By John Tierney
November 22, 2011 Tuesday
The most psychologically correct holiday of the year is upon us.
Thanksgiving
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 favorite
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, which helps
explain why so many brothers-in-law survive Thanksgiving without serious
injury.
But
what if you're not the grateful sort? I sought guidance from the
psychologists who have made gratitude a hot research topic. Here's their
advice for getting into the holiday spirit --
or at least getting through dinner Thursday:
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 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. 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.
''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 Thursday, 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.''
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,
as demonstrated in experiments by Jo-Ann Tsang and colleagues at
Baylor University. 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. ''The focus of
Thanksgiving should be a reflection of how our lives have been made so
much more comfortable by the sacrifices of those who have come before
us.''
And if that seems too daunting, you can least tell yourself –
Hey,
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. Instead of
focusing on the dry, tasteless turkey on your plate, be grateful the
six-hour roasting process killed any toxic bacteria.
Is
that too much of a stretch? When all else fails, remember the Monty
Python mantra of the Black Plague victim: ''I'm not dead.'' It's all a
matter of perspective.
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