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Meaning Is Healthier Than Happiness - The Atlantic

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Meaning Is Healthier Than Happiness - The Atlantic

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priyaswtc/Flickr

For at least the last decade, the happiness craze has been building. In the last three months alone, over 1,000 books on happiness were released on Amazon, including Happy Money, Happy-People-Pills For All, and, for those just starting out, Happiness for Beginners.

One of the consistent claims of books like these is that happiness is associated with all sorts of good life outcomes, including - most promisingly - good health. Many studies have noted the connection between a happy mind and a healthy body - the happier you are, the better health outcomes we seem to have. In a meta-analysis (overview) of 150 studies on this topic, researchers put it like this: "Inductions of well-being lead to healthy functioning, and inductions of ill-being lead to compromised health."
Being happy is about feeling good. Meaning is derived from contributing to others or to society in a bigger way.
But a new study, just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) challenges the rosy picture. Happiness may not be as good for the body as researchers thought. It might even be bad.

Of course, it's important to first define happiness. A few months ago, I wrote a piece called " There's More to Life Than Being Happy" about a psychology study that dug into what happiness really means to people. It specifically explored the difference between a meaningful life and a happy life.

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For at least the last decade, the happiness craze has been building. In the last three months alone, over 1,000 books on happiness were released on Amazon, including Happy Money, Happy-People-Pills For All, and, for those just starting out, Happiness for Beginners.

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Jeffrey Kluger: The sibling bond | TED Talk | TED.com

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Jeffrey Kluger: The sibling bond | TED Talk | TED.com

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Were you the favorite child, the wild child or the middle child? Jeffrey Kluger explores the profound life-long bond between brothers and sisters, and the influence of birth order, favoritism and sibling rivalry.

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Please take a moment to be grateful for this article you are about to read. I'll wait... Seriously though, it can have a profound impact on your life (the whole being grateful thing that is ... the effect of the article is less certain).

With the holidays coming up I wanted to focus on the one Turkey Day tradition that has the power to reshape your neural pathways. Sounds like an impressive feat, but it's true. No it's not the turkey increasing your serotonin ( myth busted!), nor the apple pie giving you a burst of dopamine. As my intro suggests, it's right there in the name. Thanks giving. Giving of thanks, also known as gratitude. Gratitude, particularly if practiced regularly, can keep you healthier and happier. In this article I'll share the results of four studies that show how gratitude can, among other things, help you exercise more, sleep better and be happier.

One study by a couple of American researchers assigned young adults to keep a daily journal of things they were grateful for (Emmons and McCullough, 2003). They assigned other groups to journal about things that annoyed them, or reasons why they were better off than others. The young adults assigned to keep gratitude journals showed greater increases in determination, attention, enthusiasm and energy compared to the other groups. While that shows a clear benefit of gratitude, it also makes a clear distinction. Realizing that other people are worse off than you is not gratitude. Gratitude requires an appreciation of the positive aspects of your situation. It is not a comparison. Sometimes noticing what other people don't have may help you see what you can be grateful for, but you have to take that next step. You actually have to show appreciation for what you have, for it to have an effect.

The effect of gratitude is not just limited to young adults who haven't yet been beaten down by the sad realities of life. In addition, even less frequent moments of gratitude can have an effect. The same researchers conducted a separate study on adults, which showed that even a weekly gratitude journal was beneficial. Subjects assigned to journal weekly on gratitude showed greater improvements in optimism. That makes sense. But that's not all; it also influenced their behaviors. Keeping a gratitude journal also caused greater improvements in exercise patterns. Lastly, it also caused a reduction in physical ailments, so these subjects had fewer aches and pains (tired of your carpal tunnel syndrome? Be grateful you don't have a headache).

