According to researchers in positive psychology, the gratitude definition is slightly broader. It is the conscious appreciation of any aspect of our lives. On the other hand, author Sonja Lyubomirsky provides a more beautiful description, saying:
"Gratitude is amazing. It is an appreciation that pushes us to look at the bright side of any failure we face and thank it for addressing someone in our life. It also means calculating the blessings in your life and making you aware of not taking things for granted. It is adapting to something, and it also pushes us to focus on the present."
Gratitude is one of the easiest ways to change our thoughts driven by certain things. Spending fifteen seconds experiencing something you are grateful for can have a significant impact. It can broaden your perspective on life, transforming difficulties into opportunities and rage into curiosity. The challenge and the actual benefit come through training in this skill to become a habit, so you naturally enjoy gratitude throughout the day.
One person, a former company owner and executive coach, describes an ever-changing negative pattern in his life when he developed the daily habit of gratitude:
“I focused on things I did not have in my life, like a great job, a big house, or more money, and I did not really appreciate what I had, like my family, close relationships with friends, and a job that suited my goals. Then I started noticing how often I focused on the negative, developed a gratitude journaling habit, and kept a journal to express it. I now immediately think of gratitude when I start to think about the things I don't have, which completely transforms my day.
However, my best move is to express gratitude and enjoy these moments by closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. This has completely changed my life.”
We all obsess over the things we lack and focus on life's imperfections without showing gratitude for what we have, which only fills our thoughts with negative thoughts. While gratitude gives us a broader perspective on life, we will notice those flaws. Still, we will recognize the blessings surrounding us.
Ram Dass, a former psychologist at Harvard University, uses the sky image analogy to illustrate this change in perspective: "If you have a picture of the sky containing a small gray cloud, and you zoom in on this picture, all you'll see is the cloud, where everything will look dark and colorless. But if you zoom in and see the sky from a wider perspective, you'll start to see the gray clouds surrounded by the blue sky.
That is the change in perspective you can access through gratitude.
Gratitude and the Brain
Thanks to advances in neuroscience and positive psychology, as there is now scientific evidence that practicing gratitude has a wide range of benefits in terms of your mental and physical health. It reduces anxiety and depression, as well as other signs of psychological discomfort, and causes a sense of appreciation and satisfaction.
How does gratitude work? “The brain is overthinking negative experiences and overlooking positive ones,” says Rick Hanson, an expert in positive neuroplasticity. Traumatic experiences - such as car accidents, emotional crises, and intense fear - remain fixed in the brain's neural structure.
The brain's association with bad experiences reinforces the negative bias, as it ensures that we use the bulk of our mental energy to think about regrets, resentments, and fears instead of thinking about moments of joy and happiness.
However, recent research has confirmed that gratitude can help eliminate these negative thoughts. Although our brains are naturally attracted to negative memories, gratitude allows us to multiply the feeling of positivity to create more effective and vivid memories and thus make a lasting change in the brain.
Indeed, research by Professor Barbara Fredrickson, a psychiatrist at the University of North Carolina, has shown: “Gratitude expands and builds the brain's ability to overcome negative emotional states, and in the absence of gratitude, the mind stops at a specific range of possibilities.
Gratitude expands the field by expanding the thoughts and actions that come to mind.” For example, if you feel frustrated while in traffic, gratitude can help you increase your experiences. You can watch nature around you, relax while observing your breath, or take advantage of delays as an opportunity to listen to your favorite music or audiobook.
Not only is this a psychological change, but evidence from neuroscience suggests that the effects of this practice extend deep into the neural pathways of the brain. “Of all the brain cycles associated with these components, health treatment that relies on expressing gratitude to self and others is promising, strengthening the prefrontal cortex,” says neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson.
Four ways gratitude contributes to health
While psychologists continue to explore mechanisms related to gratitude, one thing is clear: gratitude offers significant health benefits, including:
1. Increase optimism
Research shows that practicing gratitude is associated with increasing the experience of positive emotions and decreasing negative ones.
2. Reduce stress and anxiety during crises
In studies following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and elsewhere, Fredrickson found that practicing gratitude reduced the intensity and frequency of traumatic memories.
3. Improving physical health
Gratitude helps lower blood pressure and improve the quality of our sleep. Researchers have found that by practicing gratitude, we get enough sleep, enhance sleep quality, and feel better when we wake up.
4. Improving relationships
The theory of psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough says, “Gratitude within relationships can create a kind of continuity. As we become more grateful to our friends and families, we treat them with more kindness and respect.”
Daily practices help you make gratitude a habit
To make gratitude a habit, set aside some time — say, once a day — to focus on the experience of gratitude. You can do this by writing down three things you are grateful for or expressing gratitude when starting to eat.
No matter what style you use in gratitude, here are some tips to help you get the most out of the practice:
1. Involve your friends and family in this practice
Ask each person to mention something they are grateful for at the beginning of each meal. That will enhance the gratitude experience and help everyone feel it.
2. Remember to practice gratitude
Like all health-related habits, the most challenging part of practicing gratitude is remembering to do it. Therefore, two strategies must be followed to do so. First, as mentioned above, share with your family and friends when you eat, so you will help each other remember what you are grateful for. Secondly, you can use some stickers.
Put a small sticker in front of you - and write the word “gratitude” on it - in the place where you eat so that it helps you remember something you are grateful for every time you eat at home.
3. Don't forget to return to your activity
It's normal to feel grateful for a moment and then get caught up in eating or whatever else you're doing the next moment. Remember to return to what you do after gratitude; you can only take fifteen seconds to enjoy the experience.
4. Find out how gratitude works
In a few weeks or a month, when you sit down to eat, you will automatically express your gratitude for the day and enjoy it, and you will also notice that the gratitude experience will be repeated in all matters of your life.
5. Find an event that works for you to practice gratitude
Meals are highly recommended because they often involve social situations in which you can share gratitude with others, but if that doesn't suit you, choose another daily event that recurs with you regularly, such as waking up, going to sleep, or when you turn on the computer at the beginning of the day; all you have to do is maintain gratitude permanently.
6. Go deeper
If you've mastered the gratitude practice at every meal, feel free to apply it to your daily life. For example, whenever you get a phone call, instead of answering it directly, at least listen to the phone ring as you think about something you're grateful for, and then answer the call as you enjoy the gratitude experience. You'll find this practice more challenging than it sounds, but when you master it, it will help you feel deeply grateful for every call you get.
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