Re-living positive memories for a more fulfilled life.

Day 4 of my journey building a positive memories app during the Coronavirus lockdown period. Read about Day 3 here.

Bear with me for a second here. This isn’t about looking at old photos of ourselves and thinking, “damn, I had so much more hair back then.” Or “I had all those friends then but now I’m so lonely. What happened?” Re-living positive memories is actually something quite different. The ‘technique’ involves thinking about a positive memory from your past; let’s say a trip to the beach last summer. In taking a few minutes to re-live this memory with all of your senses, you might focus on how the sea salt air smelt, how the wind felt against the hairs on your arm, or how the sun warmed your body. In doing so, there will likely be a shift in your mood or mental state in a positive direction. According to leading psychology and neuroscience professor Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, more pleasant emotional states, (as fleeting as they are), contribute to resilience, wellbeing, and health.

Neuropsychologist Dr. Rick Hanson shares that some of the biggest benefits of -re-wiring your brain toward a positive bias include: feeling an increased satisfaction with life, a greater ability to cope with adversity, and a stronger connection with others. You may also notice less anxiety, and less symptoms of loneliness or depression. But, it’s not about brushing off bad experiences to ‘cheer up’ or ‘just be positive,’ but rather about genuinely experiencing the world in a slightly different way.

Sounds pretty good, right? So how come I don’t already know about this technique?

Well, the things you’re already doing may have this effect too. There’s just a bit more normalisation around mindfulness and meditation these days, and less around neuroplasticity (re-wiring your brain) and positive memories. Everyone kind of knows about the practice of meditation and its benefits. It’s a bit like plant-based eating. Everyone’s tried it. Some are fanatics now, some dabble in it, and some think it’s complete bogus.

If you’re interested in personal growth from a wellbeing angle, you’ve likely given meditation a try at some point or another. Maybe for a few days stretch, maybe for a 10 day stretch, or maybe every day for the past few years. For some, it works wonders in calming nerves, anxiety, and just generally improving the quality of life.

For some people though, they haven’t felt a change or noticed any difference in their wellbeing even after a few months of consistent practice. One person I interviewed recently shared: “I haven’t really seen a benefit. I know it takes a long time to ‘work’ but I meditated every day for a few months and didn’t notice a change. I didn’t feel worse after, but I also definitely didn’t find myself feeling better. It’s hard to keep doing it just because I ‘should.’”

Now as most of us know, not only is the experience of meditation so personal and individual, we’re also told to not ‘expect’ anything from the process. It might have profound effects in ways we didn’t expect, or have resulted in other shifts in our life, but without feeling that difference, it can be hard to stay with it. Ultimately it’s about forming and sticking to a new habit, and noticing a change/reward (even after a very long time), can be a very strong motivator.

Why not give something else a try?

Sometimes it’s about sticking with it, and other times it’s about finding complementary additional tools to enhance the quality of your life. Think about it this way: If you’re trying to get physically fit, you might try running — it does have a gazillion benefits, and there are billions of runners around the world. But that might not work for you for many reasons. You might find it boring, you might have knee issues, or maybe you don’t live in a place that makes running a safe and easy option. So instead, you might explore swimming, biking, or boxing. Maybe you end up doing one on a certain day, or another depending on the mood you’re in. Bottom line: when you want to exercise, you have a few options to choose from.

It’s a similar approach to trying different techniques to improve your wellbeing or the quality of your life. By enhancing your toolbox of options, you give yourself the chance to first gauge how you’re feeling, and then pick the approach that’s most helpful for you in any given moment or time period. You might try a gratitude journal one day, a guided meditation on another, or a visualisation exercise instead. The goal of sharing this technique of re-living positive memories is simply to give you more options so you can pick what’s right for you when you’re feeling anxious, stressed, or ‘stuck in your mind.’

I’m curious to know if anyone has experiences with this already! It seems to be a technique often used in coaching or certain types of therapy, but isn’t quite ‘mainstream’ yet. Though it’s very similar to breathing —we’ll continue experiencing things and creating memories in our lives (just like we’ll always be breathing while we’re alive), but when we actually stop and notice them, that’s when we’ll experience them differently.

Stay tuned! More research and anecdotes on the benefits of re-living positive memories to come.