Gratitude Journaling Exercise

Gratitude Journaling

The most common way to practice gratitude is by listing out things you’re grateful for. One of the most cited articles on gratitude references 3 studies where gratitude was shown to have positive benefits for well-being. In these studies gratitude journaling consisted of filling out daily “surveys” that included instructions to list out 5 things from the past week that you’re grateful for. It’s not important that you focus on any particular type of thing or person you’re grateful for as other studies show both are effective.

Other studies asked participants to write out 3 people who were grateful for receiving help. Both variations can be helpful, but some evidence suggests witnessing others express gratitude can have a more powerful effect than expressing gratitude. One important consideration is that gratitude loses its effectiveness if not done authentically. Meaning that we cannot fool ourselves into thinking we are grateful for things we are not.

To implement a traditional gratitude journal we would recommend to write down 5 things you are grateful for. Do this at least 3 times a week.

Gratitude Stories

Gratitude can have lasting effects on the brain. In particular it can prime us to activate the prosocial circuits in the brain more readily. As you’ll see later these sit in opposition to the defensive circuits. One of the most effective ways to do this is through story. This allows us to stimulate the effect of receiving gratitude or help to be grateful for. An effective gratitude practice involves finding a story that resonates with you, and that moves you. The story should be one where you are receiving thanks, or where you observe someone genuinely expressing thanks or receiving help.

It’s important when selecting the story that the thanks being expressed is genuine. As we’ll mention in the Risks section, your brain responds differently to people expressing genuine vs. reluctant thanks.

Once you have such a story, write down 3-4 bullet points which serve as cues/reminders for that story. Consider writing

  • The state that you / the person was in before the gratitude
  • The state they were in after
  • Any other elements that lend some emotional weight or tone to the story.

You can then read off these bullet points on a regular basis as a cue for this sense of gratitude. Spend 1-5 minutes feeling into that genuine experience. Do this 3 times a week.

Tham Luang Cave Rescue Example

  • 12 boys age 11-16 and their coach (25) of a Thai Soccer team were stuck in a flooded cave for 10 days before being found.
  • The boys were rescued over 3 days by hobbyist cave divers, ferrying the sedated boys for 2 hours, one by one. The day after they rescued them the cave was fully flooded.
  • “We want to thank you for what you’ve done. It’s like our children had died and been given another life. And you know, can’t thank you enough”
  • The rescue effort involved around 10,000 people.
Use in Jopro

What are the benefits

Studies show gratitude has a wide range of positive, lasting effects on the body and brain.

Resilience to Trauma

Gratitude can provide resilience to trauma, buffering against negative effects from past or future trauma. In Gratitude Enhances Work Engagement through Reduced Perception of Damage: A Case Study in Nepals’ Earthquake Disaster, researchers put to the test comparing keep a Job Diary (writing 3 major duties), 3 grateful people (people who were grateful to them), or no intervention.

These positive changes seemed related to decreased perceived damage of a natural disaster. Even though there have been mixed results about the effect of gratitude, findings of the present study showed that it is robust even against a real disaster.

Similarly the study Building Nurses ‘Resilience to Trauma through Contemplative Practices found that a regular gratitude practice can be helpful for building up nurses' resilience to trauma.

Improving Cardiovascular Function

Improving Prosocial and Mental Wellbeing

Reducing Inflammation

Improving Sleep

Improving Asthma

Why does it work

There are two main brain circuits that are activated by gratitude: the anterior cingulate cortex, and the medial prefrontal cortex. Activating these circuits produces serotonin, and the amount of activation of these circuits scales with how intensely we experience gratitude. In their experiment Neural correlates of gratitude, the authors explore how participants rated how grateful they felt receiving a gift correlated with the amount of activation of those two circuits.

Unfortunately, we can’t trick those circuits of the brain. Reaching out for things that we don’t actually feel grateful for doesn’t actually elicit feelings of gratitude in a genuine way. As mentioned in the recommended exercise, stories can be a powerful way to get us aligned.

Receiving gratitude is more often shown to be a positive way to activate these neural circuits than giving gratitude. The main reason being that people feel prosocial towards others and themselves when they receive gratitude, as a mechanism to increase altruism, refer to An Adaptation for Altruism. An example of this in action can be found in Prefrontal activation while listening to a letter of gratitude read aloud by a coworker face-to-face: A NIRS study.

Another mechanism by which gratitude may work to have lasting effects is through an upward spiral of positive emotions, as mentioned in the paper Upward spirals of positive emotions counter downward spirals of negativity.

[Positive emotions] broaden thought and action repertoires, increase mental flexibility, augment meaning-based coping, and motivate engagement in novel activities and social relationships. Importantly, positive emotions, although transient, have lasting consequences

In particular, one important factor for the efficacy of gratitude stories is that stories in general have the ability to synchronize listeners heart rates. Meaning stories put us into a predictable physiological state, and in the cases of a gratitude story, perhaps one that is similar to or conducive for receiving gratitude.

Alternatives to gratitude journaling

The main alternative to keeping a gratitude journal, or using gratitude stories, would be to verbally or mentally, such as through meditation, perform a gratitude practice. Studies such as Impact of heartfulness meditation practice compared to the gratitude practices on wellbeing and work engagement among healthcare professionals: Randomized trial show that meditative practices centered around gratitude have positive measurable benefits.

Research in Are Some Ways of Expressing Gratitude More Beneficial Than Others? Results From a Randomized Controlled Experiment found that writing letters or essays of gratitude to other people was more beneficial than writing non-social lists. However they did still find a benefit to writing those lists compared to the control group.

In general most research and evidence points to emphasizing the social aspect of gratitude, and doing so in writing, and more recently through story to simulate receiving gratitude.

References (25)

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