How thankfulness rewires your brain & simple practices to keep you sane
The Thanksgiving season is a time when gratitude is meant to abound. However, we are often dissuaded from the practice of appreciation thanks to the allure of Black Friday and the pull towards over-consumption that reminds us of what we lack. We are fed systematic messages that inspire us to desire and crave, not words of wisdom that encourage us to take inventory of the many blessings we possess.
But as I crunched through the fall leaves this morning, my feet sifting through the autumnal mulch, I was reminded of the Rumi quote:
“The leaf of every tree brings a message from the unseen world. Look, every falling leaf is a blessing.”
As is the case with many things, I can thank my mother for passing on this adage to me. I walk through the Boston Common and Public Garden almost everyday, so these fallen leaves are nothing new. The lack of novelty, however, did not thwart my feelings of gratitude.
While we don’t struggle to comprehend the word, the concept of gratitude can be hard to define. Some choose to see it as an emotion, others an attitude or virtue. Beyond its colloquial use, scientists conceptualize gratitude as both a “state and a trait.” When you express appreciation for someone or something in a particular moment, you are in a state of gratitude, but this positive mindset can also morph into a long-term personality characteristic.
It is thought that we practice gratitude in two stages: we first acknowledge what is good in our life and then we recognize that this source of gratification lies outside the self. For some, this external source of positivity may take the form of their god, the people they love, or the wonders of mother nature (I’m looking at you, fallen leaves).
Gratitude is many things, but one of the most important facets of the feeling to understand is that gratitude is a skill. If you are not one of the people who rolls out of bed and are immediately grateful to be alive, don’t worry because you definitely aren’t alone.
In a 2022 six week study, participants were instructed to meditate for a brief five minutes every morning with the intention of noticing the small pleasures and acts of kindness. They also received a new “gratitude intervention” each week. The interventions took the form of simple, positive activities like counting your blessings, writing a letter of gratitude, focusing on grateful memories, and choosing to reframe a misfortunate situation through a lens of gratitude.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, researchers found that the participants had an overall improvement in their mental well-being. They were better able to appreciate small pleasures which led them to experience more positive emotions. The key to understanding this study is to examine the timeline; mood and well-being were meaningfully improved after four weeks of practice—not two days or two weeks.
This teaches us a paramount lesson: we are capable of cultivating a more positive mindset through the easy act of establishing a sustained gratitude routine. The holiday season can be stressful, so I suggest you give yourself the gift of establishing a simple gratitude practice. Lay the groundwork of a gratitude ritual now to scaffold your synapses for an optimistic mentality in the New Year. Your older self will thank you.
In a 2022 study examining elderly individuals, those who reported high levels of gratitude had better cognitive function. We see something similar when it comes to meditation. The areas of the brain associated with attention, interoception, and sensory processing were thicker amongst experienced meditators. Simple mental exercises where we train our brains to focus on the present moment lead to positive, structural brain changes that combat the neurodegeneration of aging.
Additionally, more gratitude was associated with larger volumes of the amygdala and fusiform gyrus. Despite its small, almond-shaped size, the amygdala is an integral mass of grey matter in the brain that is largely responsible for our emotional responses. A larger amygdala has been associated with better cognitive function, particularly enhanced social cognition and emotional regulation. (Clinical studies are still parsing out the exact impact of increased amygdala volume and activity, particularly as it relates to anxiety and other mental health conditions.) The fusiform gyrus is considered to be a key structure for things like face perception, object recognition, memory, and reading. But, as with most any region in the brain—amygdala, fusiform gyrus, or otherwise—we don’t know exactly what’s going on and the data is mixed.
What we are certain about, however, is that there are many gratitude practices that you can easily incorporate throughout your day. Keeping a gratitude journal where you write down your reflections is a wonderful practice to attune your mind to the positive aspects of your life. If you don’t want to break out a pen or paper, no worries, keeping a note on your phone to transcribe your thoughts of appreciation will lead to similar benefits—it is frankly hard to practice gratitude incorrectly.
If you like to get crafty, converting an old mason jar into a receptacle for notes of gratitude can be a fun DIY project. (Think of the cute customization and decorating potential! This is also a great, low-budget holiday gift that wraps a heartfelt declaration of love into a monetarily minuscule package—perfect for a struggling college student.)
Growing up, a Thanksgiving tradition in my household was to keep an extensive gratitude list. What began as a large piece of paper that catalogued the myriad blessings each of us observed, eventually evolved into a chalkboard that we graffitied with our scrawls of gratitude. (My dad’s extensive skills and exquisite craftsmanship have resulted in many elevated refurbishments in my house—something we are all eternally grateful for.)
As a little kid, I thought that if I contributed the most content to the list, that I could “win” the gratitude game. What I know now, however, is that the more specific, detailed, and personal your note of appreciation is, the more impactful it can be. It is a true case of quality over quantity.
