Latest / College Is Fine, Everything's Fine / #17 The Art of Savoring: Learn How to Amplify the Positivity in Your Life

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#17 The Art of Savoring: Learn How to Amplify the Positivity in Your Life · College Is Fine, Everything's Fine

[00:00:00] Um, so I'm coming at you with a cold, so I sound a real good. Am I the only person, go ahead. I don't know. I like a little nasally. It might help your podcast voice. I don't know, Sarah. Well, this is. A little embarrassing, but I think I might not be the only one when I was growing up. I had my own line. I mean, it's kind of the same as, I guess, leaving a message over here now, and I would rerecord frozen.Am I frozen here? Is my audio bad or just my video? Your audio is fine. Oh, cool. Cool. We don't care about video. Just audio, so I would always re record my outgoing message. I'm here. Oh, like on your voice, on your voicemail? Yeah, if I had a cold, I'd be [00:01:00] like, this is Sarah. I can't get to, I can't get to the phone.I'm the exact same way. Whenever I'm sick and my voice like gets lower and kind of raspy. be, I will not stop talking, right? I'll be like, trying not to lose my voice, but I just can't stop. And that's how Liz sounds every day of her life. Son of a bitch, unfortunately. But I think I, I think I need to see an ENT or something.I think I have like some nasal issues, but you know, no, it sounds good. Just wait till I get my first winter cold sour. It's really gonna. We won't even be able to hear you.So Felicia, I don't know if you and Liz have had a chance to chat a bit. I'll just introduce myself and then Felicia, I know a little bit about you because Sarah got to connect with you at ABCT and I was out and about doing something else, trying to track down [00:02:00] my podcast host, who is not the best at returning text messages.No, no, I'm horrible. So I have a private practice in Connecticut, I used to be in Westchester, I probably opened this. Seven years ago and I would say like 50 percent of my practice is CBT 50 percent is dbt and I predominantly work with teenagers and young adults. Awesome. Yeah. It's actually very similar to what I want to do ultimately.So yeah. Very cool. Well, when the time comes and my open door, I've met with like five people recently that are trying to decide what to do like in the long term. And I think Sarah and I. Maybe similarly, like I've worn a lot of different hats and considered a lot of different paths and I feel like I have, you know, some knowledge of like the pros and cons, particularly if you're going to stay in the tri state area.Yeah. That's great to know. Yeah. And you're a CMI. Am I right? [00:03:00] Yeah. I started in October actually. So recent joining, but yeah, I'm a research assistant in the autism center now. Okay. Awesome. And who runs, who's the director there now? Adriana DeMartino. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Nice. CMI man. It's been really fun so far.Yeah. Yeah, I actually also did their Brave Buddies program over the summer, which was so much fun. So I was excited to get a job there and get to go back. Yeah. Do you know the Brave Buddies program, Liz? Yes. So my friend, Brittany Roslin, um. Worked at CMI for a long time and now she's at Joanna Robbins practice, but she, her dissertation was on selective mutism and has done like a lot of PCIT adaptations for selective mutism.And so she did Brave Buddies multiple summers. Oh, awesome. Yeah. That's so cool. Yeah, I really loved it. And it was so interesting. I felt like it was a completely different skill set than like how we usually [00:04:00] interact with kids. So I really liked getting to learn about, really liked getting to learn about that.My, and I, this is one of those things, Felicia, you'll get, you'll get here too. You'll be like, I knew so and so and so and so, but my friend sleepover camps. And her name is Lauren Santucci. She doesn't do research anymore, but I went to grad school at Boston university at card where they have a lot of anxiety treatment programs.And so her dissertation was on sleep away camp. And we literally, I was one of the counselors and it was separation anxiety disorder when it ended with a sleepover and I was so nerdily excited because I was like, I get to go and just hang out. Do jewelry beating with all these little girls to help them separate their parents.And then we had a big sleepover and they were coming in, these 10 year olds with like their teddy bears. And we watched high school musical, which was the movie at the time, number one, right? And it was so great that Steven Kurtz [00:05:00] at the NYHL study center took that model. And used it for brave buddies at NYU.Oh, wow. That's so cool. Yeah. So he sort of references that as hit. And I was like, my friend Lauren Santucci came up with the camp idea. And of course she got that age being a camp counselor. And, but it's a fun, it's fun, really great program, but Felicia, we will not air this part. There