Good Moods and Gratitude…
Tuesday, May 14, 2024.
Really good moods are like a gracious break from worry. They bring optimism, laughter, creativity, and sheer joie de vivre. Good moods help us bear all the daily irritations of life with good grace. Humans deeply groove on a good mood vibe…
Psychological research agrees. Positive emotions are associated with greater creativity, increased problem-solving ability, and greater overall success in life.
So here’s one way to quickly and sustainably improve your mood: practice gratitude. This simple gratitude exercise can put you in a better mood in as little as two minutes per week.
This post first covers the evidence that a simple gratitude exercise, if persevered with, can improve mood. After the evidence is an explanation of how to carry out this exercise.
The Evidence: 3 recent studies support the use of gratitude in improving mood:
Emmons and McCullough (2003) were surprised that a simple gratitude exercise could increase happiness. For 10 weeks, participants wrote down 5 things they were grateful for.
At the end of the study, this group was 25% happier than a comparison group that simply listed five events from the week. Lyubomirsky et al. (2005) compared practicing gratitude three times a week with once a week.
They found that only those who carried out the exercise once a week were happier. This suggests overdoing the gratitude is not beneficial – perhaps because of habituation.
Seligman, Steen, Park, and Peterson (2005) conducted a randomized, placebo-controlled study. They followed participants up 6 months after they had begun a simple gratitude exercise and found they were happier and less depressed than a control group. In this study, though, participants initially wrote about what they were grateful for every day for a week.
Convinced by the research?
Well, even if you’re not, the beauty of this exercise is that it’s so easy that it shouldn’t even be called exercise.
All you need is as little as two minutes to think of three things you are grateful for: that benefit you and without which your life would be poorer. Then, if you’ve got time, you can think about the causes for these good things. And that’s it.
The danger is that this exercise seems so trivial that it isn’t worth doing…
But consider this: people are constantly worrying about things they don’t have or things that haven’t happened, consequently they rarely take stock of the beneficial things they do have and good things that have already happened. If even the simplest negative thought can provoke a change in mood, then why not a positive, grateful thought as well?
If you find it difficult to get going, here are some suggestions for things, but it’s better to think of your own:
I don’t have a headache today. I had a good lunch. I have my family. I remembered to zip my fly. My new socks keep my feet warm. I made a joke, and people laughed (set the bar limbo-low). …some of these are quite bland and trivial, but no grain of thankfulness is too small once you’ve exhausted the usual suspects!
Depending on how you feel, you can try experimenting with carrying out this exercise weekly or even daily. If the exercise starts to lose its power, this could be because of habituation – try to be creative with your gratitude, and please pay attention on how it feels in your nervous system.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
RESEARCH:
Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 377-389.
