4 reasons gratitude is still pretty great (but don't call it a life hack)
Like bacon or melted cheese, gratitude makes everything better.
Gratitude is the quality of being thankful or appreciative—it’s your own personal small ‘t’ thanksgiving. We might be grateful for something immaterial like a favor or a beautiful day, or something tangible, like a gift or indoor plumbing after a camping trip.
Twenty years ago, the study that marked the birth of the gratitude movement was published. The task was surprisingly minimal; participants wrote down just a few phrases a week. 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 ten 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 from the gratitude group feel better emotionally, they felt better physically, and took steps to keep that virtuous cycle going.
Since then, it seems everyone from hardcore academics to woo-woo gurus see gratitude as a key to health and happiness.
Wait, Ellen, I thought How to Be Good to Yourself When You’re Hard on Yourself was about anxiety and human connection. Why are we talking about gratitude?
Here are four reasons:
Gratitude is a social emotion.
But unlike other social emotions like embarrassment, shame, or guilt, gratitude is a positive social emotion that bonds us to other people. When we feel thankful and appreciative of others, we feel closer to them.
Gratitude connects us to something bigger than ourselves.
When we acknowledge the good in life, we realize it often arises from an external source. And that connects us to something bigger—nature, a higher power, or, germane to our discussion, our fellow humans.
Gratitude fights the chronic dissatisfaction of perfectionism.
Perfectionism focuses on flaws. We look at our muffin top, the clutter in our kitchen, our endless to-do list, and think, “I should do better than that.” Gratitude is the photo negative of dissatisfaction. It deliberately sniffs out what is good and prompts us to feel thankful rather than critical.
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, partner, or other human, it is a signal that they have gone out of their way for us, and by extension, acknowledges that we are worth going out of one’s way for.
All that said, remember this…
“You should be grateful” doesn’t work.
A meta-analysis of gratitude interventions on symptoms of depression and anxiety found modest results. While practicing or cultivating gratitude can lead to higher levels of well-being, unsurprisingly, telling people to experience gratitude because it’s good for them falls flat.
The take home? Gratitude is pretty great, but it’s not a life hack. Practice gratitude not as a self-improvement project or a means to an optimized end, but for its own sake. So from me to you: I’m grateful for you!
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Be kind to others and yourself!
Top photo credit: Jon Tyson