Savoring
Deliberately prolonging and enjoying a good moment.
Savouring is deliberately prolonging and enjoying a good moment. You slow down enough to fully receive what is happening. The chest opens and attention deepens. It needs no new experiences; it works with what is already available.
Slow down what you wanted to gulp
We are trained to consume good things quickly so we can move on to more good things. This is a poor use of good things. Savouring is the discipline of staying with a pleasure long enough for the body to actually register it. The taste. The conversation. The view. Slow it down by a factor of two. Notice three specific things about it. The temperature, the light, the texture. The brain only files into long-term memory what it actually pays attention to. Savouring is what turns a moment into something you will still have, in vivid detail, in twenty years. Most pleasures pass without being savoured. Make sure this one does not.
"Time is a created thing. To say 'I don't have time,' is like saying, 'I don't want to.'"
— Lao Tzu
Savouring has a distinctive body signature of deepened receptive presence. The chest opens. The breath becomes deeper. The face shows particular soft engagement, often with eyes closed during particularly intense savouring or focused on the object of attention. The body has slowed deliberately. Movement is minimal; attention is concentrated. There is a quality of expanding time, of being more fully in each moment than usual. The state can be cultivated rather than waited for, which distinguishes it from many positive emotional states that arise spontaneously. People who savour regularly often report measurable changes in well-being over weeks and months of practice.
Savouring has been studied extensively, particularly through Bryant's foundational work on savouring as a distinct construct (Bryant & Veroff, 2007). Their research identified specific savouring strategies including sensory-perceptual sharpening, behavioural expression, sharing with others, memory building, and comparing to negative possibilities. Research has consistently shown that people who savour positive experiences more report higher well-being, more positive affect, and better mental health outcomes. The capacity for savouring is partly individual but substantially trainable through specific practices, with sustained practice producing measurable changes in subjective well-being.
Savouring arises through deliberate practice and certain conditions. Common patterns include:
Savouring is one of the most directly cultivatable positive practices. The following help.
Slow down deliberately
Savouring requires time. Building in deliberate slowness around positive experiences (eating slowly, lingering in pleasant moments, not rushing to the next thing) is the foundation of savouring practice. Many positive experiences are missed simply because people rush through them; slowing down often produces more savouring than any specific technique.
Use specific savouring strategies
Bryant's research identified specific strategies that increase savouring: sensory-perceptual sharpening (attending to specific sensory features), behavioural expression (showing your enjoyment), sharing with others (talking about the experience), memory building (deliberately noting features for later recall), and comparing to negative possibilities (recognising how the moment could be otherwise). Using these deliberately often produces more savouring than general intention to enjoy.
Build attention through practice
The capacity for sustained attention that savouring requires is trainable. Meditation, contemplative practice, and deliberate attention exercises develop the underlying capacity. People who maintain such practices often find savouring more accessible than people who do not.
Notice savouring blockers
Some patterns specifically prevent savouring: worry about what comes next, guilt about enjoying things, perfectionism about how good experiences should be, sustained distractibility. Identifying what specifically prevents your savouring often reveals patterns worth addressing. The blockers are often more modifiable than they initially appear.
If positive experience feels permanently muted
Sustained inability to fully experience or savour positive experiences may signal anhedonia, depression, or specific psychological patterns warranting attention. The capacity for savouring is widely shared and trainable; sustained inability to access it often points at something specific that can be addressed, often through professional support. Anhedonia is treatable; the capacity for full positive experience can be restored when current patterns have blocked it.
"Savouring research has identified specific strategies including sensory sharpening, behavioural expression, sharing with others, memory building, and comparing to negative possibilities. The strategies are trainable and produce measurable changes in well-being."
— A summary of Bryant's research on savouring
What is savouring?
Savouring is deliberately prolonging and enjoying a good moment. The body has chosen to slow down enough to fully receive what is being experienced rather than rushing past it. The chest opens. Attention deepens. There is a quality of being present to what is happening with particular receptivity, as if extending the moment through sustained attention to it. Savouring specifically refers to the deliberate practice of extending and intensifying positive experiences through sustained appreciative attention. The deliberate extending is essential. Savouring is not just enjoying what is happening; it is actively cultivating fuller experience of what is happening.
Where do people feel savouring in the body?
Savouring has a distinctive signature of deepened receptive presence. The chest opens. The breath becomes deeper. The face shows particular soft engagement, often with eyes closed during particularly intense savouring or focused on the object of attention. The body has slowed deliberately. Movement is minimal; attention is concentrated. There is a quality of expanding time, of being more fully in each moment than usual. The state can be cultivated rather than waited for, which distinguishes it from many positive emotional states that arise spontaneously.
How does savouring help well-being?
Research on savouring, particularly Bryant's work, has consistently shown that people who savour positive experiences more report higher well-being, more positive affect, and better mental health outcomes. The capacity for savouring is partly individual but substantially trainable through specific practices. Sustained practice produces measurable changes in subjective well-being. The mechanism appears to involve both increased intensity of positive experiences in the moment and stronger memory of positive experiences over time, which together contribute to sustained well-being. People who decide to practice savouring often see meaningful changes within weeks to months.
How do you learn to savour things?
Several practices reliably support savouring. Slowing down deliberately around positive experiences (eating slowly, lingering in pleasant moments, not rushing to the next thing) is the foundation. Using specific savouring strategies identified in research: sensory-perceptual sharpening (attending to specific features of the experience), behavioural expression (showing your enjoyment), sharing with others, memory building (deliberately noting features for later recall), and comparing to negative possibilities. Building general attention capacity through meditation or contemplative practice supports savouring. Noticing and addressing specific blockers (worry about what comes next, guilt about enjoying things, sustained distractibility) often reveals modifiable patterns. Sustained practice over weeks and months produces measurable change.
Why can't I enjoy things anymore?
Several factors can reduce capacity for savouring and full positive experience. Anhedonia (reduced capacity for pleasure) is a key feature of depression and warrants professional attention when sustained. Chronic stress can blunt positive emotional responses. Specific patterns including guilt about enjoyment, perfectionism, or worry about what comes next can prevent full engagement with positive experience. Some medications affect pleasure responses. Sustained distraction and multitasking can erode the attention capacity that savouring requires. The capacity for full positive experience is widely shared and rarely permanently lost; sustained inability to access it usually points at something specific that can be addressed. Professional support is appropriate when persistent inability to enjoy is accompanied by other features like sustained low mood, sleep changes, or loss of interest. Anhedonia is treatable; the capacity for full positive experience can be restored when current patterns have blocked it.
- Bryant, F. B., & Veroff, J. (2007). Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Savouring sits in the joy family as one of its most practically cultivatable forms. It overlaps with mindfulness when present-moment attention is central, with gratitude when appreciation is prominent, with pleasure as the underlying positive experience, with what positive psychology research has identified as one of the most reliably trainable positive practices, and with what contemplative traditions have developed across many cultures.
See where savoring sits among the other 402 emotions.
Open Savoring on the wheel