Instead of saying that you are grateful for the beauty of the autumn season, think a little deeper. Perhaps you are particularly appreciative of the stunning crimson shades that adorn the maple trees, or you relish in the simple sound of meandering through a path carpeted with colorful leaves. I make a concerted effort to create an autumnal ASMR during my fall walks in honor of my dog Nani, who similarly went out of her way to create the delicious crunch that comes with pouncing upon the fallen leaves.
To take things a step further, writing a letter of gratitude can be even more impactful. A study at Indiana University used functional MRI technology to observe the brain activity of people who wrote letters of gratitude over the course of three weeks. The participants experienced significant changes in their brains, particularly in their prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that helps us to manage our emotions and connect with others. The prefrontal cortex works in tandem with the anterior cingulate cortex which is involved with empathy and stress management.
Even months after the study, the participants had sustained activation in their prefrontal cortexes. This tells us that gratitude can have long-lasting, positive effects that promote neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections. Our feel-good neurotransmitters, like dopamine and serotonin, are released when we express gratitude; when we deliberately practice appreciation, these pathways are reinforced, making it easier for us to reap the potential benefits of our neurochemistry.
Writing a letter may seem a bit cheesy or outdated, but this simple practice can help bolster your brain toward positive cognitive pathways and meaningfully benefit the minds of those on the receiving end of your letter.
A 2020 study using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), a kind of non-invasive brain imaging technique, examined the brains of coworkers during a neutral state and when they were being read a letter of gratitude from one of their colleagues. Researchers found that negative mood states decreased after listening to a letter of gratitude. It is a simple and perhaps intuitive idea—when you express appreciation for someone, it makes them feel good.
Even if you don’t want to play pen-pals or resort to a carrier pigeon to pass on your message of gratitude, expressing your love for someone via a quick text or voice memo can be fulfilling and nourishing for the both of you. As we say in my family, “Keep your I love you’s up to date.”
When it comes to mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, there is no simple cure-all. However, myriad studies have shown that individuals who received gratitude interventions not only had greater feelings of gratitude (duh), but also better mental health and fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression.
A powerful coping mechanism that I keep in my tool kit (all of us who have a DSM dazzle or tilt toward psychopathology need to have a solid inventory of strategies to keep us sane) is to do a gratitude-oriented reframe. As is the case with almost anyone, there are many moments that I am not particularly proud of and a plethora of painful situations I have endured. Instead of looking back with shame, disgust, or guilt, I have learned to take a bird’s-eye view that empowers me to see the bigger picture. This holistic viewpoint allows me to see the silver linings and lessons I learned even throughout my darkest days. When you are in the fog, it is hard to see past the depressed haze, but the storms we weather build us into the beautiful people that we are.
Simple practices, like writing down three good things or doing a gratitude reappraisal, are highly accessible which makes them especially appealing—but we can’t pretend that counting our blessings is enough to remediate the complex nature of mental health conditions. While the research is promising, gratitude interventions should be viewed as great complements to other sanative strategies, like therapy and medication, that have been more rigorously studied.
You also need to be careful to not slip into toxic patterns of gratitude that dismiss the real mental suffering you may be experiencing. Unfortunately, life is not all rainbows and sunshine; ignoring what is distressing and blinding yourself with positivity is not going to result in an elevated state of well-being. Falling into the trap of forced gratitude will not simply “fix” the problems you may be experiencing.
Gratitude practices, like other strategies in positive psychology such as affirmations, need to feel genuine. You need to meet yourself where you are at. Sometimes you can’t truly say, “I love myself,” in a way that resonates, but a simple reframe to, “I am learning to love myself,” may feel more authentic and thus promote real cognitive benefits.
Our brains need all the help they can get considering that we are wired to see what is negative, dangerous, and potentially hurtful—this provided us with an evolutionary advantage to detect threats and thus live longer. However, in our modern day lives, we are not typically faced with the danger of a saber-toothed tiger and it can be easy to look past the smaller moments of positivity. Gratitude practices are ways to reorient our brains to see the good; importantly, this does not translate into a denial of what is bad.
Allow this presentation of the science and psychology behind gratitude to spur you into a positive spiral of appreciation. You have the power to not only improve your own mentality, but also the well-being of others. Don’t let your spark of thankfulness be dulled by narratives of lack, and stay grounded amidst the endless sales and pressures to shop. Let this Thanksgiving and ensuing holiday season be a time for you to meaningfully and mindfully take stock of your own sources of gratitude.
As I prepare for my journey home, a stroll through the familiar twists and turns of the Public Garden, I will remember that I am trudging through a splendiferous sea of gratitude. Every fallen leaf is a blessing and a reminder of the many, many things I have to be grateful for.