A third study from earlier this year did not require a gratitude journal, but simply looked at the amount of gratitude people tended to show in their daily lives (Ng et al, 2012). In this study, a group of Chinese researchers looked at the combined effects of gratitude and sleep quality on symptoms of anxiety and depression. They found that higher levels of gratitude were associated with better sleep, and with lower anxiety and depression. This begged the question, is the level of gratitude improving these symptoms or is it the fact that the patients are getting better sleep? These researchers ran some analyses controlling for the amount of sleep and revealed some interesting links.

They found that after controlling for the amount of sleep people got, gratitude still had an effect on lower depression scores. This means that regardless of their levels of insomnia, people who showed more gratitude were less depressed. With anxiety they found a different result. After controlling for sleep, gratitude showed no effect on anxiety. So while higher gratitude led to less anxiety originally, this is simply because it helped people sleep better, and sleeping better improved their anxiety. So gratitude had a direct effect on depression symptoms (the more gratitude, the less depression) and an indirect effect on anxiety (increased gratitude led to improved sleep, which led to lower anxiety). Either way, with gratitude you're better off, and you get a good night's sleep.

The wide variety of effects that gratitude can have may seem surprising, but a direct look at the brain activity during gratitude yields some insight. The final study I'm going to share come from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIH researchers examined blood flow in various brain regions while subjects summoned up feelings of gratitude (Zahn et al, 2009). They found that subjects who showed more gratitude overall had higher levels of activity in the hypothalamus. This is important because the hypothalamus controls a huge array of essential bodily functions, including eating, drinking and sleeping. It also has a huge influence on your metabolism and stress levels. From this evidence on brain activity it starts to become clear how improvements in gratitude could have such wide-ranging effects from increased exercise, and improved sleep to decreased depression and fewer aches and pains.

Furthermore, feelings of gratitude directly activated brain regions associated with the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine feels good to get, which is why it's generally considered the "reward" neurotransmitter. But dopamine is also almost important in initiating action. That means increases in dopamine make you more likely to do the thing you just did. It's the brain saying, "Oh, do that again."

Gratitude can have such a powerful impact on your life because it engages your brain in a virtuous cycle. Your brain only has so much power to focus its attention. It cannot easily focus on both positive and negative stimuli. It is like a small child: easily distracted. Oh your tummy hurts? Here's a lollipop. So you lost your job? Isn't it wonderful we're having KFC for dinner? On top of that your brain loves to fall for the confirmation bias, that is it looks for things that prove what it already believes to be true. And the dopamine reinforces that as well. So once you start seeing things to be grateful for, your brain starts looking for more things to be grateful for. That's how the virtuous cycle gets created.

It's not always easy to remember to be grateful, particularly since the human brain is so adaptable. We easily get used to whatever comforts are around us. When was the last time you turned the key in your car's ignition and praised the miracles of the internal combustion engine? In disasters, like Hurricane Sandy for example, we can come to see that we shouldn't take things like running water and electricity for granted. But how long does that feeling last for? Within a few days you're back to cursing when the elevator takes 30 seconds to get to your floor.

Gratitude takes practice like any other skill. Thanksgiving Day is a good time to start, but if you want to reap all the benefits, keep practicing after that. Try thinking of one thing every day that you're grateful for. I'm practicing it too. While my wrists hurt and my eyes are strained from sitting at my computer too long, I am grateful for all the researchers who made this article possible. I am grateful for my Macbook Air for not weighing me down. And I am grateful to you for reading all the way to the end.

If you liked this article then check out my new book - The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time .

Become a fan of PreFrontal Nudity on Facebook

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Please take a moment to be grateful for this article you are about to read. I'll wait... Seriously though, it can have a profound impact on your life (the whole being grateful thing that is ... the effect of the article is less certain).

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The Power of a Grateful Heart | Psychology Today

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The Power of a Grateful Heart | Psychology Today

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We don't often enough reflect on the things we are grateful for. So perhaps it's time to focus some attention on the importance of -specifically, feelings of gratitude in our close, personal relationships.