was some infighting amongst CMI because it was started at NYU, the brave buddies program.Oh, A little drama for you by Stephen Kurtz, and there's a lot of Gallagher and then when he left. They tried to take the Brave Buddies brand and all this sort of stuff, and it was like a big, big drama. You know, that's so funny because my principal investigator, Adriana, came from NYU too, so we're just like poaching people left and right.There's a lot. Yeah. My friend. Got a lot of, so her, she was Richard Gallagher's, like she did her internship and her postdoc with [00:06:00] him. And there was like kind of poached when Steve Kurtz left and formed his own practice. But you know what? Sarah and I have no drama, no drama, right? We have no drama. In fact, so many of my dear friends and colleagues, Dave Anderson, who runs.Is he still even there? He was an intern when I was at child study and he came over to like run their, one of their programs. And he's just one of the most delightful people. So everyone at child mind at some point, it feels like has some sort of NYU thing. So the people at the top, the top one and two people there's in fighting, but everyone else is all friends and wives and husbands of these people.And everyone, everyone. Good friends. I feel like it's like a cousin. Yeah. It's like, right. Right. Well, so Liz, here's how I got to know Felicia, but I got to know, I mean, met briefly when I was at ABCT and I went to a poster session essentially about, I think it was, you know, something around [00:07:00] liberal doing research and liberal arts colleges, how to.Create an understanding that liberal arts colleges or small liberal arts colleges have a lot of research going on and felicia What was it that you want and you won their boy? Yeah for the people who don't know what a poster award is or think a poster is just something you hang on your dorm wall What does that mean?I mean, I essentially made a you know Cardboard. It was, um, one of the special interest group posters, and so I basically had to summarize my thesis that I did as an undergrad and kind of just put it all on this, uh, cardboard poster, and then people come by and you present it to them. But because I won the student poster award, I also got to give a talk at the meeting that they had, so that was a lot of fun.Awesome. And it's not just something you hang on at all. Yes. It's called a poster because you're supposed to put all of your research on a poster, but ultimately it's research that you are [00:08:00] doing yourself oftentimes as an undergraduate. And you get to, for the first time, go to a conference of professionals and share what you've done and what your results are.So it sounds like, Oh, it's just a poster session, but in fact, it's really a first step to Showing off your, you know, your big brain to other psychologists. And I was so impressed by Felicia when she got up and spoke. And I thought the topic was fantastic when we are thinking about what are things some college students might want to know about and what is a brief skill.That we could teach them quickly. And you talked about savoring, which we're going to get to in a minute, but also you were so well spoken and you had what, what would you say? Magenta hair? Like anytime someone's well spoken with magenta hair, am I getting the color? Right. No, I'd say magenta. I'd say you got it right.Okay, good. I'm like, I'm not colorblind. Yay. I was like, we got to get her on. I ran up and I said, I'm Sarah, you know, nice to meet you. And I just threw, you know, I [00:09:00] think like a flyer in your face. I said, we'd love to have you on. And here we are. And here we are. So quick pause. Here's the great thing about podcasts is we can do whatever we want and mess up as much as we want.Um, and then we can edit out what we don't like. So right before, you know, I know I said, I'd give you a spiel. So we can, and you'll see me and Liz. Do this or we'll interrupt each other and pause, we're going to try to, you actually might hear some awkwardly long pauses between me and Liz because we're trying not to interrupt each other anymore as we get used to this format.And so, you know, so that she and I can go back and forth. You know, you mentioned beforehand, is there stuff I should prepare for? And I think I said, no, just some basic information, all the stuff you gave at that poster session could feel relevant. I mean, people might not care as much about some of the statsy stuff, you know, hypothesis and conclusions and sort of what the meat of it was, I think would be really interesting.