You might be one “thank you” away from a much better mood. Science (and celebrities—just ask Oprah.)
have proven time and again that gratitude may be the closest thing we
have to a silver bullet to a better life. Read on to explore how
gratitude works, how to make giving thanks a way of life, and why the
return on investment is so enormous.
If you’ve been trying to make kindness part of your family
culture and there’s still a lot of complaining, it’s time to take
further steps to teach and practice gratitude.
Gratitude
involves affirming the good in your life and recognizing its sources. It
is the understanding that life owes you nothing, and that the good
things in your life are gifts that cannot be taken for granted
Gratitude is
uniquely important to psychological well-being. In teenagers, gratitude
has been found to correlate with positive emotions, life satisfaction,
social support and prosocial behavior
Gratitude
lowers stress, improves depression and improves emotional resiliency;
researchers have suggested gratitude practice can be used as a
psychotherapeutic intervention
One
particularly potent strategy is to write a letter of gratitude to
someone whom you’ve not properly thanked for their kindness, and to hand
deliver the letter to them. This has been shown to result in an
immediate and significant increase in happiness that can last for up to a
month
A dozen different strategies are reviewed, all of which can help you build and strengthen your sense of gratitude
Focusing on gratitude has become a growing trend in recent years,1
and for good reason. There’s a lot of stress, illness and unhappiness
in the world, and gratitude is an effective remedy for all of these —
and it’s free. For example, research shows that gratitude:2,3,4,5
Alters your brain in a number of beneficial ways —
Examples include triggering release of mood-regulating
neurotransmitters6 such as dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine and oxytocin;
inhibiting the stress hormone cortisol; and stimulating your
hypothalamus (a brain area involved in the regulation of stress) and
your ventral tegmental area (part of your brain’s reward circuitry
that produces pleasurable feelings)7
Improves general health by encouraging self-care17,18
Improves sleep19
Improves interpersonal relationships20
Boosts productivity21
Reduces materialism22 and increases generosity,23 both of which can increase happiness and life satisfaction
Gratitude Defined
As explained by Harvard Medical School:24
“Gratitude is a thankful appreciation for what an individual
receives, whether tangible or intangible. With gratitude, people
acknowledge the goodness in their lives.
In the process, people usually recognize that the source of that
goodness lies at least partially outside themselves. As a result,
gratitude also helps people connect to something larger than themselves
as individuals — whether to other people, nature, or a higher power.”
According to one study,25
gratitude is “uniquely important to psychological well-being.” In
teenagers, gratitude has been found to correlate with “positive
affect, global and domain specific life satisfaction, optimism, social
support and prosocial behavior.”26
It’s even been suggested that gratitude practice and cultivation can be
used as a psychotherapeutic intervention with positive effect.27
Finding What Works
As psychologist Laurie Santos, who teaches the science of happiness at Yale, told NPR,28
"It's one of the practices that really wins out from the field of
positive psychology, because it takes very little time, and the
benefits are so powerful."
As noted by Harvard,29
there are many ways to feel and express gratitude, and all are equally
valid. You can think back to positive memories, for example, applying
gratitude for past blessings.
Feeling and expressing gratitude in the present helps remind you to
not take good fortune for granted. Applied to the future, it becomes an
expression of hope and optimism that everything will work out for the
best, even if you cannot see the road ahead.
For best results, the key is to find a method that feels meaningful
to you. For some, writing a gratitude list first thing in the morning
might do the trick. For others, quietly contemplating what you’re
grateful for — past, present or future — at the end of each day works
better.
One particularly potent strategy is to write a letter of gratitude
to someone whom you’ve not properly thanked for their kindness, and to
hand deliver the letter to them. In one study,30,31 doing this resulted in an immediate and significant increase in happiness score that lasted for an entire month.
When Gratitude Is a Struggle
Depending on circumstances, gratitude can sometimes be a struggle.
Researchers say the best way to overcome this hurdle (which can trigger
even more pessimism or guilt) is to find one tiny little thing to be
grateful for, and to focus on that one thing.
