Does Practising Gratitude Really Do Anything?

“Name five things you’re grateful for this morning!”

One of our marketing managers had a habit of bounding up to you and making demands like this. Most of us would look a bit dazed. If you hadn’t had your first coffee of the day, it was best to avoid her.

Positive psychology can seem rather crazy-making. Many of us are suspicious of mindfulness, gratitude and other positive psychology. Often, they’re seen as a crutch, or a nice, fluffy thing that you do when you can’t deal with reality. Grown-ups can tackle the world without dressing it up, right?

Well, frankly, we don’t see reality in a neutral way. And we certainly don’t see the positives very well.

It’s the so-called “negativity bias”. Psychologists have shown that our brains are automatically more likely to recall negative memories over positive ones. You’ve experienced your negativity bias if you’ve ever ruminated on:

• The one time someone lets you down, as compared to the dozens of times they don’t
• That niggling insult from a co-worker that doesn’t seem to go away, even when others compliment you
• The family member who “always” does that annoying thing, even when they don’t always do it
• The critical feedback you received on a project, rather than the number of positive things that were said
• Everything that can go wrong, instead of everything that can go right

To some extent, this is involuntary. Your perception will gravitate toward the negative over the positive, partly out of self-preservation. When you remember the negative, it helps you avoid risks and things that might hurt you.

Our natural negativity also flows into how we tend to take what makes us happy for granted. Everything, from a new car to a new relationship, loses its sheen over time and sinks in our perception. If we don’t train ourselves to look at those positives, we naturally downplay them – and end up with a perspective that skews to the negative.

And we think that’s reality.

This is where I’m growing in my appreciation for some of the practices of self-care and positive psychology. Because I know my brain is lazy – lazy toward the negative.

A study in gratitude

For this reason, I did a gratitude project recently.

By osmosis, I’ve come to know that practising gratitude is good for your wellbeing. Mindful gratitude has been shown to make you happier and give you stronger relationships.

So, each day for a week, I wrote down a list of things that I noticed that I was grateful for. Most of them were observations about things that happened every day that I hadn’t considered being thankful for. They included things like good weather, a hot drink, the concept of online shopping, new sheets, unopened text messages, delicious fruit, finding an unexpected Freddo Frog in my desk drawer.

Sometimes, the day was busy and bleak. If I couldn’t find anything delightful to share, I either had to look harder (there was inevitably something) or invent a sparkle in my day for myself (like reading a good book or making time for prayer).

As I did my gratitude project and posted it, I was surprised by the response. I realised how much other people appreciate seeing gratitude on display. And I also noticed that, if I hadn’t have been looking for these things, I would definitely have overlooked them.

There’s an old proverb that I love:

An old man is out working in his field when a traveller approaches him to ask what the next town is like. The old man asks him what the last town he went to was like.

“Awful,” says the traveller. “Everyone was a selfish and lazy. I’m glad to be gone.”

The old man responded, “I’m afraid you’ll find the same in the next town.”

Sometime later, a second traveller arrives and asks the same question: what’s the next town like? The old man asks him what the last town was like.

“Wonderful,” says the traveller. “Everyone was hard-working and kind. I was sad to leave.”

The old man responded, “You’ll find the same in the next town.”

What I pay attention to each day – that’s what shapes me. If I think negatively for long enough, it ends up shaping how I see everything. My attitude is never grateful or happy, causing a vicious cycle. I never see anything good because I never see anything good.

There are always precipitating factors. Sometimes, it takes more than an attitude shift to make life palatable. But you can set the foundations in many ways by perception. Alphonse Karr once said,

We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.

Our negativity bias, of course, would want us to see the thorns. I have to fight to see the rose.

And by the way – thanks for reading. I appreciate it.