A Thankful Thanksgiving

What are you thankful for this season?

In the United States, November is best known for one of the biggest holidays of the year: Thanksgiving. The busy airports indicate how Americans are traveling across the country to reunite with their friends and family to enjoy together the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, where the turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, among other things will be part of their feast. Being reunited for this annual occasion is also the opportunity to give thanks and celebrate the bountiful harvest.  For us, Canadian Military Families, November is best known for Remembrance Day.  We know how painful it can be to remember fallen Sisters and Brothers in Arms, and the loss caused to their families.  Nonetheless, in challenging times, celebrating and feeling grateful can make us feel partly, guilty, inauthentic, helpless and even frustrated. 

Feeling this discomfort is totally normal. Acknowledging the suffering, the misery and the pain in the world, actually shows compassion, nevertheless, acknowledging the beauty of life.  Violence leads to violence. Being grateful will not lead to violence, quite the contrary, it can help balance these varied emotions. Of course, being thankful does not mean being in denial of the pain and misery that occur in this world. 

Some psychologists further categorize three types of gratitude: gratitude as an “affective trait” (one’s overall tendency to have a grateful disposition), a mood (daily fluctuations in overall gratitude), and an emotion (a more temporary feeling of gratitude that one may feel after receiving a gift or a favor from someone). (S. Allen, 2018)

Despite the different categories, evidence shows that cultivating gratitude, especially in the midst of adversity, have psychological, physical and social benefits.  

Psychological Benefits:
By reducing the stress hormones and managing the autonomic nervous system functions, gratitude significantly reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety. At the neurochemical level, feelings of gratitude are associated with an increase in the neural modulation of the prefrontal cortex, the brain site responsible for managing negative emotions like guilt, shame, and violence. For instance, in their study, Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005, demonstrated that keeping a gratitude journal causes less stress, improves the quality of sleep, and builds emotional awareness. Neurosciences shows that when we practice gratitude, the brain releases hormones like dopamine and serotonin, the feel-good neurotransmitters who would act like anti-depressant. They motivate action and make us feel better. Some parts of the brain are activated when we practice gratitude like the hippocampus and amygdala, the two main sites regulating emotions, memory, and bodily functioning, part of the limbic system. Those are areas of the brain that are connected to the mood and the way we interact with others. 

At a neurobiological level, gratitude regulates the sympathetic nervous system that activates our anxiety responses, and at the psychological level, it conditions the brain to filter the negative ruminations and focus on the positive thoughts.

Physical Benefits:
McCraty and colleagues (cited in McCraty & Childre, 2004) had observed, in one of their study, that the level of cortisol, the stress hormone, was lower in the subjects who practiced gratitude. Therefore, their heart function was better as well as resiliency when having to face negative experiences and challenging emotions. Other evidence correlates gratitude with better sleep, lower blood pressure, stronger immune system, less body pains and aches, and less health problems in general.  

Social Benefits:
Expressing gratitude to others does not go unnoticed. Gratitude is adaptive and acts as a social cohesive by motivating positive interpersonal social interactions that build social relationships, according to Ahrens and Forbes, 2012, Algoe, 2012.  Gratitude is a powerful and positive emotion described as the ‘’parent of all virtues’’ in showing appreciation to others, but also tends to help us develop other virtues such as patience, humility, and wisdom. People who practice gratitude are more empathetic and positive minded by nature. 

(Ref. : Roy Chowdhury, 2019 The Neuroscience of Gratitude and Effects on the Brain (positivepsychology.com)

How can we precisely cultivate gratitude?
In several studies, including Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003), they have measure gratitude it’s effect in writing in a Journal weekly for 10 weeks or daily for two weeks. Their conclusions showed that the subjects experienced more gratitude, positive moods, and optimism about the future, as well as better sleep, compared to those who journal about hassles or their daily life.

There is no harm in trying to add gratitude in your daily life. A good way to do so, is by counting blessings or write a gratitude journal. There’s no wrong way to keep a gratitude journal, but here are some guidelines to help you get started.

Write down up to five things for which you are grateful for, using a notebook. The goal of the exercise is to affirm the good things you have received in remembering a good event you experienced, and also acknowledging the role that other people played in providing your live with goodness and then enjoy the good emotions that come with it.

Here are some guidelines:

• Try to be specific, in depth, detailed rather than surface-level
• Get personal trying to focus on people rather than things you are grateful for to increase the impact.
• Try subtraction in imaging how your life would be like if positive events or people had not occurred. Try not to take these people of things for grand in trying to enjoy and savor them as gifts.
• Try to savor surprises in recording unexpected events, as these tend to bring up stronger feelings of gratitude.
• Try to vary about the things or people you are grateful for in focusing on different details each time you write about them.
• Take 15 minutes daily or three to four times a week. 
• Pay a visit or write a gratitude letter to someone: Expressing your gratitude in visiting someone who did something for you, who you never fully expressed your gratitude to. Write a letter, a card, a text, or email describing what positive impact that person had on you, how that person made you feel and how often you remember his or her efforts. 

Although November is known to be the season of thankfulness, being thankful year round may benefit us longer than a year. 

References:
Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 377-389.