[00:10:00] So we'll get into that. If you find that you want to say something again in a different way, or you start to talk and you think, wait, hold on, let me go back. Do it. Just pause and say that. And we have a way to very much kind of smoothly go through and take out some of those stumbles. We do that for ourself and we're happy to do it for you.Okay, great. Are you, do you have a preference on whether you would like this to be anonymous or are you okay with us sharing what your name is? Oh, I'm absolutely fine with you guys sharing my name. Yeah. Okay. Cool. And the fact also is that we're trying to reach college students and you went to Skidmore.Is that the assumption? Yeah. Okay. So we will be asking you to think about this in terms of, you know, when you were in school a bit, like what would you have wanted to hear from a podcast like this now that you've been a graduate of Skidmore for how long now? Oh, I graduated in May. So man, I can barely remember it fresh, fresh [00:11:00] out of college.Um, well, so what questions other than that do you have before we get started? I don't think much. I mean, it makes sense just kind of, you know, what my research was without the kind of like nitty gritty of like scales and statistics and stuff. I mean, I think it makes sense. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. All right.So, all right. With that said, Felicia, why don't you go ahead and just introduce us, let us know a bit about you. All right. My name is Felicia. I just graduated from Skidmore College in May. While I was an undergraduate, I was a research assistant in two different labs. In one of them, I was the lab manager and I also completed a research thesis where I designed and ran a study on savoring worry and generalized anxiety disorder, which I'll obviously talk a lot more about.I also did some clinical experiences while I was at Skidmore. I worked with adults with developmental disabilities and I interned on a [00:12:00] psychiatric unit for children. And I now am living in New York City and working at the Child's Mind Institute as a research assistant in the autism center. Oh, and ultimately, I hope to get a doctorate in clinical psych and be a therapist.Ready to run the world already. I know. Yeah, definitely. College students never fail to amaze, Sarah and I, in terms of accomplishments. Well, my dissertation was on generalized anxiety disorder and worry, so I'm very intrigued. And I would say it's a difficult to treat population, I would say, right, Sarah?Absolutely. People who struggle with, like, chronic and persistent worry. Um, it's a pattern of thinking that's really resistant at times to treatment. So I'd love to hear more about kind of your objectives in terms of doing the research and your findings. Yeah, definitely. So, you know, prior to coming up with my thesis in my lab, we were talking a lot about contrast avoidance.And that was something I was really thinking a lot about and something that I really wanted to at [00:13:00] least address somewhat in my work. Um, so I can like briefly describe what contrast avoidance is. It's essentially for individuals with generalized anxiety disorder, a sudden shift from like positive or neutral emotions to negative emotions is thought to be really aversive for that population.It can be like a really feared experience. They don't want to be, you know, neutral or happy and then suddenly have a negative experience, like an unexpected negative feeling. And so, those with Generalized Anxiety Disorder are thought to then essentially cut off positive emotions or reduce them, um, and instead kind of use a state of worry and, you know, a lot of worry and anxiety in order to kind of brace themselves for any negative possible experiences to kind of prepare for the worst.And so, as I was learning about contrast avoidance, I knew that that was something I really wanted to think about with my research. Especially because it's just so interesting to think about how to, you know, combat that. Absolutely. And I was going to say, Felicia, for Liz and I, who [00:14:00] are working in the room with people who have generalized anxiety disorder, which we can get into the definition of that in a second, but anything you're describing here would be helpful for when people are in a worried state in general, we're going to talk a bit more about savoring.So I think any advice you can give could be helpful for people who find themselves In a worried state in general, but you mentioned contrast avoidance and how we might see that in the office is when somebody is a worrier and they might come into our session one day. And Liz, you share what you think too, but they would say, I'm actually feeling really good.And I'm nervous about that. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop clinically. That's a phrase I hear a lot, something along the lines of I'm actually feeling okay. And that doesn't sit right. What's going to happen next. Liz, do you feel like you have anything like that? No, definitely. I mean, guys, I'm having like dissertation moments because my just side note, my dissertation was a dismantling study on a contrast avoidance exposure [00:15:00] versus traditional worry exposure versus cognitive restructuring.So I'm very interested in Michelle Newman's research. And so I like love this. I like, can't, I haven't like touched my book, my dissertation, my first baby, I like to call it since I graduated. And probably have not stayed as up to date with like the literature. But I definitely think one of the factors that I see in my practice is that people develop some of these avoidance strategies that maintain worry, right?And they really are terrified to experience even a more negative, anxious state and avoid even more positive states, right? Because they're constantly in this state of preparedness for like a future threat. