Day 4 – Feel Good

Feel Good is a technique of nurturing positive emotions. Today, you’ll learn how to practice Feel Good and discover its unique mental health benefits.

In Feel Good you find or create positive emotions, and then focus on them. Whenever they fade, you bring them back again.

Specific benefits of Feel Good include:

• Enhanced Well-Being. Nurturing positive emotions during meditation makes it easier to experience positivity in daily life, leading to increased happiness, joy, gratitude, and connection.

• Reduction in depressive symptoms. Focusing on positive feelings can counteract sadness and hopelessness associated with depression. Mindfulness, along with other interventions, can contribute to recovery from depression. Some research has shown it to be just as effective as some medications, and without the side effects. Talk about it with your mental health professional if you’re experiencing depression.

• Improved relationships. Healthy, positive relationships are one of the most important factors in well-being. Practicing Feel Good can enhance compassion and empathy and make you more likely to act with kindness. This can enhance your relationships and social bonds.

I’ve found that nurturing positive emotions with mindfulness has helped me to focus less on myself and more on others and how I can help them. In addition to improving my close relationships, this has made me a lot happier too.

 

Here are the instructions for Feel Good:

1. Focusing on the body, find or create positive emotions.
2. Focus attention on the positive body emotion for as long as it lasts.
3. Bring it back again when it fades and repeat the process.

In order to find or create positive emotions, use the mnemonic “Find the spark, or reach for the STARS” to remember several options available:

“Find the spark, or reach for the STARS“.

Find the spark means to find positive emotion if it’s already present. If it’s not, you reach for the STARS;

S: Smile to create positive emotion.

T: Think using mental imagery or positive mental talk.

A: Activate positive emotion at will.

R: Respond to external stimuli like images, videos, or music.

S: Support meditative states to naturally generate positive feelings.

Use one or more of these strategies to find or create a positive emotion, then focus intently on the experience, bringing it back whenever it fades using these options again.

Play today’s 9-minute Feel Good session below: