The Good Life Campaign: Appreciating Your Life: Gratitude

When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.

Willie Nelson (Musician)

A little story from work…

A few years ago I worked with a lovely colleague, who always appeared remarkably calm, composed and content despite long working hours and a stressful job as a resident. Already on my quest to unravel the secrets of a Good Life, one day I asked her about her personal secret- and it was surprisingly simple. She replied: ‘Well, I always think that things could be so much worse…I could have been born in Syria.’ This conversation was, of course, in the middle of the Syrian war, which has resulted in so many civilian casualties and forced many others to flee their country. In other words, the secret of my colleague was nothing other than gratitude that she was able to live an autonomous, self-determined life in a safe country, unaffected by violent conflict. Discussing this approach with another colleague shortly afterwards, it turned out that she used a similar attitude when times got rough- in her case it was being grateful not to be affected by Ebola.

I remember being initially a bit startled about the coping methods of my colleagues, but I soon discovered that they were actually very wise, as they were tapping into one of the most effective sources of positive emotions and well-being.^1-5

Why gratitude helps

Gratitude means that we recognize all the positive aspects of our lives, and that we are genuinely thankful for what we have. It is so effective because we can evoke it at our will in almost any situation and because it counteracts the effects of hedonic adaptation (the fact that we quickly get used to the little and larger comforts, people and objects in our lives), effects of social comparison (our tendency to compare our life with that of people which appear to be better off than we are), and the negativity bias (the tendency of most people to notice negative events more prominently than positive ones).² Gratitude, together with awe and inspiration, is a self-transcendent positive emotion, which feels so good because it is not just self-serving but it makes us feel part of something bigger.¹ It is probably no coincidence that most if not all religions incorporate some form of gratitude practice in their traditions and prayers. Being grateful about our life situation or grateful to people we encounter allows us to:^1-5

Maximise our satisfaction or appreciation of a situation
Uncover otherwise overlooked positive events and supportive people in our lives
Put things into perspective and find positive aspects in otherwise negative situations
Feel generally more connected to others
Strengthen our relationship with family, friends and colleagues (as expressing gratitude induces positive emotions and allows us to act with greater integrity and kindness; in turn this makes people more likely to reciprocate with positive behaviour)
Prevent us from getting too spoiled and reduce materialism (materialism has been shown to lead to lower levels of well-being)
Reduce toxic feelings of envy and bitterness, which often results from social comparison
Increase our self-compassion, which itself has several positive effects (see also the post: ‘Taming Your Inner Critic’).

As a result, gratitude has immense positive effects on our private and professional lives, as it leads to better mental well-being, physical health, better sleep, and also greater performance.³ Additionally, it increases our resilience to stress and life adversities,^1-4 just as my wise colleagues have found.

Ways to be grateful

The simplest way of practicing gratitude is of course to spontaneously ‘count our blessings’:^1-5

Taking a moment to notice your privileges in life and all the things, which have gone well in the last day/week/month/year.
Take the time to express your thanks to people for being helpful, supportive or just being there.
Additionally, you can look for the positive aspects of otherwise difficult situations. For example, I was recently involved in a collision with a deer. This was of course not a pleasant experience but given that there were several cars travelling at high speed at the time, it could have resulted in a major multi-vehicle accident. Being grateful for what did not happen is hugely helpful to keep the spirits up, as quite often things could be an awful lot worse. This principle also works for other situations, for example, if you do not manage to achieve a personal or a career goal you can still appreciate the experience you gained and look for other opportunities, which might open up as a result. As a last example, some people find it difficult when their reach their 30^th, 40^th, 50^th etc birthday- rather than regretting that you are getting older (which cannot be changed anyway!), why not be grateful that you are alive: many children do not even have the privilege to reach adulthood. So finding the ‘silver lining’ can be a powerful support to stay optimistic.

You can also practice more formal gratitude exercises. Examples include writing a letter of appreciation to people, who have been kind and supportive to you, or writing down the things you are grateful for once a week (e.g. using a gratitude journal).^1-3 Or establishing ‘gratitude rituals’ within your daily routine,¹ for example at every meal time; this does not need to be a prayer- it can be just a short mental pause in which you feel thankful for having food.

What if it is difficult to feel grateful?