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Well, Michelle Newman was actually my thesis advisors advisor in grad school.So his work kind of came down from hers and trickled down to me. [00:16:00] But yeah, I mean, definitely. I was, you know, thinking a lot about contrast avoidance in my work and also like relaxation. Oh, what's the word? Relaxation induced anxiety, you know, people who have like anxiety responses to relaxation and how, you know, just feeling peaceful or happy can be.make people worry because it feels like you're not like ready for something bad to happen. Yeah, which is so interesting because I think traditionally, one, when people worry, I think the traditional response for most people is like, just relax, which is really invalid, which is really, which is really invalidating.And two, some Traditional methods, I think, even as most therapists would go to relaxation strategies to help with physiological arousal that's accompanied with worry. So it's interesting how it might be having a counter effect than what our intent is. Right. Well, especially in the short term. I mean, I think exposures like that to relaxation and I think savoring as well, like positive emotions, You know, I ideally would help [00:17:00] people, you know, tolerate that over time, but especially at first, I think it can be really difficult for people.All right. So we've already gotten super excited and nerded out by the topic of contrast avoidance and talked about what that can actually look like in real life. So then the big word and one of the things we're the most interested in hearing more about is this idea of savoring and yeah, we are pushing pause here for a second.Liz sidebar to Liz for a second because so many of the college campuses I've been on. Lately, because Felicia, I've been down south hitting the rounds, like smacking doors and meeting college counselors, and a lot of people are in midterms now, and I would love for there to be something about savoring there.So I thought we could potentially take parts of what we talk about today is like a micro dose. We, we, we have sessions and then we have longer. So. I was thinking we could [00:18:00] probably take parts of what we talked about today, do like a microdose on savoring, because I think it would be such a great way for exams, but also to talk about it and then preview down the road when people are more able to listen to give more.So it's almost like a preview trailer. Of it. I like that. I like that idea. So then why don't Felicia can kind of describe her findings and like the study and then we can talk about the application and maybe like funnel it in towards stress management and et cetera. All right. Right. All right. Okay. So, so keep going.Talk a little bit more about this part of your study that focused on savoring. Yeah, absolutely. So savoring, just like to give a basic definition is a positive psychology practice where you attend to and try to increase your positive emotions and experiences. So you try to really tune in to any positive experience or emotion you're having, and just try to amplify and extend the duration of it [00:19:00] as much as you possibly can.And so savoring can look like a lot of different things. You could savor internal experiences, you could savor present moment sensory experiences, you could savor past or future experiences. It can be a lot of different things. In my study, I focused mainly on having people savor pictures and videos. It But yeah, that's like kind of generally what savoring is.And um, my advisor had done a study previously looking at savoring treatment for college students with generalized anxiety disorder and found that it was really effective. They did a week long randomized control trial where they had people either savoring or doing a control on their phones. And so that was found to reduce worry and increase positive emotions over that treatment period.And so in my study, we kind of wanted to look at savoring in the moment for worry and for generalized anxiety disorder. So, another, a lot of times when, especially when, you know, the three of us can get so into all these words, but if [00:20:00] I'm walking around campus and I'm thinking about the various ways people can savor, and sometimes I would even say, you know, if I'm a fly in the wall and I'm watching someone savor, or if I'm in someone's head and I'm watching them savor in these different ways.What are some examples, before you get into the study aspect, what are some examples of different ways people could savor a