5 Benefits of Gratitude and 4 Tips to Cultivate It
Move over mindfulness, gratitude has arrived! Here are 5 reasons to celebrate your own small-‘t’-thanksgiving, plus 4 tips to cultivate your own attitude of gratitude.
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Gratitude has roared onto the positive psychology scene. And while it’s intuitive that feeling thankful and appreciative improves our outlook—and indeed, our lives—why is it so good for us? What does it do?
This week, we look at 5 benefits of gratitude, and 4 tips for celebrating your own small-‘t’-thanksgiving.
Benefit #1: Gratitude Bonds Us to Other People
Gratitude is a social emotion. As we navigate through a social world, social emotions give us feedback about our interactions with others. But unlike embarrassment, shame, or contempt, gratitude is a positive social emotion that helps bond us to others. When we feel thankful and appreciative of others, we feel closer to them. And Psych 101, plus about a zillion studies, will tell you that strong social connections make us happier and healthier.
Dr. Martin Seligman, founder of the positive psychology movement, along with some colleagues carried out what was quite possibly the world’s happiest study in 2005. In it, they asked participants to try five different happiness exercises. Most exercises were focused on the self—for example, the participant listed positive traits or good things in his or her life.
In an exercise called The Gratitude Visit, however, participants were asked to write and hand-deliver a letter of gratitude to someone in their life who had been especially kind to them, but who was never properly thanked. As a result, happiness scores rocketed up, and depression scores plunged—more so than for any other exercise. Plus, the gains lasted for a full month, possibly due to the social bonding inherent in the gesture.
Benefit #2: Gratitude Is the Opposite of Depressive Rumination
Gratitude wears rose-colored glasses, but not in a naïve way. Gratitude is not deluding yourself into thinking the past was better than it was; instead, it’s deliberately choosing to focus on, and feel thankful for, the good in life.
By contrast, rumination comes from seeing the world through gray-colored glasses—playing those old tapes of bad luck, criticism, or lousy decisions over and over again. So how does the color of our glasses affect us?
In 2003, researchers carried out a study they called, “Counting Blessings Versus Burdens.” It was minimal; participants wrote down just a few phrases a week. But here’s the difference: one group wrote about things they were grateful for, with resulting entries like, “the generosity of friends,” and “the Rolling Stones.” Another group wrote about disappointments and irritations, like “a messy kitchen no one will clean,” and “stupid people driving.” A third group wrote about neutral events, like “flew back to Sacramento,” or “cleaned out my shoe closet.”
After 10 weeks, individuals in the gratitude group were more satisfied with life and more optimistic. No surprise there. But they also had fewer symptoms of physical illness and exercised more. So not only did participants feel better emotionally, they felt better physically–and took steps to keep that virtuous cycle going.
Gratitude may even be the antidote to the ultimate in gray-colored glasses: hopelessness. Hopelessness is a huge risk factor of suicide—even stronger than depression. A 2013 study asked individuals who had been hospitalized following a suicide attempt or serious suicidal thoughts to try a variety of 9 different positive psychology exercises. Even in suicidal in-patients, gratitude exercises worked best not only to increase optimism, but to reduce that big H, hopelessness.
Benefit #3: Gratitude Is a Feel-Good, Non-Manipulative Motivator
Benefit #3: Gratitude Is a Feel-Good, Non-Manipulative MotivatorWay better than cheesy team competitions or trust falls, simple heartfelt gratitude is a great workplace motivator.
Bosses who express their appreciation to their employees discover that their workers feel more motivated, and get better results. And bosses beware: declaring, “Be thankful you have a job,” doesn’t count.
For example, in a 2010 study at the University of Pennsylvania, alumni fundraisers were divided into two groups. One group made calls as usual, but the other listened to a speech from the development director, who thanked the group and told them she was grateful for their work. The group that was thanked made 50% more fundraising calls than the group that was not.
Benefit #4: Gratitude Increases Our Sense of Self-Worth
When we feel grateful, it is often toward a person who has done something nice for us. Doing something nice often means a little bit of self-sacrifice: someone has spent money, time, or energy to be thoughtful—to us!
