Updated 09.07.26

By Ellie Poore

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Take your mind back to the last time you noticed something good. A perfectly made cup of tea, a thoughtful message from a friend, or maybe your pet sleeping in a particularly cute or goofy position. Do you remember how long you stayed with that thought or feeling? Often these observations are fleeting, quickly lost amongst the worries or busyness of the day.

Yet research suggests that pausing on these fleeting moments - properly tuning into them rather than letting them pass - can shift the way the body experiences pain.

What the research found

A randomised controlled trial published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research looked at 95 adults aged 50 and over living with fibromyalgia. Half the participants were taught a set of simple skills for noticing and savouring positive experiences - daily, over five weeks, through a self-guided online programme called LARKSPUR. The other participants were the control group and simply logged their emotions each day, without taking part in the learning programme. 

Both groups then tracked their pain, fatigue and mood for a full week on three occasions: before the programme, straight after, and one month later.

Straight after the programme, the group who'd learned to pause and savour positive moments showed improvements to how they felt mentally and physically. Unlike the control group, they felt a bigger emotional lift from good moments than before the programme, and also a reduction in pain and fatigue. 

One month on, the emotional result had faded in this group - the study suggests that to maintain this benefit, individuals would need to continue to practise their new skills. However, the physical benefits appeared to stick - those who had learnt to savour small pleasures still noted a reduction in pain and fatigue one month later.

The skills the participants learnt weren’t complicated or time-consuming - they included noticing when something good happens, actively savouring it rather than letting it slide by, naming personal strengths, and practising gratitude.

It is so easy for potentially meaningful moments to pass by unnoticed, especially when we are living with physical challenges. But this study suggests that it is possible to create positive changes in the way we feel in our mind and body through the act of pausing and taking in these experiences - even in the presence of challenging symptoms. 

A place to start

Next time you notice something good, pause on it for ten seconds longer than you normally would, letting yourself properly soak it up before moving on. To help you establish this new habit, you could even set a regular timer or alarm as a reminder, until it becomes a more part of your day. 

If you'd like some structure and guidance as you build this into a more sustained practice, our Mindfulness for Health course draws on many of the same threads as this research: noticing, savouring, and meeting your experience with curiosity rather than avoidance. It's an eight-week programme built specifically for people living with chronic pain or illness, run in a small group with an experienced teacher. 

Research paper

Title: Targeting Daily Positive Events to Improve Emotional and Functional Well-Being in Adults With Fibromyalgia: Insights From the LARKSPUR Randomized Controlled Trial

Authors: Anthony Ong, Kenneth Wilcox, M. Carrington Reid, Elaine Wethington, Dakota Cintron, Elizabeth Addington, Selin Goktas, Judith Moskowitz

Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2024