and Self-Esteem. International Journal of Behavioral Science 15:2, 127-132. https://doi.org/10.30491/ijbs.2021.266815.1455 

Shin LJ, Armenta CN, Kamble SV et al. (2020). Gratitude in collectivist and individualist cultures. Journal of Positive Psychology 15:5, 598-604. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2020.1789699

[Excerpted from, 9 Keys to Optimism: Positive Psychology ©2023]

Who doesn’t want more humor? And an ever-better sense of humor?

Humans love to laugh. When we do, our brains release endorphins, that feel-good chemical of our brain’s pleasure center. Laughing not only makes us feel good; it reduces pain via those endorphins too, an opioid-like natural substance meant precisely for pain mitigation. It also contributes to physical and psychological health, and our subjective sense of wellbeing.

Humor is one of positive psychology’s top three character strengths for wellbeing and health, in fact (Gander et al., 2022), and as it’s directly linked with optimism, all the better. The same study links it with pleasure (no surprise there), and with our virtue of humanity, within which we find qualities of social bondedness and compassion.

It’s not actually situated in the ‘humanity’ category, however, but tellingly, within the virtue of transcendence – those strengths that help us to reach our very best selves, achieving a sense of interconnectedness and meaning. Other character strengths in the transcendence category, several of which will appear as our keys to optimism, include appreciation of beauty and excellence, a sense of meaning and purpose, and gratitude, along with hope as we’ve already seen.

Some people think (or are told by others) that they have no sense of humor. It’s true that some of us are more serious-minded than others, and if faced with depression, anxiety, or a host of other conditions, or grieving a loss, we may find it rather difficult to find humor in life. There are also different types of humor, just as we may have various tastes, and what’s funny to one seems stupid to another – or we don’t get the joke.

Humor isn’t only our ability to be amused, and to perceive what’s humorous (or not). It’s also a common form of socialization and social bonding, as we laugh together with others, say or do something to amuse those around us, or defuse tension in a given situation. It’s about having a light heart and a positive mood, and is a clear coping method for stress management. Physical and mental health benefits have long been associated with humor, not only our own experience of it but that of stimulating laughter in others as well (Curran et al., 2021; Stiwi and Rosendahl, 2022).

In a study by Menéndez-Aller et al. (2020), humor was demonstrated to be a protective factor against anxiety and depression, a kind of preventive medicine that we’d all do well to take daily. And it’s not only preventive. In a broad analysis of the research, Berger et al. (2021) found support for humor and reduction of anxiety or depression, along with improved self-esteem and social skills; these benefits were seen in healthy individuals, elderly, and those with mental illness. Another large meta-analysis, including 85 studies with a total of 27,562 subjects across ages and cultures, was conducted by Jiang et al. (2020), and demonstrated that affiliative humor – laughing together, finding the same things amusing – boosted wellbeing, whereas aggressive humor did not; they found that neither age nor culture was a significant factor.

Humor has been directly associated with optimism by Sevari and Farzadi (2021), who found that the presence of both optimism and humor predicted one’s sense of meaning in life. Humor and optimism when associated were also found to be protective against the recent pandemic-related stress (Reizer et al., 2022). Wellbeing was enhanced by humor, in a study by Marrero et al. (2020), though more so in women than men and in those who were healthy; they further found that subjective (self-reported) wellbeing was mediated by the presence of optimism, while self-esteem was the mediator for psychological (measurable) wellbeing.

So how do we increase our sense and use of humor?

Laughter therapies do exist, and laughter yoga, and more. Or, we can seek out humor. It’s good to laugh uproariously at least once a day. We sometimes lose sight of its benefits, and get caught up in other interests and obligations – but just as medicine (as the saying goes), regular doses of laughter are a very good thing for health.

More, we want to develop our sense of humor – discerning what’s funny, and sharing that with others, too. We all know ways to laugh – watching amusing videos or movies, or stand-up comedy routines, for example – but to develop our humor as a character strength, we might want to branch out, to watch comedies or listen to comedians from cultures other than our own, to analyze what makes something funny, to write our own jokes as if we too were professional comedians (much like we might try writing poetry to exercise our creativity). We must stretch and grow our humor — and practice, practice, practice.

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Exercises:

Keep a humor journal. A professional comedian writes down everything that occurs in a day which might later be material for developing into a joke. Funny things occur all around us, every day – many of them not perpetuated by humans. (Animals are very funny, too – and situations, and events, and even weather.) Keep track of all those funny moments, when you might have found yourself laughing within.

Tell someone something funny at least once a day. Shared humor is the best, and humor a form of social bonding. Ask your friends to do the same for you. Hang out with amusing people who like to laugh together.

