Gratitude is good for you and, in case you didn’t already know, that has been scientifically proven. It really can make you feel better about life.
I think I am usually aware of all the things I have to be grateful for in my life: my lovely healthy family, my own current good health, my garden, the birds currently chirping away in my garden… I could go on but it’d be boring and I might sound a tad smug. I could, of course, list all the things I am unhappy about but I definitely want do that as it’ll bring me down and you, too.
Why gratitude is good for you
There are a myriad of reasons why gratitude is good for you and those around you, and given the current state of the world, it seems timely to remind ourselves what they are.
Sometimes when I’m talking to the women I coach, seeking the positive can sound a bit, well, lame. As if we’re living in cloud cuckoo land where everything is hunky dory and sunshine abounds. That is not how I see it. It is so easy when we feel anxious or stressed (and frankly, who doesn’t at the current time?) to dwell on the negatives, to obsessively read about Corona Virus19.
Gratitude can strengthen our feeling of connection with other people
Yet feeling gratitude can actually help us cope with the stresses of our current situation. Gratitude can strengthen our feeling of connection with other people. It helps us recognise and acknowledge the kindness of the giver. I only have to think about the universal Thursday night clapping (in the UK) for the NHS to feel almost overwhelmed with gratitude for those working on to help all of us. I’ve always banged the drum for our NHS (see this How to Have the Perfect Ending, and Long Live the NHS but doing it with neighbours created something different; it was a collective act of kindness and feels all the stronger for it.
Gratitude reinforces generous behaviour
Gratitude reinforces generous behaviour. Again I am taken back to my street where we were reasonably friendly before, but now we’re shopping for folks, looking out for someone with mental health problems, swapping plants, (safely) and we’ve even been indulging in a bit of community singing.
How does gratitude change us?
When the brain feels gratitude, the parts of the brain that are activated include the ventral and dorsal medial pre-frontal cortex. These areas are involved in feelings of reward (the reward when stress is removed), morality, interpersonal bonding and positive social interactions, and the ability to understand what other people are thinking or feeling.
Gratitude also has the capacity to increase important neurochemicals. When thinking shifts from negative to positive, there is a surge of feel-good chemicals such as dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin. These all contribute to the feelings of closeness, connection and happiness that come with gratitude.
Who in your life deserves some gratitude?
It tends not to be things that cause us joy in gratitude but people and experiences. Someone giving way to you in traffic can genuinely make you feel better. When we feel more positive we are much more likely to pay that forward and let someone else into the line of traffic. A cheery person on the supermarket check out can put us in a really good mood all day. A card from a friend for no reason, will spark some joy. The beauty of gratitude is that it’s something fairly easy to achieve. We can do it right now. Text someone and say thanks for being such a good friend. Or a colleague for supporting you at a tricky time. Or clapping the wonderful NHS and all carers and essential workers this Thursday evening.
Here’s an old post from the site called In Gratitude. Maybe it’s time for an update. Who would you like to give thanks for?
I am grateful to psychologist Karen Young, an Australian, who has a great article on these points on her website, Hey Sigmund. Reading it prompted me to write this post. Thank you, Karen.
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Posted on April 15th, 2020 by Jane