situation? Yeah, definitely. So, I mean, I think it can a little bit depend on what you are savoring, but if I was, say, watching a TV show I really enjoyed and wanted to savor it, Um, I personally would just try to, you know, remind myself, first of all, that I'm doing something I enjoy.I find that even the basic level of that can be really helpful for me personally. I sometimes, like, forget to tune into the fact that I'm having a positive experience. And just really try to tap into those, positive emotions and really pay attention to them and try to increase them as much as possible so you could focus on aspects of what you're doing and why you like [00:21:00] them, stuff like that.And then I also just, you know, oftentimes we'll try to savor not even external experiences that I'm having, but internal experiences, you know, focus on like a happy feeling that I have when I'm spending time with my friends or a feeling of accomplishment when something good happens to me. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.What about a memory? Because you mentioned past. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can definitely savor memories. It's I think, you know, a great practice. Um, I tend to focus personally on savoring the present just because that's something that I personally feel like I was doing less of before I started practicing savoring.But I think it can be a really great tool to be able to, you know, in moments especially of stress to be able to pull up, you know, past experiences and really focus on the positive feelings from them. Gotcha. It sounds like, um, similar in some ways to mindfulness, which Sarah and I have spoken a lot in previous episodes.[00:22:00] And at the same time, it seems like it has a narrower focus and possibly attending more to positive experiences and feelings. Is that accurate? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I'd say the main difference Between the two is that mindfulness obviously is nonjudgmental awareness and savoring is judgmental awareness.It's, you know, focusing on the positive specifically. And so I love mindfulness. I think it's a great tool for me personally. Sometimes when I practice mindfulness, I find that You know, when I'm just tuning into my thoughts and experiences as they just are naturally, they can be tend to filled with a lot of worry or negative thoughts or rumination.And so when I specifically tune into the positive and practice savoring that can sometimes, I don't know, especially in worrisome circuit like circumstances where I'm really worried or anxious be a really great tool for me. And we forget that judgments can be positive and negative, right? Yeah, definitely.Yeah, I think that's a great. Sort of [00:23:00] way to untether those two terms. Okay, so you were interested in contrast avoidance and people who had GAD and this concept of savoring. So, then what happened? I mean, so my thesis advisor and I definitely went through a long process of deciding exactly how we wanted to narrow in on what we were going to look at.And we ended up wanting to do an in the moment practice in the lab. We wanted to teach people to savor, and then essentially see how it could help them in a situation where they were worried. So we decided to do Um, you know, teach people to savor, have them practice savoring a couple times, and then have them undergo a worry induction.Make them, you know, think about something that they find really worrisome. We just used one that had been used in previous studies that essentially asks people to sit there for a few minutes and think of their most worrisome topic and worry about it as much as they can, which is very simple, but I think especially for college students who have plenty to worry [00:24:00] about, you know, very effective.And then we had people either watch a neutral video, which was just this like compilation of product videos of these really boring tables with like narration of the dimensions, or watch a video that they had chosen prior to coming into the lab that they found to be really positive. So it was like a personally chosen positive video that specifically brought up a lot of positive things for them and asked them to savor it as they had done with a couple practices prior to the worry induction, um, to see kind of what effect savoring versus, you know, just kind of a neutral distraction had on people, especially in like situations of high worry.And it's funny because when I first heard you describe the neutral video of the tables and dimensions, I was laughing to myself, like, oh, my gosh, this is assuming someone has not dealt with some sort of Ikea moment where they were petrified of table dimensions and were like, shit, the dimensions don't fit.But, you [00:25:00] know, but I mean, yeah, I mean, you never know what's going to be neutral for people. See, when I was first telling my mom actually about the design of my study, she had the opposite reaction. She was like, I love looking at furniture. I would