What if there were a way to get 25% happier in your life. Would you want to try it out?
According to Alvaro Fernandez, author of Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier
First, the practice of gratitude can increase happiness levels by around 25%. Second, this is not hard to achieve - a few hours writing a gratitude journal over 3 weeks can create an effect that lasts 6 months if not more. Third, that cultivating gratitude brings other health effects, such as longer and better quality sleep time.
He offers some suggestions on how to cultivate gratitude...
The most common method we use in our research is to ask people to keep a "Gratitude Journal" where you write something you feel grateful for. Doing so 4 times a week, for as little as 3 weeks, is often enough to create a meaningful difference in one's level of happiness. Another exercise is to write a "Gratitude Letter" to a person who has exerted a positive influence on one's life but whom we have not properly thanked in the past, and then to meet that person and read the letter to them face to face.
And talks a little bit about the findings and where they come from...
The benefits seem to be very similar using both methods in terms of enhanced happiness, health and wellbeing. Most of the outcomes are self-reported, but there is an increasing emphasis on measuring objective data such as cortisol and stress levels, heart rate variability, and even brain activation patterns. The work of Richard Davidson is exemplary in that respect, showing how mindfulness practice can rewire some activation patterns in the frontal lobes.
All in all, it's a fascinating interview, and worth the read.
(Need more prompting for gratitude exploration? Zip on back to my post with 15 gratitude prompting questions.)
Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst TM
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