Summary
Gratitude can contribute to feeling happy. Gratitude can improve our physical health and our mental wellbeing. Gratitude can help other people. Human beings are one species, one race, one people. Thanksgiving 2024 is a time for us to be grateful, for us to work together, for us to be better than how we have behaved until this point in time in 2024. Make someone happy and you’ll be happy, too.
Gratitude and Wellbeing for All
The wellbeing of a person is not experienced in a vacuum. Thus, the relevance of gratitude. Let’s explore gratitude and wellbeing for all.
Gratitude Contributes to Happiness
The literature supports a relationship between gratitude and one’s happiness.
Gratitude infuses us with positive thoughts about our life. Gratitude can make us smile. Recall the mirror neurons: if I smile, this is not just a facial expression. This leads to a series of electrical impulses to my brain which directly affects my experience of emotions, in the case of smiling leading to happy feelings.
Imagine the domino effect of mirror neurons. When I smile while feeling grateful, someone who sees me is likely to smile. If they smile, someone who sees them may smile. And it will not stop there.
Gratitude allows us to pause and notice someone in need. We reflect and realize how grateful we ought to be. We take stock of our situation and examine how this compares to another person’s situation. We are poised to offer to help that person. Gratitude can lead to charitable actions and generosity.
Then, we may contribute to someone else’s happiness. Awesome!
Wellbeing Through Gratitude
Consider the research related to meditation, including a gratitude meditative practice, and emotional regulation. As a consequence of engaging in a gratitude practice, we extend our attentiveness to the positive which can even improve our chances of recovery from physical illness and trauma. Engaging in a gratitude practice can boost our immune system; lower our blood pressure; lower anxiety; decrease our perception of pain; and connect us with fellow human beings.
Social connectedness through touch can release oxytocin, which makes us feel good.
Social connectedness can be fostered by practicing gratitude.
Social connectedness is linked to our perception of happiness.
Social connectedness contributes to the happiness of other people.
Social connectedness allows us to ally with people.
Alliance promotes cooperation.
Cooperation leads to people working together to make this world a better place.
Wellbeing of the world through a simple experience of being grateful.
Gratitude For All of Us
The ‘us’ and ‘them’ narrative is not a prosocial approach to our world. Besides, there are no monoliths in society. We are one people, one species, one race. We need to start acting like a unified group of people, not against something but for something.
Like the wellbeing of our world.
Let’s start by being grateful. Grateful for what we have. Grateful for what we can achieve. Grateful for our ability to work with each other. Grateful for the resources at our disposal, allowing us to eradicate hunger; to eradicate poverty; to eradicate selfishness; to eradicate hate; to eradicate war; to eradicate greed; and to eradicate any other man-made stupidity that the human race has managed to foist upon itself
Let’s remember Berenike. Let’s cooperate for the wellbeing of everyone.
Reaching for the Stars
I am a dreamer. The stars and the moon do not seem out of reach for me. The neuroscience of wishing for something, yearning for something, anticipating something is not lost on me. The pursuit of happiness must include the pursuit of gratitude and generosity.
Consider the wise words of Indre Viskonstas in her TEDx Talk about music and neuroscience and the anticipation for a beautiful musical apex:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJYRJ92g4GI
I have no time for regrets in this life.
Consider the wise words in the lyrics of Jason Robert Brown:
Stars and the Moon, performed by Shoshana Bean
Consider the infectiousness of paying something forward and being grateful.
Take a listen to the podcast ‘Where Gratitude Gets You’ by Hidden Brain with its host, Shankar Vedantam.
https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/where-gratitude-gets-you/
Two of my favourite neuroscience geeks, Taylor Guthrie and Andrew Cooper-Sansone, present an episode in their podcast, The Social Brain, dedicated to Positive Psychology, in which they wander into the realm of gratitude. Catch their review of the PERMA + model: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments. Pamper yourself and take a listen:
It is my belief that I can have the moon. And, the world will be a harmonious place where people get along and cooperate and love each other and people stop engaging in stupid attempts to divide and conquer.
Cultivating Gratitude for Wellbeing
Gratitude practice is like physical exercise. No joke. We can flex the gratitude muscle and, over time, our ability to be grateful will grow.
And, with it, the benefits of engaging in a gratitude practice will accrue.
The fallout can only be good. For you. For me. For our world.
No better time than for residents of the USA to start practicing gratitude on Thanksgiving 2024. Let’s be grateful and not selfish. Let’s be open-minded not myopic. Let’s be generous and not greedy. Let’s be kind and not spiteful and mean.
We can do better than what we have been doing in 2024.
Flex the gratitude muscle.
Make someone happy and you’ll be happy, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlzX36GwC7M
Sophie Milman performing Make Someone Happy
Selected References:
Guthrie, T., Cooper-Sansone, A. (May 2, 2023). Evidence-Based Happiness: Positive Psychology for a Better Life. The Social Brain, Episode 16. Accessed online on November 24, 2024, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G4gmy_SBf8
Marchant, J. (July/August 2024). A Buried Ancient Egyptian Port Reveals the Hidden Connections between Distant Civilizations. Accessed online on November 8, 2024, at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hidden-ancient-egyptian-port-reveals-180984485/
Hidden Brain Staff. (December 21, 2022). Where Gratitude Gets You. Hidden Brain podcast. Accessed online on November 24, 2024, at https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/where-gratitude-gets-you/
Sansone, R., Sansone, L. (2010 November). Gratitude and Well Being. Psychiatry, 7(11): 18-22. Accessed online on November 24, 2024, at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3010965/
Tung, L. (November 21, 2019). Your brain on gratitude: How a neuroscientist used his research to heal from grief. WHYY (PBS, npr). Accessed online on November 24, 2024, at https://whyy.org/segments/your-brain-on-gratitude-how-a-neuroscientist-used-his-research-to-heal-from-grief/
Viskonstas, I. (November 1, 2016). How music makes me a better neuroscientist. TEDx San Francisco. Accessed online on November 24, 2024, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJYRJ92g4GI
Disclaimer: This post is not meant to substitute for a consultation with your mental health professional team.
If you are thinking of hurting yourself or someone else, please call 9-1-1 or go the nearest emergency room.
Copyright 2024 All Rights Reserved