Can increasing gratitude improve your brain chemistry and help you feel better? Can it improve your career?
The science of gratitude has expanded greatly in the past twenty years. Studies increasingly show that regularly practicing gratitude contributes to better relationships, decreased anxiety, and increased internal satisfaction. These bolster what Daniel Goleman labels emotional and social intelligence, key items for success in our careers and lives.
Though once labeled soft skills—i.e., teamwork, communication, leadership, mission focus, curiosity, and others—employers now recognize that these are critical skills that function in the workplace as well as in everyday life. Well, gratitude is high on this list too.
When we pause to focus on things we’re grateful for, we activate the prefrontal cortex in our brains and release important neurochemicals that help give us feelings of reward, bonding, and understanding. When we shift our thinking from negative to positive, there is a surge that can energize and reinvigorate us even on a bad day.
So how do you increase your practice of gratitude? This may sound very simple, but we need only write down three things for which we’re grateful for 21 days in a row. Writer and former Harvard researcher, Shawn Achor, says practicing gratitude for 21 days will train our brains to look at the world differently. Once the habit is formed, we start scanning the world for positives instead of threats. It’s a game changer.
Researcher Robert Emmons, likewise, said that even though we do not have total control over our emotions, “being grateful is a choice that can sustain us through the ups and downs of our lives.” When we become more grateful, we are more stress resistant and our self-worth increases. This often shows outwardly. And again, when that is noticed, it can result in career progression and success.
Homework Challenge:
Are you willing to try the 21-day gratitude test? (i.e., Will you write three things per day that you’re grateful for?)
How might increasing gratitude help your career? (Make a list of ideas on this as well.)
I have several gratitude lists, many pertaining to a certain aspect of or event in life. E.g., I have two full pages noting gratitude for the many positive things (and a few challenges) around our daughter going to graduate school in Alaska. That list (bolstered by my personal faith tradition) literally changed my brain chemistry and allowed me to sleep at night.
Additional Resources: Dr. Brian Raison (raison.1@osu.edu) serves as a Professor and Extension Specialist at The Ohio State University. He has extracted these tools over the past dozen years from his formal classes and Extension programs. Free downloads and videos (and about 25 free e-book codes) are available online: http://encouragingmentor.com
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