Gratitude
In light of the Thanksgiving Holiday we just celebrated, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about the practice of gratitude. Over the last several years there has been an abundance of research on the practice of gratitude and the benefits that result from it. In The Science of Gratitude, a white paper prepared for the John Templeton Foundation by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley in May 2018, it is reported that a grateful disposition is associated with life satisfaction, optimism, objective well-being, positive affect, and happiness. There is also evidence that gratitude can lead to improved physical health. Redwine et al. conducted a study of heart failure patients in 2016. They randomly assigned patients to either write about things for which they were grateful each day for eight weeks or to a control group that did not do this intervention. The patients who kept the gratitude journal were found to have improved trait gratitude and reduced biomarkers of inflammation. There is a plethora of more studies citing similar findings, although more research is still required to determine the parameters of cause and effect. In the meantime, however, I would definitely recommend that everyone take up the practice of gratitude journaling. Even if we do not yet know the exact parameters, we know that this practice will not be harmful, and may be incredibly beneficial.
The one place of caution that I do want to mention here, though, is watching out for the sabotage of your gratitude practice. In working with my physician clients, some of them have mentioned having tried a gratitude practice, but finding it difficult to keep up. Initially the practice went well, but at some point it became a “burden” something else that they “had to do”. In delving more deeply, it
appeared as if the gratitude practice stirred up feelings of guilt and shame. For example, when caring for ill patients or becoming aware of a significant difficulty in someone else’s life, if my client was experiencing a challenge or feeling upset or unhappy about something in his own life, he would recall the sick patient or the other person with problems and tell himself that he “should be happy with and grateful” for what he had. He would proceed to berate himself for not feeling grateful and instead feel ashamed for “wanting more.” When he tried to “get in the zone” to gratitude journal this would all come back to him, and the process felt forced.
This was all the result of my clients’ negative neural pathways (saboteurs) being triggered. Initially when my clients began their gratitude practice it went well. However, as their behaviors and way of being began to change, the survival areas of their brain were triggered. Why? Because that is simply the way it is. The function of our survival brain is to keep us alive. We are currently alive because our current behaviors and way of being have gotten us here. If we change this, then it is possible that we might engage in a behavior or be in such a way that our survival is threatened. This is what our survival brain believes. So, whenever it notices that we are being or behaving differently it acts to get us back in line. This is not the end, however. We can learn to recognize when we are triggered and to command our brain to shift to and activate the positive neural pathways. As I have mentioned many times in the past, this is what Mental Fitness is all about.
Combining the practice of Mental Fitness with the practice of gratitude is incredibly powerful. There is a two-way channel between these practices and they both support and strengthen each other. Through Mental Fitness training one can learn to disengage from negative thought pattens and reactions and strengthen positive neural pathways instead. This allows practitioners to recognize when they are being sabotaged (like in the case of my clients who began to be trapped by feelings of guilt and shame), so they can shift and activate the positive areas of their brain. And, the practice of gratitude, in and of
itself, activates centers of positivity in our brain so that we can access those “sage” powers with greater ease over time.
I hope that you all consider adding both a mental fitness and a gratitude practice to your life to reap all the benefits that this powerful combination can bring! To start you off, here is a list of a few of the many things that I am thankful for: my four children and their unique spirits, my husband and life partner, my mother, my friends, my education and career, my patients, my business, my clients, and the opportunity to write for this blog.
(Editor’s Note: We love having you here, Dr. Cruz!)
Dr.Lecroy,
You need to practice being a grumpy old man MORE..Tis The Season for it after All..
I can be grumpy and Greatful all at the same time,years of practice helps.Besides I Like being grumpy.. It is FUN.. otherwise why do it.. Being a PA-C for 45 plus years has ben great,still love it,still learning, still disappointed in some MD’s/DO’s, NP’s and PA’s and their actions or lack of Guts.. But Grumpy has to have some Basis.. Waking up each day is enough for sustaining gratitude..Random acts of kindness, so much to be greatful for…LOL,LOL…..
BAH HUMBUG TO ALL AND TO ALL A BAD NIGHT….. Remember only cough on people you do not like…..SEE so much fun to being GRUMPY… LOL,LOL,LOL……
I find it impossible to keep my persona as a grumpy old man intact while being grateful, so therefore I eschew the practice of gratitude. I think for everyone else it would probably be the best idea.