the 20-something’s guide to gratitude (& how gratitude can reduce anxiety, increase motivation, & help us experience life to the fullest)
photo by savannah huntsman, the ultimate 20-something wellness mama.
happy november:: the month of gratitude & the start of one of my favorite times of the year! with the craziness of the holidays coming up, what better time to pause, reflect, & focus on gratitude as we start to dive into allll the cozy vibes. (i’m already there. think: a fireplace, a cozy barefoot dreams blanket, a warm drink of choice, a chill in the air, tall, cozy socks…so perfect!) take a look at the whole post to see the science behind a gratitude practice & the best, science-backed gratitude practice to help us get allll the brain, emotional, & social benefits! (trust me, it is NOT what you think!)
the science behind gratitude
effective gratitude practices (described in more detail below…hold your horses!) can help rewire our brains for past, current, & future challenges, change how our nervous systems respond to certain circumstances & social interactions, & help reduce our fear & anxiety while improving our feelings of well-being & motivation! say no more, amirite?!
gratitude practices target a few key areas in our brains: the medial prefrontal cortex & the amygdala.
the medial prefrontal cortex is involved in how we evaluate certain events, interactions, & experiences. it helps to decide whether our brain is shifted towards more prosocial behaviors or defensive behaviors. prosocial behaviors are those that allow us to be more present in our experiences with ourselves & others. the pathways that help switch us to more prosocial behaviors allow us to extract more details from these experiences & interactions with ourselves & others to enjoy them more deeply & take more detail from them. this is definitely where we want that medial prefrontal cortex to shift towards! in contrast, defensive behaviors are just as they sound: behaviors associated with fear, cold, anxiety, etc. that cause us to back away, cover ourselves, & take a more defensive stance towards an experience.
this is one of the reasons why people might experience the same event & have a completely different physiological response. for example, if you perform a cold plunge on your own accord, knowing it has so many health benefits, your brain might shift towards more prosocial pathways. however, if someone is forced to do a cold plunge, their brain might shift towards more defensive pathways.
these 2 contrasting circuits in the brain exist on a seesaw; when the prosocial pathways are more active, the defensive pathways are decreased, & vice versa!
a regular, appropriate, genuine gratitude practice (again, see below!), can help rewire our brains to shift us towards favoring more prosocial pathways in the brain compared to defensive pathways. it helps to tilt our natural, resting, medial prefrontal cortex seesaws to favor more of the prosocial responses compared to the defensive responses.
a regular gratitude practice can also affect how our brain & heart interact with each other. it helps to shift our resting levels of fear, anxiety, wellbeing, & motivation by upregulating our more favorable pathways, those of wellbeing & motivation, & down regulating our less desirable pathways, those of fear & anxiety. furthermore, a study on women (woohoo!) has shown that a regular gratitude practice can lead to a rapid reduction in amygdala activity, or the area of the brain associated with fear & threat detection, & certain inflammatory chemicals.
building the ultimate gratitude practice (it’s not what you think)
when most of us think of gratitude practices, we think about daily journaling, where we write down & reflect on a list of things that we are grateful for. this isn’t necessarily wrong, but it isn’t the most efficient practice to receive alllll the benefits of a gratitude practice mentioned above.
the most effective gratitude practice involves receiving gratitude, not actually giving it! wild, right? receiving gratitude, or watching & reflecting on when you or someone else received gratitude, is the most effective gratitude practice! but how can we actually implement this everyday? it is hard to just wait for the folks around us to give us genuine thanks for something we did, & it isn’t super practical for a practice that we want to do multiple times/week.
so what are the components of an ideal, science-backed, gratitude practice & how can we build the most effective gratitude practice for ourselves?
one of the best ways to start to build out a gratitude practice involves thinking of a time when you did something that elicited true, genuine, gratitude from someone else. it doesn’t have to be a recent event, but it does have to be an instance where you perceive that the person is genuine in their gratitude when you receive it. another way to build out a gratitude practice is to think of a story in which you are able to relate to someone else receiving genuine gratitude. in both instances, it is important that you can relate emotionally to the story or interaction. it might help to write out the story or interaction first, describe what happened, what emotions you experience with the story or the other person might be experiencing, & why you feel connected to this particular interaction. you can start to shorten this narrative or story by creating a quick-access bulleted list to make it an easily repeatable gratitude practice. using this story or interaction with each gratitude practice is totally okay! that way you don’t always have to come up with new, true stories, narratives, or interactions.
a few examples of my own thoughts surrounding certain interactions or stories where i experienced genuine gratitude involve certain patient interactions in which i was able to receive genuine thanks from someone. for a story reference, i immediately thought of the story of dick & rick hoyt, the father-son duo in which the father pushed his son in a wheelchair for multiple ironmans, & the amount of gratitude the son had for his father. just a few examples that i feel very connected to from a gratitude perspective!
the other building blocks of an effective gratitude practice involve timing (1-5 minutes) & frequency (3x/week minimum, although this isn’t heavily decided upon yet). you can also incorporate a breathwork practice within the gratitude practice timeframe as well! the wonderful part about a gratitude practice is that it doesn’t take very long at all to rewire our brain to shift towards more favorable behaviors & pathways! 1-2 minutes/day is truly all it takes as these pathways are very adaptable!
so to put it all together, an effective gratitude practice must have:
a story or experience that you relate to in which you are able to experience the genuine gratitude the person in the story is receiving from someone else. this can be a story about someone else or about yourself!
1-5 minutes
3x/week or more
can add additional breathwork practice during the 1-5 minute timeframe for the gratitude practice
the faith-based perspective on gratitude
faith & gratitude go hand-in-hand, & i can’t help but think about the science behind receiving gratitude & how we can truly affect another person’s motivation, wellbeing, & happiness (both now & in the future!) by being more purposeful in expressing our own gratitude. no, we can’t fake our gratitude, so we shouldn’t be going around without authentic intent behind our “thanks”, but how beautiful to think that our genuine expression of gratitude can help further the kingdom in such a positive way.
gratitude challenge
i want to focus this gratitude challenge on how we can impact others by giving gratitude & opportunities for them to receive that gratitude. of course, building up our own gratitude practices is important, but during this month of november, let’s focus on sharing our gratitude & thanks with others in a genuine way, in addition to building our own practices.
i’m a huge letter-writer, so i picture writing letters to people that i may not have shared my true thanks with. bonus:: the letter also acts as something for the person to come back to & experience again! but you can totally be creative with your expressions of gratitude! i just want us to be courageous in our ability to thank others for how they’ve impacted our lives!
as a start, i am extremely grateful for you for reading this post & making it this far, but especially for supporting me in both small & big ways :) i put a lot of time & effort into creating programs, articles, content, & education that i hope is valuable & that can connect us as a sisterhood focused on doing good for ourselves & others. i truly enjoy sharing, educating, & creating, especially in regards to movement & wellness. so thank you from the bottom of my heart. please reach out & share your gratitude efforts & how you were creative or courageous in expressing gratitude towards someone else!
to a sisterhood of gratitude!
your wellness big sister,
kelsy
(also, i have to shout out our wellness, biohacking godfather, andrew huberman, for inspiration on this post. check out his podcast on the topic! this post is basically just a podcast review!)
