The Neuroscience of Gratitude

Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero, confidently proclaimed that gratitude was not only the greatest of virtues, but the "Parent of all the others". What he could be forgiven for not knowing 2,000 years ago, was the positive impact that a practice of gratitude has on our emotional well-being, the strengthening of social bonds and our mental health.

Gratitude is a powerful emotion. It is how we acknowledge the good things in life. It can be defined in a dictionary as "a positive response that we perceive while giving or receiving a benefit from someone". It is the ultimate product from the factory of feel-good. But aparently it is way more than that. Scientists have gotten hold of gratitude, stuck it in a flask, applied heat and further analyzed it as... A cognitive and emotional phnomenon that involves how other individuals (and I am including our dog, Vito, here) contribute to our wellbeing and enhance our appreciation of positive outcomes in life... phew...what a mouthful.

Gratitude gets on extremely well with generousity. In fact they are different sides of the same coin, both responsible for activating areas of the brain (I will choose not to name said areas) that deal with seratonin and dopamine production, reward processing and positive emotional responses. Being grateful also has an very close relationship with joy. You would imagine that if you are joyful, you should therefore be grateful. Kind of stands to reason. In fact, exhaustive studies by social researchers like Brené Brown, have shown that practising gratitude actually invites and allows joy to enter our lives.

It is the "practice" that is the important marker here. I have been both witness and particpant in the American ritual of Thankgiving festivities and was a bit skeptical around the eponymous process. Each person sat at the table speaks aloud of one thing they are truly grateful for. It's usually a bit cloyingly predictable, allowing my inner cynic to escape from the paper handcuffs that keep it almost in check; but if you drop the armour of vulnerability around saying how thankful you are for something or someone, it really works. We just don't do it enough. Perhaps we see it as a weakness, not as the strength that it undoubtably is.

Conclusion? It is not joy that makes us grateful, but gratitutude that makes us joyful. There seems to be overwhelming evidence that gratitude is good for us physically, emotionally and mentally. There is research that shows gratitude being correlated to better sleep patterns, increased creativity, a decrease in the sense of entitlement with which some of us struggle. With decreased hostility and agression, better decison-making skills and lower blood pressure. Who wouldn't want to embrace changes like that? It is very persuasive evidence, but for me, the penny didn't really drop until I read this extract from a book by Robert Emmons - he is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis and the founder of a publication called "The Journal of positive psychology. He wrote:

"Research on emotion shows that positive emotions wear off quickly. Our emotional systems like newness. They like novelty. They like change. We adapt to positive life circumstances so that before too long, the new car, the new spouse, the new house—they don’t feel so new and exciting anymore.

But gratitude makes us appreciate the value of something, and when we appreciate the value of something, we extract more benefits from it; we’re less likely to take it for granted.

In effect, I think gratitude allows us to participate more in life.

We notice the positives more, and that magnifies the pleasures you get from life. Instead of adapting to goodness, we celebrate goodness. We spend so much time watching things—movies, computer screens, sports—but with gratitude we become greater participants in our lives as opposed to just spectators".

That's it.. "With gratitude, we become greater participants in our lives, as opposed to just spectators". Done.