How To Use Mental Time Travel To Enhance Well-Being

Thinking about people, places and events beyond the present can be a happiness-inducing exercise, if done properly.

By Mark Travers, Ph.D. | December 20, 2023

A new article published in Personality and Social Psychology Review examines the benefits of “mental time travel,” referring to the mind’s ability to mentally reconstruct past experiences or imagine future events.

Researchers found that mental time travel could enhance self-affirmation, which refers to consciously highlighting and reinforcing one's positive attributes, values, abilities or self-beliefs. Self-affirming is essential to mental well-being and happiness, especially when one experiences self-criticism or external sources of invalidation.

Here are two mental time travel methods that enhance our well-being, according to the study.

1. Self-Prospection

Self-prospection is a mental time travel technique, referring to the process of imagining future events concerning oneself. It involves mental simulations or projections about future experiences, goals, desires and potential life outcomes. 

Researchers found that self-prospection can enhance the three core components of well-being, which include:

• Self-esteem. Self-esteem is the evaluative component of self-affirmation and measures the extent to which individuals like and value themselves. Researchers suggest that individuals tend to assign more idealistic characteristics to their future selves while adopting a more pragmatic view of their present self, shaped by available opportunities and practical limitations. Thus, this future self is allowed to “dream big” while the present self may be more inhibited. Additionally, a 2011 study found that individuals tend to think of their future selves as more agreeable, conscientious, open and having higher self-esteem. Overall, future selves are consistently viewed in a positive light, which can improve one’s self-esteem in the present.
• Coherence. Coherence is the cognitive component of self-affirmation, which refers to being able to make sense of life events and find meaning in them. Researchers found that using self-prospection, individuals gain a clearer understanding of themselves and their goals. When mentally projecting into the distant future, the focus shifts from fleeting everyday events to broader aspects of one’s identity, values, beliefs and life goals, creating a coherent inner narrative of one’s life. A 2015 study found that individuals envisioning their future selves felt that these projections truly reflected their identity and highlighted positive aspects of who they were, allowing them to find meaningful connections between their present and future.
• Control. A sense of control is the executive, action-oriented component of self-affirmation, referring to a feeling of agency and confidence in one’s ability to initiate and carry out goal-directed actions. Self-prospection enhances self-affirmation by reinforcing the belief that one’s actions and their outcomes stem from their own will and fall within their control. A 2017 study found that the further into the future one mentally travels, the more they attribute the outcomes of important milestones to their own willpower. This sense of temporal distance seems to magnify the role of personal determination in shaping life outcomes and empowers individuals to pursue envisioned futures, fortifying their commitment to these desired outcomes. 

2. Nostalgia

Another mental time travel technique involves tapping into nostalgia and reflecting on past events, re-experiencing positive emotions and gaining insight about oneself. Nostalgia improves the core tenets of self-affirmation in the following ways:

• Self-esteem. Nostalgia enhances self-esteem by focusing on positive and personally meaningful past events. This allows individuals to re-experience positive aspects of themselves and draw upon their life stories as a reminder of their strengths and capabilities. Studies involving experimentally induced nostalgia consistently demonstrate elevated self-esteem as a result.
• Coherence. Researchers suggest that mental time travel isn't just about revisiting the past. It constructs and sustains our inner storyline, allowing us to make sense of the story of our lives. Past events are reminders of defining moments that strengthen our sense of self-identity and meaning in life, helping us find causation for life events and derive valuable insights from them. Nostalgic recollections also often center on significant life events shared with close connections such as family, friends or romantic partners and revolve around cultural rituals or symbolic family traditions. Recalling such events is highly self-affirming as close relationships are significant sources of meaning in life. 
• Control. Nostalgia also adds to a sense of control and self-belief, strengthening the motivation to pursue important life goals. For instance, research shows that nostalgia, by providing a sense of energy and vitality, increases one’s faith in one’s social competence, which in turn inspires them to pursue social goals such as establishing successful social relationships. 

Conclusion

In harnessing the power of mental time travel for self-affirmation, it's crucial to navigate it with intention. The key lies in drawing strength from mental journeys into the past and the future without losing sight of the present and using this inspiration to take action on one’s goals and dreams.

A similar version of this article also appears on Forbes.com, here.