We typically define gratitude as a positive emotional state we experience when someone else intentionally provides us with some benefit or positive outcome (McCullough, 2001, as cited in Algoe & Zhaoyang, 2015). This could happen when someone does us a favor, says something nice, or simply offers a random act of kindness. Gratitude is, generally put, the swell of warmth and positivity we feel toward that person.

Historically, researchers believe that the evolutionary function of gratitude-the reason it's something we feel-to be about repayment. We feel gratitude so that, in the future, we will help the person who helped us, thus helping society at large to function smoothly (McCullough, 2001, as cited in Algoe & Zhaoyang, 2015).

However, recent research has determined that gratitude toward our close relationship partners serves the additional purpose of helping to strengthen those bonds (Algoe, 2012). Specifically, gratitude serves to help us notice and attend to the positive, responsive behaviors that our loved ones enact toward us. It could be a time when your romantic partner made dinner because he or she knew you were stressed, or when your sister called to see how you were doing, or a friend sent you a small gift...just because. Any behavior that we perceive as responsive to our needs, which a close other has enacted purposefully, can promote feelings of gratitude (e.g., Algoe, 2012; Algoe, Haidt, & Gable, 2008).

These feeling, in turn, promote the well-being of our relationships. For example, new sorority members (or "Little Sisters") who felt more gratitude toward older sorority mentors' ("Big Sisters") kind actions toward them during an event known as Big Sister Week (i.e., giving small gifts) felt more connected with those mentors both during the event and a month later (Algoe et al., 2008).

In romantic contexts, feelings of gratitude toward a partner predicted individuals feeling more connection and satisfaction in their relationship the next day (Algoe, Gable, & Maisel, 2010). So it seems that an attitude of gratitude (sorry, I couldn't resist) not only feels good to us individually but may also benefit our relationships.

However, before we run off and start designing interventions to promote gratitude in relationships, we need to better understand how feeling grateful promotes relationship health. What is the mechanism by which this association functions? Further, we need to better understand if promoting gratitude is always associated with positive outcomes-the relationship may be more complex than we realize.

Specifically, a recent, month-long study randomly assigned romantic couples either to actively try to express gratitude for their partner's actions every day for a month, or not. The researchers found that, in the gratitude group, participants whose partners had been highly responsive to their needs during an intake session showed greater personal and relational well-being at the end of the study, compared to those in the control group. However, participants whose partners had been low in responsiveness during the intake session did not show this benefit (Algoe & Zhaoyang, 2015). Thus, perhaps asking individuals to focus on reasons they are grateful for their partner only confers benefits when their partner is responsive-thus giving them reasons to be grateful.

In sum, as we all deal with our hectic lives, it may do us some good to reflect on those things for which we feel gratitude. If those aspects are also important people in our lives, this reflection may benefit our relationships-as long as those important people have been responsive enough to our needs to deserve our gratitude.

Algoe, S. B. (2012). Find, remind, and bind: The functions of gratitude in everyday relationships. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6(6), 455-469.

Algoe, S. B., Gable, S. L., & Maisel, N. (2010). It's the little things: Everyday gratitude as a booster shot for romantic relationships. Personal Relationships, 17, 217-233.

Algoe, S. B., Haidt, J., & Gable, S. L. (2008). Beyond reciprocity: Gratitude and relationships in everyday life. Emotion, 8, 425-429.

Algoe, S. B., & Zhaoyang, R. (2015). Positive psychology in context: Effects of expressing gratitude in ongoing relationships depend on perceptions of enactor responsiveness. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1-17.

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We don't often enough reflect on the things we are grateful for. So perhaps it's time to focus some attention on the importance of -specifically, feelings of gratitude in our close, personal relationships. We typically define gratitude as a positive emotional state we experience when someone else intentionally provides us with some benefit or positive outcome (McCullough, 2001, as cited in Algoe & Zhaoyang, 2015).

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When I hear the word gratitude it lifts me up. Gratitude makes me think of positive things. It help me remember to be thankful for all that I have. It motivates me to give because I know if I do I will receive.
There are a lot of ways to show gratitude, and one way is showing appreciation towards yourself and those around you.

