Gratitude: A Boost for your Well-being.

Leijssen Mia (Manuscript MOOC, Mia.leijssen@kuleuven.be )

A young woman, a mother of three children, is lying in hospital to undergo chemotherapy for a
serious form of cancer. To comfort herself, she keeps a gratitude diary. Every evening, she records
the minor and major things that brightened up her day and helped make it worthwhile. After a
difficult day, she writes: My friend brought me a bunch of flowers that smell wonderful, Today, I
discovered something new on the radio, and My children are being well cared for by Grandma and
Grandpa. She feels that she is viewing herself with renewed courage and it helps her to fall asleep in
the evening with a smile on her face. She is even convinced that her dreams are more pleasant as a
result.
When she has recovered and has resumed her normal life, she rereads her writings. She realizes that
she is taking a great deal for granted once more, even her health. She also notices that she quickly
becomes irritated by minor problems with the children instead of enjoying their presence.
Remarkably, people mainly experience gratitude during difficult or life-threatening circumstances.
Appreciation for their life comes to the foreground if, for example, they emerge unscathed from a car
crash or if they are relieved of their pain. They become thankful for the things that others do and
everything acquires a new sheen. It is as if the good takes precedence over the bad. However,
theres nothing that we get used to more quickly than a comfortable life. Advantages or privileges
that come easily turn into something thats taken for granted and no longer give rise to gratitude.
Appreciation and gratitude are closely related. Appreciation is cognitive recognition that something is
of value and is connected to a realization that something is not infinite or inexhaustible (Watkins,
2014). If something is at risk of disappearing, the psychological value you ascribe to it increases.
This is why serious illness and accidents paradoxically evoke considerable gratitude. Statements
such as I am glad I am still alive or Fortunately, the doctor intervened reveal that a crisis is often
necessary before we are able to identify what is truly important.
This realization of what it truly important is also expressed when we are faced with death. It is the
ultimate moment when people count their blessings and thank each other for everything.

Gratitude is an emotional reaction whereby you feel blessed and view people and things as a gift.
Experiences of blessings on your life journey have little to do with objective facts, but with your
attitude towards life.
Researchers established that after the 2004 tsunami, people in the same circumstances reacted very
differently. Some considered themselves to be lucky survivors and were thankful for the little they
still had or for the help they received. Others viewed themselves as hapless victims to whom aid
offered no relief (Teigen & Jensen, 2011).
Here, too, the phenomenon of habituation soon resulted in dwindling appreciation. Food and
clothing were very gratefully received during the first few days following the disaster. A few days
later, the victims became more critical and bombarded the aid workers with complaints and
demands.
Gratitude is different from being owed something. Gratitude is not accompanied by an obligation
to do something in return and does not involve manipulation to find favor or obtain something more.
Gratitude is a purely emotional reaction of recognizing that there is (or was) something good. This
provides the organism with a boost. In this respect, the person focuses on a feeling of abundance
instead of a shortage.
Because gratitude contributes so obviously to our well-being, scientists studied whether tasks and
exercises could tap into the forces that underpin the cultivation of gratitude, without the need for
our being confronted with a crisis situation.
The task of keeping a gratitude diary is considered as the mother of all interventions in positive
psychology (Emmons, R.A., & McCullough, M.A., 2003). The charm is in the simplicity of the
instructions: Keep a notebook, a piece of paper or a computer file and regularly record several
things for which you are thankful.
A lot of research has been conducted into the effects of gratitude because you can easily do this task
in many different contexts. Counting your blessings appears to be the best antidote for the
habituation that soon throws us off balance when we are engrossed in a life of luxury. We rediscover
the value of all the pleasures in life that we take for granted.
Resetting your habitual outlook restores value to everything that surrounds you. Not only does this
appear to be a healthy remedy for well-being complaints, but it also prevents and relieves symptoms
of depression (Lyubomirsky, S., 2008).