Maybe you’ve lost your job and your car was repossessed but —
thankfully — there’s a bus stop within easy walking distance. Over
time, you’ll find it becomes easier to identify additional things to be
thankful for.32
Another way to flex your gratitude muscle when life events leave you
uninspired is to identify and express gratitude for seemingly
“useless” or insignificant things. It could be a certain smell in the
air, the color of a flower, your child’s freckles or the curvature of a
stone. Over time, you’ll find that doing this will help home your
ability to identify “good” things in your life.
Materialism and Entitlement — Two Common Blocks to Gratitude
According to Robert Emmons, one of the leading scientific experts on gratitude,33
materialism and entitlement are two common stumbling blocks to
gratitude, so if you cannot find anything to be thankful for, consider
whether you might have fallen into one of these traps. As explained in a
newsletter by Greater Good Science Center:34
“Seen through the lens of buying and selling, relationships as
well as things are viewed as disposable, and gratitude cannot survive
this … Research has proven that gratitude is essential for happiness,
but modern times have regressed gratitude into a mere feeling instead
of retaining its historic value, a virtue that leads to action …
[G]ratitude is an action of returning a favor and is not just a
sentiment. By the same token, ingratitude is the failure to both
acknowledge receiving a favor and refusing to return or repay the favor …
If we fail to choose [gratitude], by default we choose ingratitude …
Provision, whether supernatural or natural, becomes so
commonplace that it is easily accepted for granted. We believe the
universe owes us a living. We do not want to be beholden. Losing sight
of protection, favors, benefits and blessings renders a person
spiritually and morally bankrupt …
People who are ungrateful tend to be characterized by an
excessive sense of self-importance, arrogance, vanity and an
unquenchable need for admiration and approval.
Narcissists reject the ties that bind people into relationships of
reciprocity. They expect special favors and feel no need to pay back or
pay forward … Without empathy, they cannot appreciate an
altruistic gift because they cannot identify with the mental state of
the gift-giver.”
If entitlement is the hallmark of narcissism, then humility is the
antidote and the answer when you struggle with gratitude. As noted by
Emmons, “The humble person says that life is a gift to be grateful for,
not a right to be claimed. Humility ushers in a grateful response to
life.”35
So, gratitude isn’t a response to receiving “your due,” but rather
the recognition that life owes you nothing, yet provided you with
everything you have anyway — a place to live, family, friends, work,
your eyesight, your breath, indeed your very life. When you start
seeing everything as a gift, opposed to things you’ve deserved (for
better or worse), your sense of gratitude will begin to swell.
How to Build and Strengthen Gratitude
While keeping a daily gratitude journal is highly recommended, there
are many other ways to practice gratitude. I’ve compiled suggestions
from various experts below. The key is to stay consistent. Find a way
to incorporate your chosen method into each week, and stick with it.
Write thank-you notes36— When thanking someone, be specific and acknowledge the effort and/or cost involved.
Say grace at each meal — Adopting the ritual of saying grace at each meal is a great way to flex your gratitude muscle on a daily basis,37 and will also foster a deeper connection to your food.
While this can be a perfect opportunity to honor a spiritual
connection with the divine, you don’t have to turn it into a
religious speech if you don’t want to. You could simply say, “I am
grateful for this food, and appreciate all the time and hard work
that went into its production, transportation and preparation.”
Change your perception —
Disappointment can be a major source of stress, which is known to
have far-reaching effects on your health and longevity. In fact, centenarians
overwhelmingly cite stress as the most important thing to avoid if
you want to live a long and healthy life. Since stress is virtually
unavoidable, the key is to develop and strengthen your ability to
manage your stress so that it doesn’t wear you down over time.
Rather than dwelling on negative events, most centenarians figured
out how to let things go, and you can do that too. It takes
practice, though. It’s a skill that must be honed daily, or however
often you’re triggered.
A foundational principle to let go of negativity is the
realization that the way you feel has little to do with the event
itself, and everything to do with your perception of it. Wisdom of
the ancients dictate that events are neither good nor bad in and of
themselves. It is your belief about the event that upsets you, not
the fact that it happened.
