The Science of Gratitude: How it Transforms our Brain
For me, the word gratitude has such an attractive tone to it. It encompasses wellbeing, positivity, gratefulness, pleasure, thankfulness and so many more beautiful things. As a result of societies growing need for consumption, ever increasing expectations and busy modern schedules, gratitude is a practise that falls vastly short in many of our lives.
What is Gratitude?
Gratitude is a feeling. It can also be cultivated as a practice or mindset. I describe gratitude as being a deep feeling of appreciation or thankfulness directed towards someone or something that has positively impacted your life. This includes self recognition of your own positive attributes or behaviours. When we feel gratitude, we are recognising the value or kindness shown, and this feeling fosters a sense of connection and goodwill. This emotional response is linked to improved well-being, stronger relationships and greater resilience.
Gratitude can be expressed in many ways, from more elaborate gestures, to smaller acts of kindness. We can be grateful for our loved ones and the people who champion us, for the things we have, for opportunities that come our way or for the experiences and challenges we encounter that lead to our personal growth. Gratitude is the mindset of acknowledging the positive aspects of life, even in challenging situations, and as a result, encourages a sense of contentment and fulfilment.
The benefits of practising Gratitude
Making time for gratitude is so important. It is one of the most powerful tools we have when it comes to our mood and perception. It can be so easy to let one negative thought or event cloud our judgement of the entire day or experience. When we practise gratitude, our mood improves, we shift our emotional state for the better and we are less likely to catastrophise.
Practising gratitude can be a hugely impactful and effective tool for helping you to reach your longer term goals which require your persistent effort. This is particularly useful when it comes to coaching because the objective is focused around reaching your desired outcome. For this reason I like to include dialogue around gratitude in coaching sessions with my clients. The positive internal dialogue involved with gratitude feeds your brain’s reward system, which gives you the psychological and emotional strength required for the persistent efforts needed to reach your goals. This feedback system also helps to build your emotional resilience, which is useful when pushing ahead towards your outcomes. More on the brain next!
When we practise gratitude, we are not merely reflecting on the positive aspects of something which clearly stand out from the rest. We are further acknowledging new perspectives, re-framing experiences and creating new narratives. This is hugely beneficial for our internal dialogue and opens the door to neural growth.
What happens in our Brain when we practise Gratitude?
Our brains are an incredibly complex organ, capable of extraordinary things. On the surface we appear to know so much about its function, but the reality is our existing knowledge of its intricacy is a drop in the ocean. If we can learn how to harness the opportunities to train our brain in a way that benefits us, then we are on to a winner!
It can get complex when we talk about neural activity so I’ll try to keep this simple. Maladaptive neural pathways can hinder our ability to practise gratitude. Put simply, when neural pathways in our brain carry unhelpful, counterproductive messages, this can interfere with our daily functioning, be detrimental to our emotional wellbeing and hinder our long term goals. These pathways will have formed from past experiences, because this was our brains way of trying to protect us. What we might have developed as a coping mechanism or survival strategy can suddenly become unhelpful or even damaging. This can lead to narrow perspectives and make gratitude more of a challenge. However … the good news is we can change this!
Our brains are incredibly adaptable. After all, they have to be because their main purpose is to protect us in any given situation. If we want to change these maladaptive pathways, we must re-train our brain to create new pathways with new messages. Yes … this is possible! As mentioned earlier, when we practise gratitude we are feeding our brains reward system. We are using positive, uplifting and appreciative language, whether this is in the form of a thought, a written note or a verbal expression.
This positive adjustment of our language makes us feel good and our brain releases a small dopamine* hit, which we then experience and often refer to as “a buzz”. This gives us a surge of pleasure and makes us want more! This pleasurable feeling then motivates us to find the next dopamine hit and so on. Over time, and with consistency, this feedback system can begin to create new positive neural pathways in our brain. So the more we practise gratitude, the more dopamine hits we receive, and the more we are motivated to find the next! So practising daily gratitude is a great way of getting these pleasurable chemical hits!
* (Dopamine is a neurotransmitter which transmits chemical messages around the body, including the brain. It plays a key role in several important functions, such as reward, pleasure, motivation, emotional regulation and memory).
If we want to strengthen these new pathways, repetition of gratitude is key. The more we practise gratitude, the stronger these pathways become. Eventually they will over ride, and sometimes even replace, the maladaptive ones. As a result, your brain will find it much quicker and easier to initiate an immediate gratitude response in the future because the strength of the new pathway will be dominant, while the strength the of the maladaptive pathway will have diminished. This is great news for our goals!
How we can practise Gratitude effectively
Incorporating gratitude into our daily lives can make a huge difference to how we think and feel, and the good news is it only takes a few minutes and can be done wherever we are. There are several ways in which we can practise gratitude, but the two which stand out for me are written and verbal. If you are a fan of journaling or making notes then a written gratitude exercise could be a good place to start. You might like to treat yourself to a gratitude notebook or even a jar, whichever resonates with you.
If you’re feeling stressed, tense or unsettled, it might be useful to do something to help you feel more relaxed before you start; a meditation, some breath work or even some yoga. Whatever resonates with you. Once you have calmed your mind and body, you will be able to reflect more effectively.
Gratitude can also be done verbally using a positive shift in your language. For example replacing “I have to” (negative connotation) with “I get to” (positive connotation), or “I should ” (negative connotation) with “I could” (positive connotation). This adjustment in our language shifts our emotional state to a more positive experience. By consistently repeating this pattern of language we are creating those new pathways in our brain, training it to access this language much quicker and easier in the future.
This is great news for our goals because this shift in language, recognition and perception, increases our sense of pleasure, which then builds our emotional resilience. Consequently this feedback system sets us up well for pushing towards our goals and having the determination and motivation required for us to succeed.
If we can open the door to gratitude, we can unlock a whole new way of thinking.
Try carving out a few minutes at the end of each day to practise gratitude and see how it makes you feel.
Remember … repetition is key: the more you practise, the stronger the new neural pathway becomes!
If you're interested in exploring how Gratitude can support your personal growth and development, please get in touch to learn how I can guide you through these mindset shifts. Click the link below to book your Complimentary Call.