Join a comedy or humor group on social media – one that doesn’t just share funny memes and videos, but works to develop their own humor. Budding comedians, for example, or a ‘laughter therapy’ type of group.

Watch an instructional video on how to write your own comedy routines. Rather than it becoming a new job (or maybe so – who knows?), it’s a great way to discover how humor works – why things are funny, what makes something funnier, delivery and timing, and much more. The better we understand humor, rather than it coming to us only accidentally, the more developed our humor skill becomes.

Before you go to sleep each night, review your day – and remember at least 3 moments of humor. Once you begin looking for them, they’ll be there.

Place a few small items in spots around your home that only you know about – things that make you laugh every time you see them but wouldn’t be noticed or thought of as funny by others, because the secret of the joke is half the fun. Amuse yourself. Surround yourself with tiny bits of humor that just walking past or seeing out of the corner of your eye makes you smile or laugh.

Get a dog. Or a cat. You’ll be laughing more each day.

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References:

Berger P, Bitsch F, and Falkenberg I (2021). Humor in Psychiatry: Lessons From Neuroscience, Psychopathology, and Treatment Research. Frontiers in Psychiatry 12:681903. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.681903

Curran T, Janovec A, and Olsen K (2021). Making Others Laugh is the Best Medicine: Humor Orientation, Health Outcomes, and the Moderating Role of Cognitive Flexibility. Health Communication 36:4, 468-475. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2019.1700438

Gander F, Wagner L, Amann L, and Ruch W (2022). What are character strengths good for? A daily diary study on character strengths enactment.  Journal of Positive Psychology 17:5, 718-728. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2021.1926532

Jiang F, Lu S, Jiang T et al. (2020). Does the Relation Between Humor Styles and Subjective Well-Being Vary Across Culture and Age? A Meta-Analysis. Frontiers in Psychology 11:2213. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02213

Marrero RJ, Carballeira M and Hernández-Cabrera JA (2020). Does Humor Mediate the Relationship Between Positive Personality and Well-Being? The Moderating Role of Gender and Health. Journal of Happiness Studies 21, 1117–1144. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-019-00121-x

Menéndez-Aller Á, Postigo Á, Montes-Álvarez P et al. (2020). Humor as a protective factor against anxiety and depression. International Journal of Clinical Health Psychology 20:1, 38-45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijchp.2019.12.002

Reizer A, Munk Y, and Frankfurther LK (2022). Laughing all the way to the lockdown: On humor, optimism, and well-being during COVID-19. Personality and Individual Differences 184:111164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111164

Sevari K and Farzadi F (2021). Predicting Meaning of Life Based on Optimism and Humorous Styles. Positive Psychology Research 7:2, 49-60. https://doi.org/10.22108/ppls.2021.25942

Stiwi K and Rosendahl J (2022). Efficacy of laughter-inducing interventions in patients with somatic or mental health problems: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized-controlled trials. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice 47:101552. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctcp.2022.101552

[Excerpted from, 9 Keys to Happiness: Positive Psychology ©2023]

Our third key to a pleasurable life can be found in paired concepts: savoring, and gratitude. These are often addressed separately, yet they bear a close relationship. When we truly savor the moments that bring us pleasure, contentment, happiness, it is an appreciation – a type of gratitude. This naturally also relates to our first key, focus and notice.

As I write this, sitting at my desk in front of a sunny urban apartment window in early spring, I see the herbs in my window boxes swaying in the breeze, hear the music of the windchimes that hang above the window, feel the warmth of the sun on my face, and smell the fresh sea air, as rainbows — from the prisms I’ve hung in the window – are dancing around me. Pure, simple happiness. And so, I savor this moment, give it space and time, don’t just notice and then return to my busy-ness but instead, pause to enjoy and reflect. String many of these moments together, and it’s a happy lifestyle, a pleasurable life. And I am deeply grateful.

In 2007, Bryant and Veroff published Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience, which has prompted a good deal of research and brought ‘savoring’ into the core concepts of positive psychology. Just the word itself gives us an impression of its meaning, the feeling of the word being one of drawing out something pleasurable. In the introduction to their book, Bryant and Veroff defined ‘savoring’ as “the capacity to attend to, appreciate, and enhance the positive experiences in one’s life” (p. xi). In recent research, Bryant (2021) identified 10 strategies for savoring: sharing with others, memory building, self-congratulation, sensory-perceptual sharpening, comparing, absorption, behavioral expression, temporal awareness, counting blessings, and kill-joy thinking. These are perhaps all self-explanatory with the exception of the latter; kill-joy thinking is defined by Bryant as the technique of decreasing our interest in order to self-protect against disappointment — a form of savoring more typical in East Asian cultures, for example, in which life is being savored while desire for more is suppressed. In other words, we savor the moment by not giving in to our desire for more than what we have right now. In a recent study by Klibert et al. (2022), those engaged in savoring techniques reported increased positive emotions thereafter, greater than those utilizing other methods such as reminiscence or guided imagery.