Children really enjoy (variations of) the gratitude exercise. A seven-year-old boy had trouble staying
in his bed alone at night because he fretted too much about what scared him and about the many
things he found difficult during the day. His father suggested that at the end of his bedtime routine,
he should recount three positive things about his day. The little boy still had the opportunity to get
the many childhood worries he harbored off his chest. But when he was invited to recount what he
had enjoyed that day, his mood instantly brightened. He remembered that a friend had asked him to
play football, he enjoyed his dessert, he was happy that daddy took a bath with him. A few days later
the little boy also wanted his father to recount what he had enjoyed about his day. The father was
surprised by his sons interest. He said: I liked the fact that you already set the table while I was
cooking, I had fun taking a bath with you, and At work, I had some time to go to the gym today.
Since then the little boy has slept much more soundly. Moreover, father and son developed a closer
bond by sharing the minor and major things that they value.
Another popular way of developing gratitude awareness is the letter of gratitude. The instructions
for this are also simple: Write a letter to someone who has been extraordinarily friendly or kind to
you whom you never really thanked.
Sometimes the letter is only written, but occasionally it is also sent. The effect is sometimes
enhanced by reading the letter out loud.
This form of gratitude appears to have a major effect on all those involved: from great emotion to
radical life changes (Seligman, M.E.P., Rashid, T., & Parks, A.C., 2006).
Researchers have uncovered many positive effects of gratitude (for an overview also see Watkins,
2014). Personal qualities that characterize thankful people are often difficult to distinguish from the
effects of gratitude. The positive behavior of thankful people also gives rise to some of the more
powerful effects of the gratitude exercise.
However, unfortunately, the opposite is also true: ungrateful people are more reluctant to engage in
gratitude exercises. One of the participants in our large-scale KU Leuven study reacted as follows: I
have nobody to be thankful to, so this tip does not apply to me.
Fortunately, only a minority react to an invitation to be thankful in this way. For most people,
reflecting on the things for which they could be grateful is a welcome eye-opener.
Gratitude contributes to well-being on a physical, social, personal and spiritual level. When the
four dimensions - physical, social, personal and spiritual - are present in a persons well-being, we
refer to it as existential well-being. Existential well-being is optimal when gratitude is equally
spread across the four dimensions in which human existence can develop.

In the physical dimension, people report, for example, that they are thankful for material comfort,
good food, agreeable weather, music, art, natural beauty and above all, good health. Thankful people
are less focused on material wealth because their outlook is much broader. They are able to find
pleasure in small, simple things. They are also more inclined to share their possessions. It has been
clearly demonstrated that you sleep better if you end the day remembering the things for which you
are thankful. Gratitude exercises have positive effects on your physical health and also help combat
addiction.
In the social dimension, it appears that thankful people have better relationships, are friendlier,
more willing to do things for others and offer others more emotional support. Thus a circle of mutual
assistance and friendship develops. Thankful people also express their recognition of the goodness of
others more often and dont have the expectation that others should do them a service. They are
also more forgiving and more willing to view others with empathy.
In the personal dimension gratitude leads to people feeling responsible for their own happiness.
Being aware of their talents, they also take more opportunities to develop themselves. This clearly
results in a more positive frame of mind and a more favorable evaluation of everything. It also makes
them more receptive to noticing and appreciating beauty. In this respect, researchers talk of a circle
of gratitude: a person who is thankful focuses more on positive things and remembers them more
readily. And someone who notices and remembers positive things is thankful. Furthermore, a
thankful attitude results in more causes and reasons for being thankful.
Thankful people are not naive optimists who reject pain and difficulties. They are inquisitive people
who focus on what there is to experience apart from burdensome matters. They tend to redefine
problems as challenges that incorporate opportunities for growth and they bear their limitations and
vulnerabilities with dignity. Yet they are also modest and easily able to see themselves as part of a
greater whole.
This all leads researchers to conclude that gratitude is essentially a spiritual life orientation that
ensures that people experience a greater connectedness both to others and to nature. As a result,
they feel a responsibility to behave in an altruistic and highly principled manner towards everything
and everyone.
Gratitude also seems to provide a source of meaning. This appears to be even stronger when other
sources of meaning dwindle, which is often the case at the end of a persons life. In people over