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The 31 Benefits of Gratitude You Didn’t Know About: How Gratitude Can Change Your Life

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The 31 Benefits of Gratitude You Didn’t Know About: How Gratitude Can Change Your Life

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Do you want more from your life?

More happiness? Better health? Deeper relationships? Increased productivity?

What if I told you that just one thing can help you in all of those areas?

An Attitude of Gratitude

What the heck? Gratitude? Is this a Christian blog?

No. I'm not even religious. When I first started looking into gratitude, I wasn't expecting much.

I was wrong:

Seriously? All that? Yes. This list of benefits was compiled by aggregating the results of more than 40 research studies on gratitude.

1. Gratitude makes us happier.

A five-minute a day gratitude journal can increase your long-term well-being by more than 10 percent. a1,a2,a3 That's the same impact as doubling your income! a4

How can a free five minute activity compare? Gratitude improves our health, relationships, emotions, personality, and career.

Sure, having more money can be pretty awesome, but because of hedonic adaptation we quickly get used to it and stop having as much fun and happiness as we did at first.

How can 5 minutes a day have such a large impact? (click to show)

Hedonic what?

2. Gratitude makes people like us.

Gratitude generates social capital - in two studies with 243 total participants, those who were 10% more grateful than average had 17.5% more social capital. b1

Gratitude makes us nicer, more trusting, more social, and more appreciative. As a result, it helps us make more friends, deepen our existing relationships, and improve our marriage. b2

Bonus question: Is that first picture actually of me? Hm... I wonder...

3. Gratitude makes us healthier.

Check it out:

There is even reason to believe gratitude can extend your lifespan by a few months or even years. f2,f3,f4

4. Gratitude boosts our career.

Gratitude makes you a more effective manager, c1,c2 helps you network, increases your decision making capabilities, increases your productivity, and helps you get mentors and proteges. b1 As a result, gratitude helps you achieve your career goals, as well as making your workplace a more friendly and enjoyable place to be. a2, b2

Do you think this is effective?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlnObIFBCY4

I'm not suggesting that criticism and self-focus don't have a place in the workplace, but I think we're overdoing it.

65% of Americans didn't receive recognition in the workplace last year. c3

5. Gratitude strengthens our emotions.

Gratitude reduces feelings of envy, makes our memories happier, lets us experience good feelings, and helps us bounce back from stress. b2,d1,d2,d3

6. Gratitude develops our personality.

It really does, and in potentially life-changing ways. a2,b2,d2,e1,e2

If you're a man, don't worry; gratitude won't transform you into a woman.

Convinced of the benefits? Sign up for The Gratitude Hack, the course I created with the sole focus of helping you live a happier, more grateful life.

Not convinced? Want to know the details or explore the science that backs up these claims? Click below to go to the specific category or benefit that interests you, or just continue scrolling.

Click here to jump to the comments section.

7. Gratitude makes us more optimistic.

Gratitude is strongly correlated with optimism. Optimism in turn makes us happier, improves our health, and has been shown to increase lifespan by as much as a few years. f1,f2,f3,f4 I'd say a 5 minute a day gratitude journal would be worth it just for this benefit.

Show me the science. (click to show)

How does gratitude increase optimism? (click to show)

8. Gratitude reduces materialism.

Materialism is strongly correlated with reduced well-being and increased rates of mental disorder. g1 There's nothing wrong with wanting more. The problem with materialism is that it makes people feel less competent, reduces feelings of relatedness and gratitude, reduces their ability to appreciate and enjoy the good in life, generates negative emotions, and makes them more self-centered. g1,g2,g3

Why is materialism negatively correlated with happiness and well-being?

Will gratitude make me lazy?

Regret #2: Working too hard.

Gratitude has caused me to focus less on things that don't matter, like making money, and more on the things that do, like my family and this blog. I think that's a good thing.