be so happy to be watching that video, like it would bring up positive emotions for me because I would be thinking about what tables I wanted to get or whatever.And I was like, I don't know, mom. I think most. 20 somethings are going to be a little bored of the basic tables. Yeah, it really just is more of a, and um, I don't know, a testament to midlife than it is. I don't know, savor your youth, savor your youth is the point. Okay. Yeah. So what did you find? Trying to come up with stimuli.Oh, sorry. No, you, you go. It's definitely interesting. Yeah, it's interesting trying to come up with things, you know, and just kind of [00:26:00] know what they're going to, you know, bring up for people emotionally, you know, we also had to think of what was going to be positive, pretty much universally, and what was going to be, you know, universally distracting, like we had a distractor task in between the first couple instances of savoring and the worry induction.And it was just really interesting, you know, trying to think of, okay, what is like, what are at least most people going to like have a conversation about. The same emotional reaction to keep going. I'm just going to open a window real quick because it's hot, but go. Yeah, sure. I'm dying to know, Felicia.What did you find? Oh, yes. So we found, first of all, we assessed people for anxiety, depression, they're naturalistic or like day to day levels of savoring, you know, at the very beginning of the study. And first of all, we found that that people who did the study who met criteria for generalized anxiety disorder had really low levels of naturalistic savoring.They really weren't savoring much in their day to day lives or focusing on the positive. However, in [00:27:00] our session, what we, you know, it was actually quite surprising. So first of all, what wasn't surprising was everybody, sorry, I got to look at it. I'm going to. It's okay. Let's rewind a little. However, in the lab session, for all participants, the savoring condition reduced worry, reduced anxiety, and increased positive emotions after the worry induction significantly more than the control, which was very exciting to see that the practice was really effective.And this was actually surprisingly not different. for those with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and those without. We thought that due to contrast avoidance, those with Generalized Anxiety Disorder might benefit less from savoring, might, you know, have less of a positive reaction to it. However, we found that the benefits were not significantly different and participants with and without Generalized Anxiety Disorder had a lot of great benefits from the practice in the moment.It was a very encouraging finding. Yeah. And again, I know that it's with research, you have to be really careful [00:28:00] about what conclusions you draw, but it sounds like in short, this worked for people, whether they were big time warriors or not. I mean, yeah, at least in our, in our sample, it did, which was, you know, really exciting.Yeah. I mean, you know, one might think that people, you know, who experience a lot of worry would kind of have an anxious response to. Um, You know, trying to experience these positive emotions, but we found even in prior to the worry condition, when we were just having people savor a photograph and then a video, just after learning about what savoring was, those with generalized anxiety disorder, or who met criteria for generalized anxiety disorder, You know, had durations of, say, positive emotions and intensity of positive emotions equal to that of those without generalized anxiety disorder.So, you know, in worrisome conditions and in non worrisome conditions, savoring was really, you know, effective for them. Yay! Yay! Gigsavering! [00:29:00] And we all celebrate. Yeah. Is that what I wrote in your conclusions? Yeah, pretty much. In conclusion, yay. What I love, what I love about this concept, Felicia, is it's pretty concrete.Like, I think it's, and even just like the name, I think people can like understand what the intent is behind the strategy. Yeah. And the other thing I really love about it is that it's like portable. It's like very like easy to implement, you know, when I'm working with college students and in this like stressful exam time, the things that they would normally do to accumulate more positive emotions are more challenging to implement.And so I'm always kind of talking to them about like, their emotional savings account and how we can kind of buffer against stress. And it sounds like this is something that really could benefit them to practice when they're in these more vulnerable, [00:30:00] stressful periods of time. And it's doable. It seems very manageable.It's not like running seven miles when, you know, you have, I don't know, five exams that day. It's just like not feasible sometimes to do the things that you used to do that helped. You know, buffer against stress. Yeah, definitely. I mean, in our