Enhancing Positive Effect: Small steps to practicing joy

With September upon us, I’ve been reflecting on the gifts of late summer and how to hold onto them as the school year begins.

At the end of August, I was grateful to take a few days off to reconnect with my yoga community from NYC on a magical retreat in the Catskill Mountains. I enjoyed kayaking and swimming in this serene lake, seeing nature in all directions, and connecting with wise souls. One thing I find myself contemplating after these peak life experiences is: how long can we make them last? For example, as I transition back to the busy fall season of back to school, how can I continue to reconnect to the sense of wellbeing and mental clarity I experienced on retreat? Building on this, I’d like to share a bit about research on positive emotions and bring back a previous newsletter theme of savoring.

Most therapy focuses on reducing the suffering of negative emotions—fear, sadness, anxiety—but focusing on enhancing the positive can also be really helpful. In fact, among adults, there is research on an intervention called Positive Affect Treatment (PAT), which includes practicing the following:

Vividly imagining your most positive memories as if they’re happening now
Taking ownership for positive outcomes (“I studied hard” instead of “I just got lucky”)
Engaging in lovingkindness, gratitude, and appreciative joy exercises
Tracking positive mood and building activities linked with this mood into daily routines

The results? Compared to treatments focused on reducing negative affect, PAT was better at increasing positive emotions, reducing negative ones, and even lowering suicidality (Craske et al., 2019).

Neuroscience can help us understand why. In an fMRI study, participants were asked to deliberately up-regulate positive emotions (i.e., enhance/savor) while looking at pleasant images. The researchers found increased and sustained activity in the ventral striatum (a reward hub) and the medial prefrontal cortex (linked to self-reflection). These two regions synchronized their activity, working together to amplify and prolong positive feelings (Grosse Rueschkamp et al., 2019).

In other words: when we intentionally re-experience joy, we’re strengthening brain networks that make positive emotions more available the next time we need them.

Try this colorable worksheet to practice savoring positive memories with your child—or on your own!

Download

Mindfulness Practice

A short Lovingkindness + Gratitude pause:

Bring to mind someone who has been kind to you.
Silently wish them: “May you feel joy. May you be safe. May you know peace.”
Now turn inward: “May I find joy in small things. May I feel gratitude today.”
Notice the shift in your body and mood.

Kids + Parents corner

Helping kids practice positive affect starts small.

Parent Tip
At dinner, ask: “What was the best part of your day?” Then help your child savor the positive memory by prompting details: “What made it so fun? How did your body feel?”
Kid Mindfulness
Invite kids to replay their happiest moment from the day like a movie in their head. (This supports both visualization and emotional regulation.) Bonus: ask them to draw it afterward as a form of expressive reflection.
Family Practice
Start a weekly gratitude jar. Each person writes one good thing from the week, then share them together on Sunday night. This shared family ritual supports both gratitude and connection.

Practices for parents

Micro-Moments of Joy:
Write down one thing you appreciated today (a smile from a neighbor, a quiet cup of coffee). These small gratitude practices add up and gently rewire our focus toward what’s good.
Scheduled Joy:
Treat positive experiences like appointments—walks, music breaks, phone calls with friends. These intentional moments of joy build positive affect just like exercise builds strength.

Bottom Line

Enhancing positive affect is not about ignoring hard feelings. It’s about balancing the scale—making space for joy, gratitude, and kindness alongside the inevitable stressors.

Even when the going gets tough, we can fall back on savoring positive memories to increase resilience.

If we can support you in enhancing the positive, practicing emotional regulation, or building healthy habits for families, we at Well Brain are here for you!

References

Craske, M. G., Meuret, A. E., Ritz, T., Treanor, M., Dour, H. J., & Rosenfield, D. (2019). Positive Affect Treatment for Depression and Anxiety: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Psychological Medicine, 49(1), 14–22.
Grosse Rueschkamp, J. M., Brose, A., Villringer, A., & Gaebler, M. (2019). Neural correlates of up-regulating positive emotions in fMRI and their link to affect in daily life. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 14(10), 1049–1059.