9. Gratitude increases spiritualism.

Spiritual transcendence is highly correlated with feelings of gratitude. That is - the more spiritual you are, the more likely you are to be grateful.

This is for two reasons:

1. All major religions espouse gratitude as a virtue.h1

2. Spirituality spontaneously gives rise to grateful behavior.

I believe the opposite to also be true, that gratitude spontaneously gives rise to spiritual attribution, helping one feel closer to God or other religious entities. I am irreligious, and have found gratitude practices to make my spiritual position difficult - those moments when I feel intense gratitude make me want to believe in a benevolent God. My solution has been to re-direct my feelings towards Lady Luck.

Why does spirituality give rise to grateful behavior?

10. Gratitude makes us less self-centered.

I'll be totally honest, I'm a self-centered twat. I'm a lot better now that I've brought gratitude into my life, but I still spend way too much time thinking about myself, and too little thinking about others. I expect this to change - because of my compassion and gratitude practices I am starting to have spontaneous urges to help others.

This is because the very nature of gratitude is to focus on others (on their acts of benevolence). In this regard, gratitude practice can be better than self-esteem therapy. Self-esteem therapy focuses the individual back on themselves: I'm smart, I look good, I can succeed, etc....

That can work, but it can also make us narcissistic or even back-fire and lower self-esteem. i1

11. Gratitude increases self-esteem.

Imagine a world where no one helps you. Despite your asking and pleading, no one helps you.

Now imagine a world where many people help you all of the time for no other reason than that they like you. In which world do you think you would have more self-esteem? Gratitude helps to create a world like that.

12. Gratitude improves your sleep.

Gratitude increases sleep quality, reduces the time required to fall asleep, and increases sleep duration. Said differently, gratitude can help with insomnia. a2,j1

The key is what's on our minds as we're trying to fall asleep. If it's worries about the kids, or anxiety about work, the level of stress in our body will increase, reducing sleep quality, keeping us awake, and cutting our sleep short.

If it's thinking about a few things we have to be grateful for today, it will induce the relaxation response, knock us out, and keep us that way.

Yes - gratitude is a (safe and free) sleep aid.

I don't believe you!

13. Gratitude keeps you away from the doctor.

Gratitude can't cure cancer (neither can positive-thinking), but it can strengthen your physiological functioning.

Positive emotion improves health. The details are complicated, but the overall picture is not - if you want to improve your health, improve your mind. This confidence comes from 137 research studies.

Gratitude is a positive emotion. It's no far stretch that some of the benefits (e.g. better coping & management of terminal conditions like cancer and HIV, k1,k2 faster recovery from certain medical procedures, positive changes in immune system functioning, k3 more positive health behavior, k4,k5 etc...) apply to gratitude as well.

In fact, some recent science shows just that - those who engage in gratitude practices have been shown to feel less pain, go to the doctor less often, have lower blood pressure, and be less likely to develop a mental disorder. a1,a2,k6

How does gratitude improve my health?

14. Gratitude lets you live longer.

I will be honest with you - by combining the results of a few different studies I'm confident that gratitude can extend lifespan, but no single study as yet has actually proven this claim.

Here is what we know: optimism and positive emotion in general have been used to successfully predict mortality decades later. f2,f3,f4 The optimistic lived a few years longer than the pessimistic. A few years may not sound like much, but I know when I'm about to die I'd like to have a few more years!

We also know that gratitude is strongly correlated with positive emotion. So, gratitude -> positive emotion -> an extra few months or years on earth. With positive psychology research on the rise, I believe we can expect this claim to be rigorously tested within the next five to ten years.

15. Gratitude increase your energy levels.

Gratitude and vitality are strongly correlated - the grateful are much more likely to report physical and mental vigor.

Show me the data.

