Name it to Savour It

Why Naming Positive Emotions Increases Their Intensity

“Name it to Savour It” might seem a contradictory title, given the subject of last week’s Better You, Backed by Science.

Last week (if you missed it, you can read last week’s here), I focused on how naming negative emotions can reduce their intensity, a technique known as affect labelling.

Research suggests that it works partly because it helps turn down activity in the brain’s threat-detection system while engaging frontal regions involved in reflection and regulation.

In other words, naming the feeling helps you step back from it. You create a little distance, and the feeling can lose some of its grip.

But there’s no contradiction.

This week’s focus is on the power of naming positive emotions — and what can happen when we do.

Brake vs Amplifier

It turns out that, while naming negative emotions can reduce their intensity — a little like applying the brake — naming positive emotions can increase their intensity.

Naming is a win-win.

The process, though, seems to work differently for negative and positive emotions.

With negative emotions, naming helps create distance. With positive emotions, naming often helps us move closer. There’s no threat system to calm down, so instead of stepping back from the feeling, we step into it.

And when we step into a positive feeling, it can linger a little longer.

And the longer it lingers, the more deeply we feel it.

Emotional Granularity

Just as with negative emotions, where getting good at identifying the specific emotion helps, the same applies to positive emotions.

It’s called emotional granularity.

Instead of simply saying, “I feel good,” you might realise – if you examine the feeling a little more closely – that you’re actually feeling grateful, hopeful, inspired, content, or connected.

Instead of “happy,” you might realise that the feeling is more nuanced. You might be feeling elevated, peaceful, joyful, touched, or serene.

Naming the specific feeling stretches it out.

This is part of what we call savouring.

The Science of Savouring

Positive emotions can be fleeting. They often pass through us quickly, sometimes without us fully noticing them.

Naming them helps the conscious mind lock onto the experience before it slips away.

It also makes a vague feeling – “I feel good” – more tangible and real.

And when we find the specific word, such as grateful, inspired, delighted, or connected, the brain may process the rewarding qualities of the experience more deeply.

Research on savouring suggests that deliberately attending to positive experiences can increase activity in reward-processing regions of the brain, including the ventral striatum. Other studies have found that greater ventral striatum activity can act as a buffer against depressive symptoms.

So, while naming negative emotions helps us step back from them – “I am noticing this feeling” – naming positive emotions helps us step into them:

“This is real. This is happening now. I’m feeling it.”

So if you want to experience more positive emotion in your days, practise specifically identifying what you’re feeling when something good happens.

Emotional granularity is a skill. The more you do it, the better you get.

And the more often you savour positive feelings…

…the more available they can become.

Try This

1) Name the feeling precisely

When you notice a positive feeling, pause for a moment and ask, “What exactly am I feeling?”

Is it gratitude? Joy? Calm? Hope? Relief? Pride? Connection? Inspiration?

Try to feel your way around it until the word fits.

2) Connect it to sensory detail

To enhance the effect, don’t just label the emotion. Connect it to what you’re experiencing.

For example, suppose you’re sipping a coffee and feeling good. Instead of saying, “I’m happy,” you might say:

“I feel delighted by the warmth and taste of this coffee.”

You’ve named the feeling (delighted) and you’ve connected it to the sensory experience (warmth and taste).

That simple act can help the feeling linger.

And sometimes, lingering is where the magic happens.

References (for those who wish to explore further)

Naming positive emotions increases their intensity. Link.

Savouring positive emotions impacts the ventral striatum. Link.

Increased activity in the ventral striatum buffers against depression. Link.

More

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