Gratitude is good for us every way you look at it.
According to Sonja Lyubomirsky at the University of California, Riverside, it boosts our happiness levels in a number of ways: by promoting the savoring of positive life experiences; by bolstering self-worth and self-esteem and helping to cope with stress and trauma; by building social bonds and encouraging moral behavior; by diminishing negative emotions and helping us to adjust to new situations.
Gratitude has a number of health benefits, as well. “Research suggests that individuals who are grateful in their daily lives actually report fewer stress-related health symptoms, including headaches, gastrointestinal (stomach) issues, chest pain, muscle aches, and appetite problems,” says Sheela Raja, PhD, an assistant professor and clinical psychologist in the Colleges of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago in an Everyday Health piece.
But how do we get there? For some folks gratitude is much easier than others. I, for one, have to work really hard at it, because my cup usually appears one-third full. With a few exercises, though, I can become a more grateful person and promote gratitude in my life, which brings many emotional and physical gifts.
1. Go Ahead and Compare
I constantly compare to myself to people who are more productive than I am (have more energy and need less sleep), who go to a doctor once a year, and who are resilient to stress. “Why can’t I be like her?” I ask myself. And then I remember Helen Keller’s quote: “Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.” Her wisdom forces me to go back and remember all the people I know that can’t work at all because of their chronic illnesses; those with unsupportive spouses who don’t understand depression; and the folks I know that can’t afford kale and dandelion greens to make smoothies and a monthly pass to Bikram yoga. Suddenly, my jealousy has turned to gratitude.
2. Write Thank-You Letters
According to psychologist Robert Emmons at the University of California at Davis, author of “Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier,” a powerful exercise in cultivate gratitude to compose a “gratitude letter” to a person who has made a positive and lasting influence in your life. Emmons says the letter is especially powerful when you have not properly thanked the person in the past, and when you read the letter aloud to the person face to face. I do this as part of my holiday cards, especially to former professors or teachers who helped shape my future and inspired me in ways they might not know.
3. Keep a Gratitude Journal
According to Lyubomirsky, keeping a gratitude journal—where you record once a week all the things you have to be grateful for—and other gratitude exercises can increase your energy, and relieve pain and fatigue. A study published in the Journal of Research in Personality documented a group of 90 undergraduate students. Divided into two groups, the first wrote about a positive experience each day for two minutes. The second wrote about a control topic. Three months later, the students who wrote about positive experiences had better mood levels, fewer visits to the health center, and experienced fewer illnesses.
In my daily mood journal, I make a list of each day’s “little joys,” moments that I would fail to appreciate if I didn’t make myself record them, such as: a gorgeous, 70-degree day in November; a supply of dark chocolate; the feeling of exhilaration I have after completing a 90-minute class of Bikram yoga; and an afternoon with only one meltdown from my kids.
4. Ask Yourself These Four Questions
Byron Katie’s bestseller, “Loving What Is,” is helping me analyze my thinking in a way that is unique to the tools I’ve learned in other self-help books. I am much more aware of the stories I weave in my mind without much analysis as to whether or not they are true. You need to read the book to fully understand her process called “The Work,” but here’s the Reader’s Digest version. For every problem you’re having, or every negative rumination you can’t let go of, you ask yourself these four questions: Is it true? Can you absolutely know that it’s true? How do you react when you think that thought? Who would you be without that thought? You have to record the answers on paper for it to be fully effective. After going through the exercise a few times, I realized the thoughts I had about certain people and events were causing the suffering I had, not the people and events themselves. This enables you to embrace those people and events with gratitude—to cultivate an attitude of gratitude, in general–because you know that they aren’t the problem. Your stories are.
5. Shift Your Language
According to Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Robert Waldman, words can literally change your brain. In their book, “Words Can Change Your Brain,” they write: “a single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress.” Positive words, like “peace” and “love” can alter the expression of genes, strengthening areas in our front lobes and promoting the cognitive functioning of the brain. They propel the motivational centers of the brain into action, explain the authors, and build resiliency. Lately I’ve been trying to catch myself when profanity or something negative is about to come out of my mouth. I’m not all that good at this, but I definitely believe that words have power and that by making a few subtle shifts in our language, we can promote gratitude and can generate better health for ourselves.
6. Serve
Service promotes gratitude more directly than any other path I know. Whenever I am stuck in self-pity or depression, feeling personally victimized by the universe, the fastest way out of my head and into my heart is reaching out to someone who is in pain, and especially similar pain. That’s the reason I created my online depression support groups, Project Beyond Blue and Group Beyond Blue. For five years, I couldn’t get rid of debilitating death thoughts after experimenting with almost every therapy both traditional and alternative medicine had to offer. By participating in a forum where folks are in more pain than I am—and where I can share my hard-earned insights and resources– I am made aware of the blessings in my life that I had forgotten or simply took for granted.
7. Hang With Positive People
Motivational speaker Jim Rohn says, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, including yourself.” Research confirms that. In one study conducted by Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School and Dr. James Fowler of the University of California in San Diego, individuals who associated themselves with happy people were more likely to be happy themselves. Another study by psychological scientists Gerald Haeffel and Jennifer Hames of the University of Notre Dame showed that risk factors for depression can actually be contagious when our social environments are in flux. Hence, there’s a better shot of you becoming a more grateful, positive person if you surround yourself with grateful people.
8. Make a Gratitude Ritual
One family I know has a gratitude ritual every night at dinner. After prayers, each person goes around the table saying something positive that happened to him or her that day, one thing for which he or she is grateful. In our home, we are lucky to get everyone seated without a meltdown, so I have filed this exercise for down the road a little—maybe after hormones are stabilized; however, I thought it was a really nice way of cultivating gratitude as a family and teaching that value to non-hormonal kids.
9. Try a Loving-Kindness Meditation
In a landmark study published in the Journal of Personal and Social Psychology, Barbara Frederickson and her team showed that practicing seven weeks of loving-kindness meditation increased gratitude as well as a host of other positive emotions. The benefits intensified over time, producing a range of other health benefits: increased mindfulness, purpose in life, social support, and decreased illness symptoms. Sociologist Christine Carter, Ph.D., with University of California Berkley’s Greater Good Science Center, gives a nice overview of how to do a simple loving-kindness meditation in five minutes a day on her blog. She writes, “Because research demonstrates the incredible power of loving-kindness meditation: No need to be self-conscious when this stuff might be more effective than Prozac. Also called metta, loving-kindness meditation is the simple practice of directing well-wishes towards other people.”
Join ProjectBeyondBlue.com, the new depression community.
Originally published on Sanity Break.
