The Magic Of Gratitude
Gratitude is considered a meta-strategy for happiness because it improves both how we feel IN our lives and how we feel WITH our lives. Happiness IN your life is measured by the ratio of positive to negative emotions on any given day. Happiness WITH your life is measured by your overall life satisfaction. Together, these two data points are the primary way in which positive psychology researchers measure happiness. After leading a gratitude workshop recently, I asked participants to share one gratitude statement in our group text everyday for one week. This one-week practice somehow extended into three weeks – seems we all got hooked on the feel-good boost of gratitude!
Scientific studies have proven that practicing gratitude stimulates the release of two key happiness neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin; a simple moment of being grateful affects our brain at the biological level. According to Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of Happiness (2007), “People who are consistently grateful have been found to be relatively happier, more energetic, and more hopeful and to report experiencing more frequent positive emotions. They also tend to be more helpful and empathic, more spiritual and religious, more forgiving, and less materialistic than others who are less predisposed to gratefulness. Furthermore, the more a person is inclined to gratitude, the less likely he or she is to be depressed, anxious, lonely, envious, or neurotic” (p.90).
Lyubomirsky, identifies the following eight ways in which research has proven gratitude boosts happiness:
“Grateful thinking promotes the savoring of positive life experiences.”
“Expressing gratitude bolsters self-worth and self-esteem.”
“Gratitude helps people cope with stress and trauma.”
“Expression of gratitude encourages moral behavior.”
“Gratitude can help build social bonds, strengthening existing relationships and nurturing new ones.”
“Expressing gratitude tends to inhibit invidious comparisons with others.”
“The practice of gratitude is incompatible with negative emotions and may actually diminish or deter such feelings as anger, bitterness, and greed.”
“Gratitude helps us thwart hedonic adaptation.” Hedonic adaptation is our ability to adapt to both good and bad circumstances of our life, and is particularly problematic in the short-lived happiness boost we get when we obtain new, good things or people in our life (new car, new romantic partner, promotion). “Adaptation to all things positive is is essentially the enemy of happiness.”
You’ve probably heard the saying “count your blessings” or “be grateful for what you have,” but when was the last time you did either of these? Practicing gratitude is simple, but it takes a conscious effort. Here are three ways to implement a gratitude practice...
Write a letter of gratitude.
Write a letter of gratitude to someone who has made a difference in your life (someone who believed in you, supported you, or helped you in some way). Be specific about why you are grateful for them. This person could be a family member, friend, colleague, stranger, or someone who has passed. Simply writing the letter will give you a happiness boost. If the person is living and you know how to reach them, I recommend sending the letter. I recently sent a letter of gratitude to someone and a few days later I received a text that read, “Your letter arrived. I am deeply moved. So much so, I have hung it at my desk. Thank you for being in this world and in my life, Julia.” Needless to say, receiving that message gave me a second and even bigger happiness boost!
Create a group gratitude practice.
Recruit a small group of friends (3-5) for a two week gratitude challenge, whereby each of you text a gratitude statement every day for the duration. Sharing a gratitude practice with others has an exponential impact for two reasons… accountability to the group makes you more gratitude-minded and gratitude statements of others illuminate even more things you can be grateful for.
Keep a gratitude journal.
Start a gratitude journal in which you write three things you are grateful for at the end of each day. In one study, University of Pennsylvania professor Martin Seligman, taught a group of “severely depressed people,” “individuals who had great difficulty even leaving their beds,” to practice daily gratitude by writing “three good things” that happened each day. “Within fifteen days their depressions lifted from “severely depressed” to “mildly to moderately depressed,” and 94 percent of them experienced relief” (Lyubomirsky 2007, p.15).
As Lyubomirsky says, it’s not about the “pursuit of happiness” but rather the “creation or construction of happiness, because research shows that it’s in our power to fashion [happiness] for ourselves” (p.15). Choose one of the three aforementioned gratitude practices to implement within the next week and see what happens. It may sound ridiculously simple, but give it a try. You might be surprised.