You often hear about triggers—those moments that activate stress, anxiety or past wounds. But what if there was another way to shape your emotional landscape? Instead of focusing solely on what overwhelms you, you can train your brain to notice “glimmers”— tiny, fleeting moments of peace and joy in your everyday life.
Coined by Deb Dana, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), glimmers are the opposite of triggers: they activate the parasympathetic nervous system, helping you feel grounded and at ease. They can be as simple as the warmth of the sun on your skin, the sound of laughter or the smell of fresh coffee.
Being aware of your glimmers is just as important as recognizing your triggers because both shape the way your nervous system responds to the world. When we only focus on avoiding triggers, we remain in a defensive state. But when we actively seek out glimmers, we create opportunities to rewire ourselves emotionally for healing and greater emotional stability.
Here are three reasons to start identifying your glimmers, and how to notice them in your daily life.
1. They Can Be Your Emotional Anchors
Life can be full of unpredictable, sometimes stressful moments. Often, a single trigger can set the tone for your entire day—pulling you into a spiral of negativity before you even realize it. But, just as triggers can steer you off course, glimmers can help you reset.
Being aware of your glimmers is almost like creating an emotional toolkit you can reach for in difficult moments. This can help you shift your mental state and eventually regain balance when you need it most.
A 2022 study published in Personality and Individual Differences shows that experiencing daily positive events can have a profound impact on one’s mood, especially for individuals with depression, who are often more sensitive to stress.
On stressful days, positive experiences reduced negative emotional states the following day, reinforcing the concept of “mood brightening”—where positive events help counteract negativity. So, noticing daily glimmers can be essential for emotional well-being.
Intentionally embracing glimmers can help you create a buffer against stress, making it easier to navigate life’s ups and downs. Over time, this practice can strengthen emotional resilience and overall well-being.
2. They Can Help Rewire Your Brain With ‘Micro-Doses’ Of Healing
Just like repeated encounters with stress can make anxiety feel like second nature, regularly noticing glimmers can rewire your brain to find comfort more easily. Your brain is always learning. If it constantly detects threats, it becomes wired for stress and hypervigilance.
Research published in Psychoneuroendocrinology found that in women who have experienced trauma, the connection between two brain regions—the amygdala (which detects threats and triggers fear responses) and the ventral anterior cingulate cortex (which helps regulate emotions and calm the brain)—is overactive.
As a result, their brains stay on high alert—even in safe situations. This can make it hard for them to relax because their brain is constantly scanning for danger, even when there aren’t any real threats. Trauma-exposed women also had lower cortisol but a hyperactive stress response, meaning their body struggles to calm down.
While this study was focused on trauma-exposed women, it’s possible that ongoing stress—even without trauma—can lead to heightened alertness and difficulty in regulating emotions.
Glimmers can help counteract an overactive stress response by training the brain to recognize safety. Regularly noticing them could strengthen the brain’s ability to regulate emotions, calming the amygdala and reinforcing feelings of ease. Over time, this can help you rewire your brain to shift from constant vigilance to a state of calm. Just like repeated stress wires the brain for anxiety, glimmers help it default to peace.
3. They Can Help Create A Positive Ripple Effect
Not only do glimmers help you regain balance in the moment, but they also have a lasting impact. They have the power to influence your overall emotional state and social interactions.
When you consciously seek out and embrace small moments of joy, you naturally shift your mindset, which makes it easier to approach challenges with resilience. This positive energy can extend beyond your own well-being; it can reach those around you and, in turn, shape the way you connect with them.
In fact, research highlights that happiness is not just a personal experience—it spreads through social networks. Happy people tend to be surrounded by other happy people, and their happiness can influence friends, friends of friends and even friends of those friends (up to three degrees of separation).
There are several reasons for this:
- Social influence. Happy people may be more kind, generous or supportive, which improves the mood of those around them.
- Emotional contagion. Just like smiling or laughing is contagious, happiness can spread from person to person over time.
- Biological effects. Being around happy people might even have health benefits, like reducing stress.
The findings suggest that public health efforts to improve happiness (such as better healthcare or mental health support) could have a ripple effect—which can improve well-being the individual level, while also extending to the social circle.
Just as happiness spreads within social groups, glimmers can also create a ripple effect. When someone experiences a glimmer—like a warm smile or a shared laugh—it can uplift their mood and influence those around them. Over time, these small positive moments accumulate, reinforcing happiness and well-being within a community.
Since social networks amplify emotions, cultivating glimmers in daily interactions—through kindness, gratitude or simple moments of shared joy—can contribute to a larger culture of happiness and emotional resilience.
How To Spot And Remember Your Glimmers
Glimmers can be as small as the sight of a loved one’s smile, the earthy smell before rain or a kind gesture from someone.
Here’s how you can identify and reinforce your glimmers in daily life:
- Pause and notice. Take a moment to slow down and pay attention to the little things that make you feel good.
- Engage your senses. Tune into what you see, hear, feel, taste or smell that sparks a positive feeling.
- Keep a glimmer journal. Write down small joyful moments to remind yourself of them later.
- Create visual or mental reminders. Set a phone wallpaper of your glimmer, keep a sticky note of it or intentionally slow down and recall happy moments when you need a boost.
- Share and revisit. Talking about your glimmers with a friend or intentionally seeking them out daily helps them become a natural part of your life.
The more you intentionally notice, appreciate and repeat these experiences, the stronger their impact becomes. Over time, your brain begins to rewire itself to seek out and hold onto these positive moments more naturally.
By consistently experiencing and reinforcing glimmers, you train your mind to shift toward hope and learn how to ground yourself in stressful moments. Rather than going down a negative spiral, let your glimmers guide you to an uplifting sense of calm and connection—they’ll remind you that joy and safety exist even in small, everyday moments.
Are you interested in learning about your overall state of well-being? Take this science-backed test to find out: WHO-5 Well-Being Index