16. Gratitude makes you more likely to exercise.

In one 11-week study of 96 Americans, those who were instructed to keep a weekly gratitude journal exercised 40 minutes more per week than the control group. a2 No other study has yet to replicate these results. It could be because other gratitude studies testing this effect have been much shorter - in the range of one to three weeks, or it could be because this result was a fluke.

Once again, time will tell - but it would not surprise me if being grateful for one's health would increase one's tendency to want to protect it by exercising more.

17. Gratitude helps us bounce back.

Those that have more gratitude have a more pro-active coping style, are more likely to have and seek out social support in times of need, are less likely to develop PTSD, and are more likely to grow in times of stress. b1,b2,d1

In others words, they are more resilient.

18. Gratitude makes us feel good.

Surprise, surprise: gratitude actually feels good. Yet only 20% of Americans rate gratitude as a positive and constructive emotion (compared to 50% of Europeans). l1

According to gratitude researcher Robert Emmons, gratitude is just happiness that we recognize after-the fact to have been caused by the kindness of others. Gratitude doesn't just make us happier, it is happiness in and of itself!

That's no surprise - we idealize the illusion of self-sufficiency. Gratitude, pah! That's for the weak.

F&ck no it's not. Gratitude feels good, and if the benefits on this page are any indication - gratitude will make you stronger, healthier, and more successful.

Are you afraid to admit that luck, God, family members, friends, and/or strangers have and will continue to strongly influence your life? I once was - not only was I less happy, I was also weaker. It takes strength to admit to the truth of inter-dependency.

19. Gratitude makes our memories happier.

Our memories are set in stone, like data stored on a hard-drive. There are dozens of ways our memories get changed over time - we remember things as being worse than they actually were, as being longer or shorter, people as being kinder or crueler, as being more or less interesting, and so on.

Experiencing gratitude in the present makes us more likely to remember positive memories, m1 and actually transforms some of our neutral or even negative memories into positive ones. m2 In one study, putting people into a grateful mood helped them find closure of upsetting open memories. m2 During these experiences, participants were more likely to recall positive aspects of the memory than usual, and some of the negative and neutral aspects were transformed into positives.

20. Gratitude reduces feelings of envy.

A small bit of jealousy or envy directed at the right target is motivating. Too much produces feelings of insecurity, materialism, inferiority, distrust, and unhappiness.

How does gratitude reduce feelings of envy?

21. Gratitude helps us relax.

Gratitude and positive emotion in general are among the strongest relaxants known to man. I was having trouble sleeping a few nights ago because I was too stressed and couldn't relax. I'll be honest, for the few minutes that I was able to hold feelings of gratitude I almost fell asleep, but holding feelings of gratitude is hard! In this case, too hard - I ended up getting out of bed.

Gratitude may be just as or even more effective than relaxation methods such as deep breathing, but because it is also more difficult, is unfeasible as an actual relaxation technique. Think of it like tea - one or two cups help you relax - three of four make you want to empty your bladder. But it could just be me. Perhaps you'll find practices of gratitude more natural and easy.

22. Gratitude makes you friendlier.

Multiple studies have shown that gratitude induces pro-social behavior. Keeping a gratitude journal is enough to make you more likely to help others with their problems and makes you more likely to offer them emotional support. a2,b1

23. Gratitude helps your marriage.

I've never been married, but from what I've heard, read, and seen, one way marriages start to suffer is that when the passion starts to fizzle, the partners become less appreciative and more naggy.

Scientists have put numbers to our intuition and experience, creating an appreciation to naggy ratio. More formally called the Losada ratio, it divides the total number of positive expressions (support, encouragement and appreciation) made during a typical interaction by the number of negative expressions (disapproval, sarcasm, and cynicism).

When the ratio was below .9, that is there were 11% more negative expressions than positive expressions, marriages plummeted towards divorce or languishment. Those marriages that lasted and were found satisfying were those with a positivity ratio above 5.1 (five positive expressions to each negative). s1

Building regular practices of gratitude into your marriage is an easy but effective way of raising your positivity ratio.