lab session, you know, all it took was really having people savor while watching a three minute long video.It's a very short practice. It can be even shorter. It can, you know, you don't even need a video necessarily. But, you know, these people had really high levels of worry. And then, You know, after three minutes of savoring a video, it had really helped them. So I think it's great that it's a practice that can be so like convenient and feasible for people.Right. I mean, when we talk about micro dosing, a lot of times to Liz's point, I'll work with someone on saying, okay, if we can't do like the kind of big capital version of what you want to be able to doing sort of the, you know, to your point of taking the long run or, or [00:31:00] watching a really Great, funny TV show, which you can't always do and it's exam time, for instance, you know, how do you do the microdose version of everything?And if you sort of have a lot of those. To your point, I love that term, Liz, the, what did you call it? The emotional saving or your emotional savings account. I'm always like, guys, you're, you're overdrafting. Like you need, you need to deposit more positive emotions. This is that savings account. You're it's like, you know, That it's tipped the scale in one direction and how can you be mindful of doing something and I really, this seems like it can be an intervention in the, in the context of worry, but also it seems like a nice preventative tool when you're in a stressful period of time, right?I'm almost like imagining people like having a little savoring. You know, video file on their phone, right? Or a video album. I've made one of those. I made a playlist on YouTube of videos for me to savor, actually. Oh my gosh, that's brilliant. No, exactly. [00:32:00] I had people, you know, sending in videos that make them happy.And I thought, well, what videos make me happy? I'm just going to may as well take my own advice. Yeah, I know we, we love, as I know, psychologists always love to give great advice and not take it. So I love that you have it in your phone and that's actually a really good segue to, to you. Now, as someone who was doing this study, talking to friends, experiencing stress in college, what are some ways that you found?And you already mentioned one, you know, like I use savoring in these moments, pretty purposefully. What are some ways that you started to put it into your own life when you were at Skidmore? I'd say one of the really impactful ways that I started using it was savoring, like, accomplishments and good things that happened to me.I find that, you know, for example, in college, I always, you know, really wanted to get good grades and then I would get a good grade back on something and I wouldn't even really celebrate it. I would just be thinking about the next paper, the next class, the next test, you know, the next grade I had to get.And so even just [00:33:00] taking a moment to like pause and celebrate things was something I just hadn't really been doing. And so I started using savoring to really make myself stop whenever something could happen to me and say like, I'm excited about this. This is a good thing that has happened. And, um, you know, I, I really.Started to savor positive emotions that I got from good things that had happened to me So that's one of the ways i've started using it that i've found has made a really big difference for me. I love thatAwkward pause to see if liz has something No, I'm just trying to think more about, I guess maybe, maybe Felicia, if you were talking to like your former self, aside from the way that you kind of shared how you implemented it, or, you know, Skidmore, you know, students, what would you say to them that they could maybe do during this stressful period of time?How could savoring what are small ways like even imagine yourself [00:34:00] walking around your old campus? Like what are some ways that maybe even externally that they could practice the skill? Yeah, I mean, I'd say really just tuning in and paying attention to things that make you feel good is a lot more impactful than I think a lot of people think it's gonna be.I know that I was You know, especially when I first started hearing about savoring, I would kind of think to myself like, Oh, I do that. I pay attention to positive things and I amplify my positive emotions. And then when you start really trying to do it, I at least realized that I wasn't doing that very much.And so even just walking around and, you know, seeing a pretty tree that I liked or saying hi to a friend who I love, or, you know, listening to a song that I really enjoy just Starting to really pay attention to and, and think about those things. I think it's a lot more different from, you know, my usual way of being than I thought it was going to be.And were there times where that got hard for you? Cause again, as we just described, sometimes it's really great to give advice [00:35:00] and to know what you should do. And where were the times where you felt like, Oh, I wish I could have used it there, or it was just so hard. