The Benefits of Joint Savoring
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What is joint savoring and why is it important for couples?
The Last Show with David Cooper, where we utilize nonlinear reverse inverse backward thinking protocols. It sounds like this.
You're stressed, your romantic partner's stressed, even your dog's stressed. But what if the secret to surviving that stress as a couple isn't therapy, it isn't a vacation, or better conflict resolution skills, but instead, the science says it's deliberately reliving, discussing your best moments together. Could it be that simple? I'm here with Noah Larson, a human development and family studies researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who has researched this. Noah, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. First off, we got to define some terminology here, joint savoring. What is it exactly? Is it just like going through photos with my beloved or is it something deeper?
Yeah, so joint savoring, it really has two different parts to it that we think about. So first of all, I would say savoring in general kind of means really slowing down to focus on and enhance positive experiences. And if we think about joint savoring specifically, it involves that savoring process with a romantic partner. So one part of that is kind of interacting in some way with your partner.
How does joint savoring enhance relationship quality?
And so an example might be you're going on a nice walk together and you comment on how nice it is to spend time together. Another part of that joint savoring is focusing on experiences from your relationship. So one example would be maybe you're with your partner and you're looking through an old photo album or some pictures from your relationship together. So we can say joint savoring kind of involves those two parts. So having some kind of shared experience and then focusing on kind of memories or positive events from your relationship.
I love that word savoring. It does sound delicious. Side note, when couples do it together, what are they doing differently than if they just kind of sat in the room and went through photos by themselves? What actually is going on when we savor with our significant other?
Yeah, so there's some differences when we're, you know, savoring together with our partner. You know, one part of that is that, you know, we are focusing on experiences from our relationship. And so not only are we really kind of enhancing the positive experiences from our life, but we're really focusing on that attachment relationship with our partner. And finding ways to kind of solidify those positive experiences with our partner.
Now, couples who savor together, do they argue less? Do they report higher relationship satisfaction?
What activities can couples do to practice joint savoring?
What is the benefit that you saw?
Yeah. So we do find that, you know, in our research that these savoring processes, they do benefit couples relationship quality. And so we looked at a few different areas, the couple's conflict, their kind of sense of confidence and having a future together, and then their satisfaction with their relationship. And what we found was that the couples who savored more kind of experienced more benefits in all three areas. So overall, kind of as the more that these couples are doing the savoring, the better the relationships are as a whole.
I'm curious about this stress angle. I talked about it when I introduced the topic. Why does savoring together mean less stress for couples that are under pressure?
Yeah, so we did find that not only does savoring have these direct benefits for couples' relationship, but when couples are feeling more stressed, savoring can kind of have this protective buffering effect from that stress. And so one kind of reason why this might be is that by savoring, the couple's able to really direct their attention, at least temporarily, away from those stressors and towards the positive experiences from their relationship. So there's more focus on
kind of those positive events but then also more kind of focused on the strength of their relationship and their ability as a couple to withstand those stressors let's have a little fun with this what are some activities that a couple can do that would qualify as joint savoring certainly going through old photographs would be the first one that comes to my mind are there any others that you can think of or any particularly fun or interesting ones
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is joint savoring and why is it important for couples?
0:03–1:30
2
How does joint savoring enhance relationship quality?
1:30–3:03
3
What activities can couples do to practice joint savoring?
3:03–5:15
4
How does joint savoring help reduce stress in relationships?
5:15–6:50
5
What surprising findings emerged from the research on savoring?
6:50–8:37
6
Can joint savoring backfire in relationships?
8:37–9:38
7
What practical joint savoring exercise can couples try?
9:38–9:58
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Last Show with David Cooper
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