Give Thanks

When you list your blessings often enough, you end up happier

Once a Week is Not Enough

There have been several studies done on people in which they were asked to list the things for which they felt grateful. Back in 2003, Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough asked students to try this. Each week one group listed five things they were grateful for; a second group listed five things that annoyed them; a third group listed memorable events that had happened to them in the course of the week.

The students who listed things for which they felt grateful in general led ‘better’ lives: they felt more grateful, and more positive about past and future; they were healthier, and exercised more time. But when they filled out standard questionnaires that purport to rate one’s feelings of general happiness, Emmons and McCullough found no different between the three groups.

Emmons and McCullough wondered if maybe ‘once a week’ was not frequent enough. So they put in place another study, in which they had the subjects list the things they felt grateful for, or annoyed them, each day. In this study, sure enough: those who listed the things for which they felt grateful did score ‘happier’ on the test. They also reported getting a good deal more sleep, and feeling more rested when they woke up in the morning.

More Here is Betterer

So the conclusion Emmons and McCullough reach is, that when we remind ourselves of our blessings every day, we can become happier and healthier.

But what then of giving thanks even more often? What if we gave thanks for every good thing as it happened as well as at day’s end? What if we made a practice of looking for those things that are blessings in our lives?

It is an old adage, ‘You get more of what you focus on’ and in this case it ought to bear fruit too.

Look to find those things for which you can give thanks. Give thanks for them whenever you find them, and end your day with a toting-up of the day’s blessings.

(Emmons and McCullough’s study was published as ‘Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life’ in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 377-389. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.84.2.377

(Composed on keyboard Wednesday, April 16, 2008)