Imagine you have an enjoy-o-meter inbuilt in your body. Each time you notice something interesting, experience something you like doing, that is pleasurable or that nurtures you, the meter shifts its reading. Your overall enjoyment of life increases.
It’s not as easy a task as it sounds. It is more difficult to sustain the positive feelings of our enjoyable experiences than to recall the more negative feelings of a threatening one. As humans, we have evolved over millions of years to react that way. To notice the dangers in our path – a predator or natural hazard- rather than to savour the good. In a way our brain is telling us there will be other opportunities for enjoyable experiences provided we survive any lurking crisis.
Our amygdala, a structure within our brain, constantly scans for potential dangers and alerts us to the need for possible action. An efficient evolutionary system that has allowed us to survive and pass on our genes to future generations. Its downfall is that in our everyday life we tend to overestimate potential dangers and underestimate our resources to overcome the challenges. Our brain has a evolved with a negativity bias. Which seems a bit unfair as our life experience is mainly one which is neutral or positive. So it’s important that we take in the good experiences in life.
When you watch children at play, particularly young children, you observe their focused interaction with life. They seem more cued into awe and less aware of potential dangers around them. They are fascinated by the world and its minute detail. If left undisturbed they usually find pleasure and interest for extended periods of time. Our daily lives provide less opportunity to escape responsibilities and competing demands. Therefore finding enjoyment in life as an adult needs to be more conscious and deliberate.
How do you find more enjoyment in life?
1. Focus on the question – What in life do I most enjoy?
Ask yourself, what are the things in life that bring you enjoyment. Find the activities that bring you flow. That sense that you lose track of time when you are engrossed in them. Look for opportunities that bring you wonder or delight. Those things that add to your vitality and bring you meaning. Once you have some ideas put them somewhere to prompt you to make time to do them. Whether its your diary, calendar or other type of organizer. Better still, involve others in the planning to enhance a sense of connection and to share the experience. Big plans aren’t important. It may be a small, regular ritual of self-love or connection that brightens your day.
‘The days that make us happy, make us wise’
John Masefield
2. Give yourself permission to enjoy life.
At times we can think its inappropriate to fully express ourselves and enjoy being alive. We may stifle our playfulness and spontaneity as an adult. Particularly for women, there may be a need to ensure everyone else enjoys an experience before we allow ourselves to. Grief for someone who can no longer share joy-filled experiences or caring for an ill or disabled loved one may make us put our own enjoyment on the back burner. There can be a sense of guilt for enjoying life when others around us are unable to.
3. Recognize the benefits of enjoyable experiences –
Enjoyable experiences make life worth living, help us recover from stress and emotional upsets, calm and nourish the body and motivate us to stay on the path of our goals and dreams. They can also help us build inner strengths such as resilience, vitality and calm. They help us tolerate and tap into our inner resources to get through the challenging times in life.
To help them ‘stick’ it’s important to stay with enjoyable experiences, savour them and allow time to really take in their benefits. Involve your senses and notice what is novel or new. Choose experiences that are personally relevant and meaningful as these stay with us longer as emotional memory.
Each time you immerse yourself in a positive experience you are creating or enhancing the neural pathways in your brain. This is possible throughout life, allowing us to strengthen our positivity through ongoing positive experiences.
‘Neurons that fire together, wire together’
Canadian Psychologist Donald Hebb
There is a connection between enjoying life and becoming a deeper, wiser, and perhaps a more spiritual person. Very often the experiences that are enjoyable and make us happy, also help us grow more inner resources to deal with life.
In our distracted, busy days we can forget to truly notice what’s happening around us. Take time to slow down and be more deliberately observant as you take in both the spontaneous and planned joyful experiences that arise. Your mind and body will thank you for it.