Every year I sing the praises of Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday with the three F’s – family, food, and football. But I also really love it for being a holiday centered around gratitude. I have written before about how gratitude is the Superpower of positive psychology and most people by now have heard about Gratitude Journals (thanks Oprah).  But this year I came across some good research about the mechanisms of gratitude’s power and thought I would share with you some insights and good news about that attitude of gratitude.

In an article from the Center for Greater Good (wouldn’t you want to work there?) the review of the literature on gratitude leads to a conclusion that gratitude is not just a positive state of mind but an active process that leads us to cope with stress and regulate our emotions in beneficial ways.  When we feel grateful we manage difficult emotions both more effectively and in ways that are deemed “healthier,” meaning they lead us to better future outcomes. Researchers found four basic underlying mechanisms of how this works.First, grateful people were more likely to take steps to actively deal with their problems or try to look for “silver linings” (called positive reframing in psychology speak). As a result, they were less likely to give up trying or blame themselves. Second, grateful people were more likely to reach out to others when they were stressed.  When we feel appreciative of people’s past efforts at helping us, we will have a higher expectation of finding benefit if we reach out again. The third finding of what grateful people do that leads to good coping is that gratitude actually changes our experience of negative emotions. It almost serves as a thought inoculation. Grateful people use more insight into cause and effect that helps them reappraise negative situations and thereby manage the negative emotions that may be a result. And finally, research reveals that grateful people are more patient. Grateful people show a higher capacity for delay of gratification (more psychology speak for the idea that you can put off the desire for a small reward to wait for a bigger reward.)  Delay of gratification has been largely associated with emotional intelligence and life success (like getting through 4 years of hard work in college to get a degree or resisting the good looking guy who isn’t so good to you to wait for the better choice).

But the most interesting and best news for me in reading the research about gratitude was how easy it was to achieve the gratitude. In each study that found a beneficial effect of gratitude, they created the group of grateful subjects by simply asking people to write about gratitude! (The control group of “non-grateful” people wrote about neutral topics). Some studies had subjects journal a few times a week for a month and some studies had subjects remember a time when they were appreciative and write about it.  But that was all it took! It wasn’t that they combed the streets looking for grateful human beings, they were able to create an attitude of gratitude in the lab and then have people reap the benefits!! How amazing is that!!

So in thinking about my love of Thanksgiving, maybe it’s the aura of gratitude that makes the children look a bit cuter, the pie taste a little sweeter, and the football loss a little less painful. Digging into a helping of gratitude may actively engage my more positive coping tools and facilitate what makes the day feel so special. So when your Aunt Bessie hurts your feelings or you burn the dinner rolls because Uncle Fred was telling you about his latest political theory, take a moment to remind yourself about what you do love about your family.  It just may be what keeps you wanting to come back year after year.