seventy years of age, we found a strong connection between gratitude, the feeling of leading a
meaningful life and spiritual transcendence (Heyns, 2014).
In addition, it appeared - as in many other studies - that gratitude results in spiritual growth. Matters
of the ego make room for self-transcending values, with love as the essence of being.
A first-rate surgeon, who is held in high esteem by his colleagues as a no-nonsense scientist, explains
gratitude as integral to his spiritual attitude to life. When performing a medical procedure, I always
point out to my colleagues that we have a precious human life in our hands. Before I start to operate,
I lovingly connect myself to the patients essence. I explicitly thank all my colleagues at the end of
each operation. In our profession, the painful reality is that it sometimes also ends badly. If this is the
case at least I can rightly say to everyone: We did our best, but a greater force decided it was to be
otherwise. My years of experience have taught me to be modest about what I am able to
understand, to recognize the miracles that sometimes unfold in the operating theatre and to bow my
head in gratitude.
In the spiritual dimension counting ones blessings goes hand in hand with the realization that
there is more between heaven and earth than your humble self. A deep sense of gratitude includes
something greater that is available as an inexhaustible reservoir in times of both prosperity and
adversity. As this thirteen-year-old wrote in her diary following a serious accident: The essence of
my gratitude goes hand in hand with a love that I cannot express in words, which I can only feel. It is
far from the picture that society often paints of gratitude and love. For the first time, I consciously
experienced how I am cared for in a way I can barely describe. It does not matter to me what you call
it. There was something immeasurable and all-encompassing in what I experienced. Writing about it
fills me with a certain degree of trepidation.
In the authoritative guide by Peterson and Seligman (2004), gratitude is viewed as an extraordinary
form of transcendence. Hope, spirituality, appreciation of beauty, and humor also fall under it
because these qualities are strongly correlated.
The scientist Vaillant (2002, 2008) called gratitude a spiritual emotion, just like love, compassion,
hope, forgiveness, respect and joy. He views the pursuit of happiness as short-sighted and argues
that we should focus on what joy and gratitude bring us in the longer term.
In contrast to excitement, joy and gratitude slow the heart rate and bring us peace. They are
accompanied by vitality and exuberance, in spite of suffering. It is difficult to speak of happiness
when a funeral is concerned. However, we can find joy in the gathering of relatives and friends that
remember the deceased with thanks.

Young children express their gratitude extremely spontaneously in their body language. They are also
mindful by their very nature. These qualities are lost incredibly quickly in a hectic life.
Consequently, gratitude presupposes that you are taking time to focus once more and incorporating
moments of contemplation and reflection that enable you to observe what something or someone
means to you. Affording goodness genuine recognition also has the ability to multiply the goodness
in your life.
If you focus on the elements in your life for which you are thankful, your sense of what is good for
you becomes clearer. And by recognizing what those people or things for which you are thankful
evoke in you, you increase the chance that you will devote more attention to them.
Existential well-being means retaining hope in times of suffering, experiencing human resilience and
discovering sources of power that emerge despite or thanks to problematic situations. Gratitude can
represent the ultimate boost that serves our well-being from birth to death.

EXERCISE: Record each evening three things for which you feel thankful.
Do this exercise during one month and notice the effects on you.
You can also do the THREE-GOOD-THINGS EXERCISE (Seligman, 2011, p. 84).
This involves: Write down daily three good things that happened.
And writing beside each one the answer to one of the following questions:
-

Why did this good thing happen?

What does this mean to you?

How can you have more of this good thing in the future?

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