Project U. Blog

Is Gratitude Good for You?

Posted by Catherine Saar on Wed, Nov 21, 2012 @ 08:07 AM

Thanksgiving is a great excuse to remember the value of gratitude.  One of my favorite autumn leavesarticles on gratitude was published in the New York Times in 2011. Author John Tierney provides gratitude tips and benefits that I feel are worthy of reprise. Here’s an edited excerpt for your reading pleasure, and a link to the original article in case you want more:

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.  

However, if you’re not the grateful sort, here’s a guide to getting into the holiday spirit based on the work of several psychologists who have made gratitude a hot research topic:

Start with “gratitude lite.” Robert A. Emmons, of the University of California, Davis, named this technique used in his pioneering experiments “gratitude lite”. He and his fellow researcher, Dr. Michael McCullough 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 favor, 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.

Try it on your family. No matter how dysfunctional your family, gratitude can still work, says Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, Riverside.

“Do one small and unobtrusive thoughtful or generous thing for each member of your family on Thanksgiving,” she advises. “Say thank you for every thoughtful or kind gesture. Express your admiration for someone’s skills or talents — wielding that kitchen knife so masterfully, for example. And truly listen, even when your grandfather is boring you again with the same World War II story.”

Don’t counterattack. If you’re bracing for insults on Thanksgiving Day, consider a recent experiment at the University of Kentucky. After turning in a piece of writing, some students received praise for it while others got a scathing evaluation: “This is one of the worst essays I’ve ever read!”

Then each student played a computer game against the person who’d done the evaluation. The winner of the game could administer a blast of white noise to the loser. Not surprisingly, the insulted essayists retaliated against their critics by subjecting them to especially loud blasts — much louder than the noise administered by the students who’d gotten positive evaluations.

But there was an exception to this trend among a subgroup of the students: the ones who had been instructed to write essays about things for which they were grateful. After that exercise in counting their blessings, they weren’t bothered by the nasty criticism — or at least they didn’t feel compelled to amp up the noise against their critics.

“Gratitude is more than just feeling good,” says Nathan DeWall, who led the study at Kentucky.  “It helps people become less aggressive by enhancing their empathy. “It’s an equal-opportunity emotion. Anyone can experience it and benefit from it, even the most crotchety uncle at the Thanksgiving dinner table.”

Share the feeling. Why does gratitude do so much good? “More than 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 realize that you matter more to that person than you thought you did.”

Try a gratitude visit. This exercise, recommended by Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania, begins with writing a 300-word letter to someone who changed your life for the better. Be specific about what the person did and how it affected you. Deliver it in person, preferably without telling the person in advance what the visit is about. When you get there, read the whole thing slowly to your benefactor. “You will be happier and less depressed one month from now,” Dr. Seligman guarantees in his book “Flourish.”

Click here to link to the rest of the article.  Thanks for reading.  I am so grateful to be able to share this article (Thanks J. Tierney!) on gratitude in this blog, and wish you all a wonderful holiday season.

Note: A version of this article appeared in print on November 22, 2011, on page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Serving of Gratitude May Save the Day.

Tags: Thanksgiving, Dr. Seligman, less depressed, thank you, gratitude, John Tierney, sleep soundly, Sonja Lyubomirsky, holiday, happier, criticism, Robert A. Emmons

Drop the Struggle and Find Your Passion

Posted by Catherine Saar on Tue, Nov 06, 2012 @ 08:07 PM

As a coach, I often hear, “I want to find my passion.” While some of us clearly know what we are called to do, others of us don’t.  If you are a passion seeker, here’s a clue: Drop the struggle.  Anxiety about passion won’t help you discover it faster.  For most of us, passion does not arrive as an instantaneous inspiration, but rather, it emerges as we learn who we are. 

So instead of obsessing about finding your passion, can you get passionate about exploration?  What’s happening for you now?   If your job is boring, how might you change it?  If you are burnt-out, how might you take better care of yourself?  Figure out what is stopping you.    Know it, taste it, improve it, if needed.  Try new things; be surprised by what you enjoy.  Is it possible to stop focusing on how you want things to be, and start accepting, (or even being in love with) what you are doing right now?   

For me, it’s been like putting together a jigsaw puzzle where I’ve gathered up the pieces over the course of a 35-year treasure hunt.  While part of me wishes I could have known my path sooner, it would not have been possible.  It’s only recently that I’ve gathered up enough puzzle pieces (skills and awareness) to identify the picture that has emerged.

Here are some interesting questions to help you start to consider your life’s path. How many of these can you answer?

  • What do you love?

  • What are your skills and gifts?

  • What do you care about deeply? What moves you to tears? What issues get you angry, absorb you or bring you joy?

  • What would you do for work even if you weren’t paid to do it?

  • What is essential to your happiness?

  • What do you really need?

  • How would you describe your essential self?  Are you a problem solver, a poet, an adventurer, a maker, a storyteller, a teacher, a peacemaker, a hermit?  (Tip: Observe your patterns of behavior to get to the answer to this – rather than trying to label yourself with what you would like your essential self to be!)

Your answers to these questions are a clue to your level of self-awareness. For any that you can’t answer, get curious. Can you take a class, try a workshop, enter a contest – or work as a volunteer?  Remember that if something you try doesn’t bring you joy, (or doesn’t fit well with your skills and gifts), you can move on.

Pay attention if any of these questions awaken your inner critic. What conflicts hold you back from doing what you love?  One common issue is money. For example, if you want to be an artist, and you believe you need to earn a six-figure income to keep you afloat, ask yourself, is that absolutely true?  If you are willing to look at what you really need and want, you may find that there are a million possible creative solutions to your dilemma. Could you pursue art as a secondary money making venture?  Can you change your living situation and/or your budget so you can feed your passion until you can earn those six figures? You get the idea. Getting clear on needs and desires allows you to create many choices that can lead you to your right path.

You may also need to get clear on limiting beliefs.  Perhaps you think that following your passion is selfish and that being selfish is bad.  Is that really true?  Explore the assumptions and self-judgments that stop you from realizing your full potential and joy. If this is new to you, check out some of the many available resources, including coaching programs and books like “Loving What Is”, by Byron Katie and “I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What  It Was” by Barbara Sher.

In short, getting on a path, any path, will take you somewhere.  And somewhere is better than being stuck sitting around lamenting that you don’t know what you want.  Don’t wait for the perfect answer to find you.  Instead, follow your light, follow your bliss.  If an idea sparkles for you, give it a go.  Have faith.  Your life will take care of itself.

Tags: anxiety, Byron Katie, Loving What Is, Barbara Sher, stuck, joy, struggle, burnt-out, bliss, coach, job, life, passion, exploration, inner critic, limiting beliefs