It’s easy to get locked into the constant yearning for things we think will bring us happiness. That pay-rise, a bigger house, the car, or those shoes… But these happiness mirages will always leave us wanting for the next thing. If we don’t appreciate the journey, we will never ‘achieve’ happiness along it because the happiness we feel when we realise those goals is oh-so-fleeting, and then pushed back and placed onto the next goal pedestal.
Pausing and noticing the good bits on the way is what’s going to actually feed your happiness journey!
So let’s introduce gratitude.
What is gratitude?
Gratitude is the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.
And like me, you’ve probably seen a lot of people in the wellness space talk about gratitude and the benefits of practising gratitude daily.
There are 3 parts to gratitude according to Dr Robert Emmons (a leading researcher on gratitude):
1) Recognising what you are grateful for
2) Acknowledging it
3) Appreciating it
But is it just one of those things that sounds great but doesn’t make that much difference in the long term? I’m a bit of a sceptic, but gratitude seemed to keep coming up so much so that I couldn’t ignore it. And being the scientist I am, I think a lot of people will be also reading this, I wanted to see what science there is behind gratitude!
What the science says
There seems to be building evidence to suggest that gratitude can have real benefits on our mental health and wellbeing. It can make people feel significantly happier, less depressed, have greater self-esteem and have more satisfaction in life.
So let’s dive in!
In a study by O’connell et al. in 2017, they examined the effect of gratitude journals on wellbeing and depression. Groups wrote in a reflective interpersonal gratitude journal, a reflective-behavioural interpersonal gratitude journal and a control journal (no gratitude content). By 1 month, they found that both types of gratitude journals resulted in reductions in depression and negative emotional outlooks compared to the control. In addition to this, interestingly, they found that people who expressed their gratitude to others seemed to experience the benefits more!
Delving further into the literature, Kendler et al. also found that thankfulness predicted significantly lower risk of major depression, generalised anxiety disorder, phobia, nicotine dependence, alcohol dependence, and drug “abuse” or dependence.
The benefits go on!
In an intervention to increase gratitude by Emmons & McCullough (2003), study participants experienced not only improvements in hours of sleep, but also refreshment upon waking emerged as a key physical health improvement!
Blown away by the range of profound virtues of gratitude? Keep reading…
How does gratitude affect the brain?
The neuropathic changes in peoples’ brains are also actually really interesting!
A study in 2008 established “that gratitude causes synchronised activation in multiple brain regions, and lights up parts of the brain’s reward pathways and the hypothalamus. In short, gratitude can boost neurotransmitter serotonin and activate the brain stem to produce dopamine.”
As we know, dopamine is a neurotransmitter that has multiple functions including pleasure, reward, motivation, attention, and bodily movements. A dopamine surge causing a ‘natural high’ motivates you to seek out the same activity in order to repeat that feeling.
Serotonin is a natural mood stabiliser and reduces depression and anxiety. Not only that but it has crucial functions in gut health and sleep too, backing up the study findings on sleep improvements.
In one study, the participants were asked to write in a journal every day for 3 weeks. One group wrote about experiences unrelated to gratitude, and another group were asked to write about gratitude. After MRI brain scans, the gratitude group had greater activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex – associated with neural pure altruism.
Neural pure altruism is essentially your brain craving the act of giving. It seems that “gratitude biases the brain’s reward system toward rewards for others versus oneself.” By giving, you become more likely to want to connect with others by giving again in the future.
Why is gratitude so powerful?
The applied popularity of gratitude paired with pretty great science behind it, leads me to appreciate how powerful it can be for people. If anyone has read into manifesting (something I’ve recently started to learn about), gratitude can almost take on this form because instead of it being able to reduce the negative events that happen in our lives, gratitude helps to manifest the positivity. When we’re looking out for it more, the more we tend to notice it!
Have you ever learnt a new word, and then the next week you notice it all the time?
It’s not because the word was never there before, it’s because it’s so much more on your radar now. By putting in the effort to notice positive events, our brain is open and searching for those day-to-day good things that you might not have noticed before, which, in-turn makes them seem to happen more!
How can we implement it effectively in our day-to-day lives?
Implementing gratitude into a day-to-day lives is made easier knowing that it can make a real difference to us, and that it hardly takes any time at all. Some people in studies, write down their gratitude, others have had to write it down and tell others. Both seem to make significant improvement to our wellbeing and neither take very long to do.
Think of 3 good things from the day that you are grateful for happening and jot them down into a journal before bed, or voice them to a loved one.
And that’s it! Job done.
The hardest thing I’ve found when trying to practice gratitude is the consistency. It’s easy to do this for 3 days or even a week, but integrating it and the benefits it brings into your life demands commitment and consistency.
This is where phone reminders or little post-it notes on your bedside table can help to keep you in check. Alternatively having a buddy to keep you accountable is a great idea if you agree to both practice your gratitude together.
I hope this has given you the nudge you needed to really start to embrace gratitude in your life – it certainly has to me!
References
Wood, A. M., et al., Gratitude and well-being: A review and theoretical integration, Clinical Psychology Review (2010), doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2010.03.005
Kendler, K. S., Liu, X. Q., Gardner, C. O., McCullough, M. E., Larson, D., & Prescott, C. A. (2003). Dimensions of religiosity and their relationship to lifetime psychiatric and substance use disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160, 496-503
Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 377!389.
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