Gratitude only really works if we sincerely feel it. Just knowing that we ought to be grateful does not make us genuinely feel grateful. It does also not tend to work if someone else prescribes us gratitude- if you are in a reactive, negative frame of mind, the well-meaning suggestion by somebody else to be grateful for your life, pointing out that you have it so much easier than other people may make you feel even worse. However, as gratitude has been proven to be so effective it is worth to persevere! Here are a few tips, which may make it a bit easier to feel sincere gratitude:

Practicing mindfulness helps us to focus our attention in the present moment and makes us more likely to detect positive events when they happen; we can also consciously cultivate gratitude with specific gratitude practices and meditations.^6,7
It may be sometimes more effective to pursue a ‘subtraction’ strategy: If you are finding it difficult to be sincerely grateful for the things you do have in your life (such as health, your partner, your job, food, clean drinking water, access to health care and living in peace etc.) try to imagine how your life would be without these things.¹
Very regular gratitude exercises may themselves lead to hedonic adaptation.⁸ In other words, we can get used to the gratitude exercises, which lessens their effects. Rather than ‘counting your blessings’ daily, you may be better off to do this once a week or intermittently.
Another helpful tactic may be to shift the reference point. High expectations can undermine the ability to feel gratitude- we all know how disappointing it can be if our expectations are not met. Lowering unnecessarily high or unrealistic expectations can therefore be greatly helpful.¹ Of course there is a balance to be met: We sometimes need to ‘aim high’ if we want to achieve ambitious goals and I am not advocating that gratitude is the solution at all times and in all situations. However, holding on to impossibly high expectations, and believing that we are somehow entitled to or deserve certain things in life is just not realistic.
Giving up one or more things, which we normally take for granted is hugely effective to make us feel more thankful when we can finally enjoy the comfort again.⁹
Be inventive and try what works best for you. If you are finding it difficult to relate to disaster scenarios in other countries, highly deadly infectious diseases or the fate of people you do not know, you could try and remember your own times of struggle as a ‘negative reference point’, or probably you can look for stories about difficult times from your own family history (e.g. during the second world war, or in difficult economical situations).

Conclusion:

Of course gratitude is only one component of a good life, but it can have very immediate and powerful effects, as Willie Nelson noticed when his life turned around after becoming grateful. Gratitude does not mean that we cannot have aspirations and goals in our lives, as these are also very important for a balanced well-being. But if we stay humble and do not take things for granted, we gain the strength and flexibility we need for dealing with the realities of life.

Books on gratitude:

If you would like to read up more evidence-based information and more detailed guidance about how to cultivate gratitude in your life, then Gratitude Works! by Robert Emmons is probably the best choice. Robert Emmons is one of the world’s leading researchers on gratitude and has studied the subject extensively, so you will get the most comprehensive review of the subject straight from the source!

If you are interested in a more personal and philosophical angle, you may want to consider Gratitude by Oliver Sacks. Oliver Sacks was a renowned neurologist and author of several books including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. In the last months of his life, diagnosed with terminal cancer, Oliver Sacks contemplated on his life and illness in four short essays. I particularly like one of the central statements: ‘I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return. (…) Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.’

Further information on gratitude on the web:

Find out more about gratitude directly from Robert Emmons, also author of the book Gratitude Works!: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/gratitude/definition#how_to_cultivate

Some more detailed gratitude exercises can also be found on the Greater Good In Action Website:

https://ggia.berkeley.edu/#filters=gratitude

Preview: As you already know, hedonic adaptation can be one of the most common obstacles when trying to increase our well-being, and this particularly affects the relationship between money and well-being. Next week, we are going to have a critical look at the question, if and how money can buy us happiness.

References and further evidence-based reading:

1. Fredrickson B. Positivity: Groundbreaking Research to Release Your Inner Optimist and Thrive. Oneworld Publications; Oxford, England. 2010.

2. Lyubomirsky S. The Myths of Happiness: What should make you happy but doesn’t, what shouldn’t make you happy but does. Penguin Books; New York. 2013.

3. Seligman MEP. Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being- and How to Achieve Them. Nicholas Brealey Publishing; London, UK. 2011.

4. Diener E, Biswas-Diener R. Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. Blackwell Publishing; Oxford, UK. 2008.

5. Seppälä E. The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success. Piatkus; London, UK. 2016.

6. Williams M, Penman D. Mindfulness: A Practical Guide To Finding Peace In A Frantic World. Hachette Digital Little, Brown Book Group; London, UK. 2011.

7. Hanson R: Hardwiring Happiness: How to reshape your brain and your life. Rider Ebury Publishing, Random House, UK. 2013.

8. Lyubomirsky S, Sheldon KM, Schkade D. Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change. Review of General Psychology. 2005;9(2):111-131.

9. Quoidbach J, Dunn EW. Give it up: A strategy for combating hedonic adaptation. Social Psychological and Personality Science. 2013;5:511-516.

If you found this information helpful, please consider supporting the campaign under Just Giving. Of course it is also great if you choose to support another charity or do a practical good deed, but it would be nice if you could let me know that you have done this because you felt inspired by this campaign. Please also feel free to share this post and let me know if you have any constructive feedback- good or bad!

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