A way to hold on to those good feelings

✅ Today’s tip: Turn a positive moment into an emotionally charged memory by paying attention to sensory details.

After this past week—hell, this year—emotions like relief, joy, and hope are welcome gifts. To transform a feeling into a potent emotional memory, Ashley Abramson writes, it helps to capture as many sensory details as you can in the moment.

“Your senses are powerful triggers of episodic memory,” Abramson explains. “If you’re in a moment you know you want to return to later, notice as many sensory cues as you can.” The smell of the coffee that was brewing when you heard the news. The sounds of celebratory honking outside your window. File those details away, and in the future, when you want to reach back into your memory for some positive feelings, the ones you find will be that much more powerful.

📚 More from Forge on where we go from here:

What to Take from That Moment of Waiting
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How to Live With People Whose Worldview You Can’t Stand
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Create a Politics Text Thread For the Next Four Years
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