“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
Do you wish to be happier and more resilient? Being grateful (and expressing gratitude) is part of a healthy mindset. During the month of November, each of us at SOCSD will be learning how to be grateful for those aspects of our lives that contribute to our general well-being. As a follow on activity, we will learn how to better express our gratitude. This is the cornerstone of the foundation of our School District’s Goal of “Fostering a Respectful Learning Environment.”
Here is an excerpt from “What Good is Gratitude,” by Robert A. Emmons, PhD, Professor of Psychology at UC Davis:
What good is gratitude?
So what’s really behind our research results—why might gratitude have these transformative effects on people’s lives? I think there are several important reasons, but I want to highlight four in particular.
- Gratitude allows us to celebrate the present.It magnifies positive emotions. Research on emotion shows that positive emotions wear off quickly. Our emotional systems like newness. They like novelty. They like change. We adapt to positive life circumstances so that before too long, the new car, the new spouse, the new house—they don’t feel so new and exciting anymore. But gratitude makes us appreciate the value of something, and when we appreciate the value of something, we extract more benefits from it; we’re less likely to take it for granted. In effect, I think gratitude allows us to participate more in life. We notice the positives more, and that magnifies the pleasures you get from life. Instead of adapting to goodness, we celebrate goodness. We spend so much time watching things—movies, computer screens, sports—but with gratitude we become greater participants in our lives as opposed to spectators.
- Gratitude blocks toxic, negative emotions, such as envy, resentment, regret—emotions that can destroy our happiness. There’s even recent evidence, including a 2008 study by psychologist Alex Wood in the Journal of Research in Personality, showing that gratitude can reduce the frequency and duration of episodes of depression. This makes sense: You cannot feel envious and grateful at the same time. They’re incompatible feelings. If you’re grateful, you can’t resent someone for having something that you don’t. Those are very different ways of relating to the world, and sure enough, research I’ve done with colleagues Michael McCullough and Jo-Ann Tsang has suggested that people who have high levels of gratitude have low levels of resentment and envy.
- Grateful people are more stress resistant. There’s a number of studies showing that in the face of serious trauma, adversity, and suffering, if people have a grateful disposition, they’ll recover more quickly. I believe gratitude gives people a perspective from which they can interpret negative life events and help them guard against post-traumatic stress and lasting anxiety.
- Grateful people have a higher sense of self-worth. I think that’s because when you’re grateful, you have the sense that someone else is looking out for you—someone else has provided for your well-being, or you notice a network of relationships, past and present, of people who are responsible for helping you get to where you are right now.
During the month of November, many of us will celebrate Veterans’ Day and Thanksgiving…these events are perfect opportunities that remind us to be grateful, not only on these special occasions, but every day in all that we do.