Beyond "Thank You": Harnessing Gratitude to Navigate Uncertainty
Based on the science, it’s no wonder Roman philosopher Marcus Tulles Cicero called gratitude the greatest of virtues, the parent of them all. It’s a win-win practice to reduce stress, be happier, and get along better with others. Today, it’s the sweetheart of high performance. So how do you do it?
Have you ever focused on the sensation of gratitude? For me, it feels like my chest relaxes and opens up, creating more space for my heart. It's a physical sensation, not only a mental decision to focus on thankfulness and appreciation. One I practice often.
Long ago, I latched on to a foundational belief. I chose never to take anything for granted. In a word, to be grateful. It's even one of my wedding vows, with long-reaching implications. Even 16 years into the marriage, I still thank my husband for doing the dishes or just for being there. It's a fabulous, contagious habit, sometimes easier than at other moments, and it always smooths out the rough edges of the day, shifting my attention from any frustration to the gifts I have in my life. There’s nothing quite like it.
What is Gratitude?
Gratitude is more than just saying thank you. It's a complex emotion, involving social interaction, interpersonal bonding, moral judgement and empathy. It activates the ventral and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, areas of the brain used in feelings of reward, morality, bonding, and understanding others. It also ramps up feel-good dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin.
A 2009 study found that focusing on gratitude increases in blood flow to the hypothalamus—the part of the forebrain that coordinates the autonomic nervous system; controls body temperature, thirst, hunger, and other homeostatic systems; and plays a role in sleep and emotional activity.
Better yet, gratitude helps reduce the stress hormone cortisol.
Gratitude starts with noticing the good and varies in intensity, from a slight emotional pull to tears. Like a muscle, the more you do it, the easier it becomes.
The Gratitude Hack
There's a lot of science these days backing gratitude practices as a way to make us happier, more resilient to stress, sleep better, worry less, and live longer. It rewires your brain, making you more likely to default to positivity over negativity. Even two weeks of jotting down what you are grateful for every day does the trick.
Think of gratitude as a way of taking a positive experience and expanding it, making it last longer. The neuroscientist and happiness specialist Rick Hanson has found that deliberately focusing on something positive for 20 seconds is long enough to create positive structural changes in the brain. And while the emotion of gratitude lasts only a few seconds, regular gratitude practices create a “mood” of gratitude giving rise to more of the emotion in a virtuous circle.
My Favorite Gratitude Practice Ever
Every morning, I take a few minutes to do a Taoist practice called the Inner Smile. I sit in meditation and visualize my organs one after the other, thanking them for all the hard work they do, feeling sincere gratitude. At first, I found it a little wonky and strange. I faked it and kept at it, just to see what would happen. This practice completely shifted my relationship to my body. For so long, I battled with my body so it would "work the way I wanted it to." This powerful practice got me partnering with my body. And it’s like a mini joy factory. It’s hard to explain. Try it and you'll see.
The Hardest Gratitude Practice I've Ever Done
This one was most the beneficial too. It consists of finding gratitude in the bad things too—looking for that gifts, or at least the lessons learned, that come from struggle, disappointment, pain, discomfort. And then being thankful for them. Forgiveness adds an extra boost of alpha brain waves, which are associated with a calm, focused mental state. I didn’t say it was easy.
The Funnest Gratitude Practice I've Ever Done
I love this one. Ken Honda, founder of the Happy Money path, recommends that we thank money when we spend it and when we receive it. It too was odd at first, and it brings a lightheartedness to money that is rare, and delightful.
Other Gratitude Practices
Three things a day. This practice entails keeping a gratitude journal and writing down three things you are grateful for every day. Writing it down is different than thinking it. I go into a lot of detail. For example, last night I was grateful for the wonderful chocolate I had, thankful to the growers, producers, distributors, the chocolatier and the staff who sold it to me. By doing the list at night, it can down-regulate the autonomic nervous system and help you sleep better. Doing this for 21 days in a row creates a habit.
Letters. This is a fabulous one too. Take the time, regularly, to write letters—the old-fashioned kind with pen and paper—to the people who matter in your life. And send them.
The jar. Write down things you are grateful on pieces of paper and drop them into a jar as an ongoing activity. The full jar is a reminder of the good things that pass through your life. And when the going gets tough, the papers are there for the reading.
The trick with gratitude is to really feel it, in your body. At first we are grateful for something, until we are just plain grateful, which is the ultimate goal.
“All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.”