The most psychologically correct holiday of the year is upon us.It may be the holiday from hell for nutritionists, and it produces plenty of war stories for psychiatrists dealing with drunken family meltdowns. But it has recently become the favourite feast of psychologists studying the consequences of giving thanks. Cultivating an "attitude of gratitude" has been linked to better health, sounder sleep, less anxiety and depression, higher long-term satisfaction with life and kinder behavior toward others, including romantic partners.
A new study shows that feeling grateful makes people less likely to turn aggressive when provoked. But what if you're not the grateful sort?
Start with "gratitude lite." That's the term used by Robert A Emmons, of the University of California, Davis, for the technique used in his pioneering experiments he conducted along with Michael E McCullough of the University of Miami. They instructed people to keep a journal listing five things for which they felt grateful, like a friend's generosity, something they'd learned, a sunset they'd enjoyed.
The gratitude journal was brief-just one sentence for each of the five things-and done only once a week, but after two months there were significant effects. Compared with a control group, the people keeping the gratitude journal were more optimistic and felt happier. They reported fewer physical problems and spent more time working out.
Further benefits were observed in a study of polio survivors and other people with neuromuscular problems. The ones who kept a gratitude journal reported feeling happier and more optimistic than those in a control group, and these reports were corroborated by observations from their spouses. These grateful people also fell asleep more quickly at night, slept longer and woke up feeling more refreshed.
"If you want to sleep more soundly, count blessings, not sheep," Dr Emmons advises in Thanks!-his book on gratitude research.
Don't confuse gratitude with indebtedness. Sure, you may feel obliged to return a favour, but that's not gratitude, at least not the way psychologists define it. Indebtedness is more of a negative feeling and doesn't yield the same benefits as gratitude, which inclines you to be nice to anyone, not just a benefactor.
In an experiment at Northeastern University, Monica Bartlett and David DeSteno sabotaged each participant's computer and arranged for another student to fix it. Afterward, the students who had been helped were likelier to volunteer to help someone else-a complete stranger-with an unrelated task. Gratitude promoted good karma. And if it works with strangers... Try it on your family. No matter how dysfunctional your family, gratitude can still work, says Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, Riverside.
Share the feeling
Why does gratitude do so much good?
"More than any other emotion, gratitude is the emotion of friendship," Dr McCullough says.
"It is part of a psychological system that causes people to raise their estimates of how much value they hold in the eyes of another person. Gratitude is what happens when someone does something that causes you to realise that you matter more to that person than you thought you did."
Contemplate a higher power
Religious individuals don't necessarily act with more gratitude in a specific situation, but thinking about religion can cause people to feel and act more gratefully. Other research shows that praying can increase gratitude.
Go for deep gratitude
Once you've learned to count your blessings, Dr Emmons says, you can think bigger.
"As a culture, we have lost a deep sense of gratefulness about the freedoms we enjoy, a lack of gratitude toward those who lost their lives in the fight for freedom, a lack of gratitude for all the material advantages we have," he says.
And if that seems too daunting, you can least tell yourself it could always be worse. When your relatives force you to look at photos on their phones, be thankful they no longer have access to a slide projector. When your aunt expounds on politics, rejoice inwardly that she does not hold elected office.