Therefore, when we feel grateful towards a friend, it is a signal that she has gone out of her way for us–and by extension, that we are worth going out of one’s way for.
Gratitude occurs when you understand that you matter to someone else, perhaps more than you ever realized.
Benefit #5: Gratitude Connects Us to Something Bigger
When we acknowledge the good in life, we realize it often arises from something outside ourselves. Good is bestowed upon us, perhaps by a higher power, our fellow humans, nature, or another source of wonder or beauty. Regardless of where it came from, feeling grateful for the “good” connects us to that which is larger than ourselves.
How to Enhance Your Attitude of Gratitude
How to Enhance Your Attitude of GratitudeSo how to embrace all that gratitude has to offer? I know gratitude journals are trendy these days, which automatically makes me skeptical, but unlike spirit hoods or short shorts for men, this might be a trend worth jumping on. Simply writing down what you’re thankful for is painless, and it doesn’t have to be a ritual including herbal tea or a hand-bound artisanal journal.
Whether you use the the back of an envelope or the notes section of your smartphone, try out the following 4 tips for a gratitude journal done your way:
Tip #1: Counterintuitively, don’t count your blessings every day. Once or twice a week, it turns out, is more effective than daily lists. Why? When we consciously count our blessings, we start to see them everywhere; they are at the tip of our mind, as it were. However, this new ubiquity also leads us to get used to them. We start taking our blessings for granted. In other words, part of the reason Girl Scout Cookies are so good is because they only come around once a year. Scarcity elevates gratitude as well.
Tip #2: Focus on people and experiences, not things. Amassing possessions actually seems to discourage gratitude, in part because it’s easy to take stuff for granted. Instead, focus on experiences, especially those that connect you with other people.
Tip #3: Think about what life would be like without. In addition to being thankful for what you have, go deeper and reflect on what your life would be likewithout those things. Have you ever returned from camping with a newfound appreciation for indoor plumbing? Exactly.
Tip #4: Short but deep. Like a Christmas list, you’ll get more satisfaction out of a gratitude journal if you detail a few beloved experiences, rather than catalog a laundry list of tchotchkes.
To wrap up, is there a downside to gratitude? Not really. Gratitude only backfires if it’s used to get ahead. For example, resist feigning gratitude as a way to project an image. And don’t use gratitude as a self-improvement project to beat the competition. Gratitude as personal contemplation works; gratitude as public performance doesn’t.
So be authentically grateful for the good in your life, tthen write it down. You’ll find yourself with a smile on your face–and that is something to be grateful for.
References
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/science/a-serving-of-gratitude-brings-healthy-dividends.html?_r=0
Emmons, R.A. & McCollough, 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, 377–89.
Grant, A.M., & Gino, F. (2010). A Little Thanks Goes a Long Way: Explaining Why Gratitude Expressions Motivate Prosocial Behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 946–55.
Huffman, J.C., DuBois, C.M., Healy, B.C., Boehm, J.K., Kashdan, T.B., Celano, C.M. et al. (2014). Feasibility and utility of positive psychology exercises for suicidal inpatients. General Hospital Psychiatry, 36, 88-94.
Seligman, M.E., Steen, T.A., Park, N. & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions. American Psychologist, 60, 410–21.
Please note that all content here is strictly for informational purposes only. This content does not substitute any medical advice, and does not replace any medical judgment or reasoning by your own personal health provider. Please always seek a licensed physician in your area regarding all health related questions and issues.
Photos of woman and rainbow, gratitude list, and thank you note courtesy of Shutterstock.
About the Author
Dr. Ellen Hendriksen was the host of the Savvy Psychologist podcast from 2014 to 2019. She is a clinical psychologist at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD). She earned her Ph.D. at UCLA and completed her training at Harvard Medical School. Her scientifically-based, zero-judgment approach is regularly featured in Psychology Today, Scientific American, The Huffington Post, and many other media outlets. Her debut book, HOW TO BE YOURSELF: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety, was published in March 2018.
