Gratitude is a positive emotion with strong psychological effects say researchers. Now psychologists are trying to figure out the brain chemistry behind gratitude and the best ways of showing it.
University of Miami psychology professor Michael McCullough, who has studied people who are asked to be regularly thankful, said, “When you are stopping and counting your blessings, you are sort of hijacking your emotional system.” This hijacking is also taking it to a good place he said.
Research by McCullough and others finds that giving thanks is a potent emotion that feeds on itself, almost the equivalent of being victorious. It could be called a vicious circle, but it's anything but vicious. He said psychologists used to underestimate the strength of simple gratitude, “It does make people happier…It's that incredible feeling.” One of the reasons why gratitude works so well is that it connects us with others, McCullough said.
Chicago psychologist and self-help book author Maryann Troiani also said that her clients are gradually warming up to gratitude - sometimes just by limiting their complaints to two whines a session. Then she eventually gets them to log good things that happened to them in gratitude journals. Gratitude journals or diaries, in which people list weekly or nightly what they are thankful for, are becoming regular therapy tools.
Robert Emmons, a psychology professor at the University of California, Davis also cited benefits of such journals. Grateful people “feel more alert, alive, interested, enthusiastic. They also feel more connected to others,” said Emmons, who has written two books on the science of gratitude and often studies the effects of those gratitude diaries. “Gratitude also serves as a stress buffer,” Emmons said in an e-mail interview. “Grateful people are less likely to experience envy, anger, resentment, regret and other unpleasant states that produce stress.”
Preliminary theories look at the brain chemistry and hormones in the blood and neurotransmitters in the brain that are connected to feelings of gratitude, Emmons said. And the left prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is also associated with positive emotions like love and compassion, seems to be a key spot, especially in Buddhist monks, Emmons said.
At the University of North Carolina, Sara Algoe studied the interaction between cancer patients and their support group, especially when acts of gratitude were made. She saw the effects last well over a month and she saw the feedback cycle that McCullough described. “It must be really powerful,” Algoe said.
Christopher Peterson of the University of Michigan studied different gratitude methods and found the biggest immediate improvement in happiness scores was among people who were given one week to write and deliver in person a letter of gratitude to someone who had been especially kind to them, but was never thanked. That emotional health boost was large, but it didn't last over the weeks and months to come.
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