As noted by Ryan Holiday, author of “The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance and the Art of Living,”38
“The Stoics are saying, ‘This happened to me,’ is not the same as,
‘This happened to me and that’s bad.’ They’re saying if you stop at
the first part, you will be much more resilient and much more able to
make some good out of anything that happens.” And, once you can see
the good, you’re more apt to feel gratitude.
Be mindful of your nonverbal actions —
Smiling and hugging are both ways of expressing gratitude,
encouragement, excitement, empathy and support. These physical actions
also help strengthen your inner experience of positive emotions of
all kinds.
Give praise — Research39
shows using “other-praising” phrases are far more effective than
“self-beneficial” phrases. For example, praising a partner saying,
“thank you for going out of your way to do this,” is more powerful
than a compliment framed in terms of how you benefited, such as “it
makes me happy when you do that.”
The former resulted in the partner feeling happier and more loving
toward the person giving the praise. Also, be mindful of your
delivery — say it like you mean it. Establishing eye contact is
another tactic that helps you show your sincerity.
Prayer and/or mindfulness meditation — Expressing thanks during prayer or meditation is another way to cultivate gratitude. Practicing "mindfulness"
means that you're actively paying attention to the moment you're in
right now. A mantra is sometimes used to help maintain focus, but you
can also focus on something that you're grateful for, such as a
pleasant smell, a cool breeze or a lovely memory.
Create a nightly gratitude ritual — One suggestion is to create a gratitude jar,40
into which the entire family can add notes of gratitude on a daily
basis. Any jar or container will do. Simply write a quick note on a
small slip of paper and put it into the jar. Some make an annual (or
biannual or even monthly) event out of going through the whole jar,
reading each slip out loud.
Spend money on activities instead of things — According to research,41
spending money on experiences not only generates more gratitude than
material consumption, it also motivates greater generosity.
As noted by co-author Amit Kumar, postdoctoral research fellow at
the University of Chicago, “People feel fortunate, and because it’s a
diffuse, untargeted type of gratitude, they’re motivated to give
back to people in general.”42
Embrace the idea of having “enough” —
According to many who have embraced a more minimalist lifestyle, the
key to happiness is learning to appreciate and be grateful for having
“enough.”
Financial hardship and work stress are two significant
contributors to depression and anxiety. The answer is to buy less and
appreciate more. Instead of trying to keep up with the Joneses,
practice being grateful for the things you already have, and release
yourself from the iron grip of advertising, which tells you there’s
lack in your life.
Many who have adopted the minimalist lifestyle claim they’ve been
able to reduce the amount of time they have to work to pay their
bills, freeing up time for volunteer work, creative pursuits and
taking care of their personal health, thereby dramatically raising
their happiness and life satisfaction. The key here is deciding what
“enough” is. Consumption itself is not the problem; unchecked and
unnecessary shopping is.
Many times, accumulation of material goods is a symptom that you
may be trying to fill a void in your life, yet that void can never be
filled by material things. More often than not, the void is silently
asking for more love, personal connection, or experiences that bring
purpose and passionate engagement. So, make an effort to identify your
real, authentic emotional and spiritual needs, and then focus on
fulfilling them in ways that does not involve shopping.
Tapping — The Emotional Freedom Techniques
(EFT) is a helpful tool for a number of emotional challenges,
including lack of gratitude. EFT is a form of psychological
acupressure based on the energy meridians used in acupuncture that
can quickly restore inner balance and healing, and helps rid your
mind of negative thoughts and emotions. In the video below, EFT
practitioner Julie Schiffman demonstrates how to tap for gratitude.
I am grateful to Dr. Mercola for publishing this post for Thanksgiving weekend. Thanksgiving is such a wonderful ritual. It is true that gratitude promotes Well-being and Happiness.
Thanksgiving
is a ritual celebration that fosters happiness and health. Ideally,
you’ll want to practice gratitude every day; actually expressing
gratitude produces the greatest benefits
Gratitude
helps improve sleep, increase happiness and optimism, increase
likelihood of engaging in healthy activities such as exercise, increase
relationship satisfaction, and boost work performance
Starting each day by thinking of all the things you have to be thankful for is one way to put your mind on the right track