Much has been written recently about gratitude. After a point, it seems like mere platitude instead. And yet, there is never enough that could be said about this practice in terms of its ability to generate happiness and overall wellbeing. In positive psychology, great attention is given to the regular practice of gratitude and its impact on happiness. A recent Harvard Medical School Healthbeat blog entry (August 14, 2021) reported that gratitude is “strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness,” enhancing a range of positive emotions as well as relationships, physical health, and resilience. In a study by Kardas et al. (2019) of optimism, hope, life satisfaction, and gratitude, the latter was the most predictive for wellbeing, though all were important. Gratitude was found to predict and thereby directly influence both hope and happiness, exceeding those of forgiveness, patience, and self-control, in a study by van Oyen Witvliet et al. (2019).

We can cultivate these mirroring attributes of savoring and gratitude. Savoring, like noticing or mindfulness, is taking some moments to stroke the cat or play with the dog instead of giving over completely to that deadline. It’s fully appreciating the food that we’re eating, bite by slow bite. And it’s reveling in our relationships, even those longstanding and often annoying ones, for it’s by our connectedness that we know ourselves to be truly alive. When we are grateful, rather than take any aspect of our lives for granted, life becomes an exponentially richer experience. We needn’t necessarily be grateful to a particular person or source, or to a deity if not religious; simply allowing one’s being to fill with the quality of gratitude is sufficient.

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Exercises:

This key, then, has us savoring as many moments and acts as possible, much like we might savor a fine wine or a great meal — so many juicy moments in the course of an ordinary day. And by this savoring, we can allow gratitude to flow through us. Exercises for savoring require full attention, thus relate to mindfulness as earlier mentioned. An important element is to reduce or eliminate distractions, thereby to fully focus on the task, event, or activity before us.

Listen to music. Truly listen — not as background but sitting quietly, eyes closed, listening deeply. Eat a meal without the television, book, Internet, or any other object requiring your attention. If with a partner, friend, or family member, make an agreement to have a meal in silence, focusing on and fully enjoying the food itself. Soak in a bath, feeling the water on your skin, the warmth of it, the silkiness of whatever you may have added to the water. Stare into a candle flame and fully appreciate its beauty; the same goes for spring flowers blooming around us. Don’t just have a quick look; take time to truly notice and appreciate. Savor life, in all of its juiciness.

We can also savor a moment or an experience through reflection. Write about it in a journal. Make a video or audio recording. Gaze at photos of past experiences, deeply seeing them and recalling details, reexperiencing the moment. Tell a friend — and make it a good and detailed story. The savoring is in the details, and in experiencing the positive emotions fully — and again, and again.

Exercises for engendering gratitude include keeping a gratitude journal, stating our gratitude into the mirror as we look into our own eyes (far more powerful than it sounds), writing it on a small piece of paper or a bay leaf and then burning it as a prayer, focusing on what we’re grateful for while in meditation or during a walk in the woods — or a roll if you’re in a chair, and telling someone when you’re grateful for them. (Sending a text message to that effect is an easy way to raise our gratitude quotient; think how easy, yet meaningful, that can be.) We can begin each day in gratitude — on waking, grateful for a new day. Create a ‘gratitude jar’ or box, decorate it, place it prominently, feed it daily.

As a regular practice, savoring and gratitude bring a positive impact on immunity, lower stress response, and generally contribute to physical and mental health – and surely increase happiness.

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References:

Bryant FB (2021). Current Progress and Future Directions for Theory and Research on Savoring. Frontiers in Psychology, 12:771698. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.771698

Bryant FB and Veroff J (2007). Savoring: A new model of positive experience. Mahwah, NJ, US: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Kardas F, Cam Z, Eskısu M et al. (2019). Gratitude, Hope, Optimism and Life Satisfaction as Predictors of Psychological Well-Being. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 19:82, 81-100.

Klibert JJ, Sturz BR, LeLeux-LaBarge K et al. (2022). Savoring Interventions Increase Positive Emotions After a Social-Evaluative Hassle. Frontiers in Psychology, 13:791040. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.791040

Van Oyen Witvliet C, Richie FJ, Root Luna LM et al. (2019). Gratitude predicts hope and happiness: A two-study assessment of traits and states, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 14:3, 271-282, https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2018.1424924