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'd say it can be really hard to use savoring when I'm really anxious.Um, you know, I think that for a lot of people when you're really stressed or tired or sad or, you know, whatever negative emotion you can almost, you know, Kind of want to like sink into that and not really want to get out of it and positive emotions for me at least can feel uncomfortable or trying to experience positive emotions can feel really uncomfortable when I'm really anxious.So there are definitely a lot of times where I wish I had at least tried to use savoring where I was feeling really anxious, but instead I just kind of used worry to try to, you know, reassure myself or, you know, try to think my way out of my anxiety rather than use an emotional, certain emotional strategy.Right. It also sounds, if I'm correct here, that you're trying to like [00:36:00] almost extend like your positive emotions, like from your experience. Are there any? Like tangible ways that people can do that. Like, I'm just like thinking out loud, but you know, if telling someone what you're happy about, like your example, when you're like really celebrating your successes, like, is there like an action step that you can do to kind of promote it?Is there something, you know, Sarah and I've talked a lot about how we express emotions on our face and our body. Is there anything we can do like in terms of our physiology that might help us savor? I mean, I think there's lots of great things you can do. I think that sharing it with other people can be really helpful, you know, making sure to focus on the positive thing with somebody else and share that with them.You know, people, especially people who are close to you, I'd say, especially for savoring, you know, experiences, videos, things like that. Something that somebody in my lab once said that they were doing while, you know, trying to practice savoring with a video that I had made was think about things about the video that they liked, you know, just kind of use [00:37:00] your memory or perception of your experiences and, you know, focus on those things that brought you joy and just think about them again, rather than kind of move on and think about the next thing, you know, think, Oh, I just.Watched that show and I'm gonna think about that part. That was really funny or I saw that dog That was really cute and I'm gonna think about that dog or look at pictures or different things like that can be really helpful I think and if anyone this has been so helpful and I know We are taking up already so much of your time and you just got home with work and you're like I want to have a night But if people are more interested in hearing about Savoring and some of the research.I don't know if your mentor, if, if you would have his sort of permission to say his name, but would they be able to look him up and find out more? Yeah. His name is Lucas Lafreniere. He's now a professor at Skidmore. His. His dissertation is actually getting published soon, which is very exciting, but he does have some past research that should already be out there.[00:38:00] Yeah, and I'm working on getting my thesis published too, but obviously it's a, it's a long process. Oh yeah. We remember. It's probably why we put our dissertations away and never looked back. I know. All right. Anything else you feel like we didn't ask about Felicia that you think would be important for college students to know?Hmm. Okay.I'm not sure that I can think of anything specific. Well, that just means we're amazing interviewers and we covered it. Okay. So let's think about Liz. Anything else? No. Yeah. All right. Felicia. Thank you so much. Thank you, Felicia. Yeah. Thank you for having me for you. Yeah, me too. Yeah. You're going to have a great experience.You know, you're lucky that you got the, I know it's a hard place to work in terms of, you know, everyone there works really hard and the hours might be difficult at times. And I think Sarah and I [00:39:00] both from getting trained in New York City, there's like a recognizability of being in a place like that. And I, and I think that will help whenever you decide to apply to programs and we wish you the best of luck and definitely we'll be in touch when we air anything.And. Mm hmm. And some of our social media and stuff like that. So you're aware. Great. Just because I'm having a lot of senior moments these days. You, I did send you the waiver, correct? Yes. I signed it. Yeah. You signed it. Okay. Thank you so much. You're a good podcast guest. I have some delinquents. I'm going to chase down every joke.I won't. All right. Thank you so much, Felicia. It was so great meeting you the other day. This, and it's a small world. Definitely. Yeah. Yes. Thank you so much for having me all. Have a good night. Awesome. Happy night. You too. Bye. Wait, wait. No, wait, wait, wait. Sorry. I forgot to say, let me hang up.