Building Memories

All, Mind-Body, Mindfulness & Meditation

by Tori Roalef
September 30, 2025

The days that stick out to you: do they fill you with love, joy, happiness? Or do they fill you with a heavy weight? Our minds tend to focus on the negatives in life. It’s how we survive: scan for threats, notice them, and remember, so you can survive the threat.

So, remembering your favorite dish is out of stock on a night out is more likely to stick in your mind than the delicious taste of your second favorite dish. It may even cloud your senses so you don’t notice the cute baby’s contagious laughter (but you do notice the tiny pieces of burnt food instead).

This week, let’s examine our memories and discover how we can build positive, long-lasting, happy memories.

The Idea of the Week

Remembering positive memories can help disrupt negative thought patterns and boost your mood. Maybe that’s not a surprise, but here is a Psychology Today article that breaks down a research study with these findings. The article also shares 6 techniques related to reminiscence for your next sit-down and “remember when…” with your loved ones and family.

If recalling positive memories is good for us, why don’t we recall positive experiences more? Well, it seems that our brains are more attuned to the negative experiences than the positive ones.

It’s called a Negativity Bias. Our brains are more inclined to notice negative stimuli; it’s a survival mechanism. The brain scans for threats, even social threats, so it can keep us alive.

There are other ways that the negativity bias manifests, too. We may weigh negative news as more important or valid than positive news. Negative information can overshadow positive information. Think of a performance review, for example. When your supervisor notes your good qualities and achievements and then offers areas for improvement, which are you more likely to remember?

Negativity bias can also impact our decision-making, impressions of others, and relationships. Read more about this in the article.

So, it seems like there’s a lot on the table stacked against us when we want to build more positive memories. The good news (or maybe it’s bad news, wink wink) is that we can turn down the dial on the Negativity Bias Radar and turn up our Positive Moments Radar. It just takes a bit of practice.

The Practice of the Week

Practice mindfulness.

You have to notice things to remember them.

To make the most of mindfulness and memory, do not just practice mindfulness for the events you want to remember. Practice every day so that for those special moments, you have more capacity to be in the moment—rather than using it all to remember to be present.

Also, you might just make unexpected memories along the way.

Tune into your body and feelings.

If you want a secret to leaning into the present moment, then this is it. Paying attention to what is happening in your body is a quick way to ground yourself in the present moment.

Your body only exists in this moment. Engage with your senses. This is how you experience the world, and when you listen to your senses, you are experiencing the world right now.

Journal.

Journaling every day, or most days, encourages your brain to recall the events of your day. Journaling can be an exercise in recall and also help you discover more insights from your memories.

Please note that if you want to remember an event by writing it, sometimes one journal entry is not sufficient to process the entire event. You may have something that you want to discover or remember from the event that you’re mind is not yet able to process to put on the page. It could take a few weeks, months, and journal entries to process something on the page.

Practice reframing events.

If you notice yourself interpreting situations in negative ways, consider what else colors the picture.

This does not mean viewing trauma or potential dangers with rose-colored glasses, and it’s not about invalidating your bad experiences. Instead, this is about giving equal weight to positive life events and tipping the scales to have more positive experiences.

Let’s take the restaurant example. You walk into your favorite diner, ready to order your favorite dish, but the waiter tells you that they are out of stock for the day.

Notice what you think about the waiter. About the staff. What does your mind tell you about this situation? Does it blame the staff for not having your favorite dish? Does it blame you for not arriving earlier?

Okay. Pause and breathe. Acknowledge the part of you that is having a bad experience—the key part is to acknowledge, not judge.

Now, invite gratitude or compassion and reconsider the situation. What else do you notice? What is happening in your body? What can you observe from the staff? How does your second-favorite dish taste now? Yes, it sucks that the diner didn’t have your favorite dish in stock, and still, you got to enjoy a delicious meal.

As you may notice, this is why practicing mindfulness and tuning into yourself are essential practices for building positive memories. These practices will help you notice more aspects of the situation. It will help you lean into the present moment, allowing you to reform your memory as you experience it.