Correlation or causality?

24. Gratitude makes you look good.

Ingratitude is universally regarded with contempt. It's opposite, gratitude, is considered a virtue in all major religions and most modern cultures. It may not be sexy to be grateful, but people will respect you for it.

Gratitude is not the same thing as indebtedness, which we rightly avoid. Indebtedness is a negative emotion which carries an assumption of repayment.

Gratitude is not the same thing as weakness. Weakness is flattery or subservience.

Gratitude is the acknowledgment of kindness with thanks.

It takes big balls to acknowledge that we didn't get to where we are all on our own - that without others we may never have made it. That's why, just maybe, gratitude may be sexy too.

25. Gratitude helps you make friends.

When I was in college I found it really easy to make new friends. If I hadn't moved out of NYC it would still be easy - living in a farm town makes it difficult. I've found an effective way to start a conversation or move a relationship forward is an expression of gratitude, "thank you for that coffee, it was super delicious." *wink, wink*

Ah, my mistake - that's actually what I use to hit on my barista.

But you get the point.

26. Gratitude deepens friendships.

I have one friend who always deeply thanks me for taking the time to see her. That makes me feel appreciated and that makes me feel good. Wouldn't it make you feel good too?

27. Gratitude makes you a more effective manager.

Effective management requires a toolbox of skills. Criticism comes all too easily to most, while the ability to feel gratitude and express praise is often lacking.

Timely, sincere, specific, behavior focused praise is often a more powerful method of influencing change than criticism. Specifically, multiple studies have found expressions of gratitude to be highly motivating, while expressions of criticism to be slightly de-motivating but providing more expectation clarification. t1,t2

Contrary to expectation, if praise is moderate and behavior focused, repeat expressions of gratitude will not lose their impact, and employee performance will increase. ²

Because of our culture, expressions of gratitude are often difficult to give - cultivating an attitude of gratitude will help.

I've seen firsthand the powerful difference between interacting with subordinates more with praise, and interacting with some more with criticism. Those I've given more praise are more enthusiastic about working with me, express more creativity, and are so much more fun to work with.

More Info: The Science of Praise: A Manager's Guide To Giving Effective Employee Praise

28. Gratitude helps you network.

Gratitude has been shown across a number of studies to increase social behavior. Two longitudinal studies showed that those with higher levels of gratitude actually developed more social capital than those with lower levels.

Gratitude helps you get mentors, proteges, and benefactors.

29. Gratitude increases your goal achievement.

In one study, participants were asked to write down those goals which they wished to accomplish over the next two months. Those who were instructed to keep a gratitude journal reported more progress on achieving their goals at the end of the study. One result doesn't make science - what you should take away from this is that, at the least, gratitude will not make you lazy and passive. It might even do the opposite!

30. Gratitude improves your decision making.

Decision making is really tiring - so tiring that we automate to our subconscious much of the reasoning that goes behind making a decision. Even for the most basic of decisions, like where to go eat, there are dozens of variables to consider: how much time and money do I want to spend, what cuisine would I like today, am I willing to travel far, what should I get once I get there, and so on. If you deliberated on each of these decisions one at a time, your mind would be overwhelmed.

The problem gets even worse for more complex decisions like making a diagnosis.

In one study, doctors were given a list of ailments from a hypothetical patient and also given a misleading piece of information-that the patient had been diagnosed at another hospital as having lupus. Half the doctors had gratitude evoked by giving them a token of appreciation. Those who did not receive a token of appreciation were more likely to stick with the incorrect diagnosis of lupus; those who did receive the gratitude were energized to expend more energy and to pay their gratitude forward onto their patient. They also considered a wider range of treatment options.

The above study shows that gratitude motivates improved decision making. Those who cultivate an attitude of gratitude find tokens of appreciation every day, on their own.

31. Gratitude increases your productivity.

Those who are insecure have difficulty focusing because many of their mental resources are tied up with their worries. On the other hand, those who are highly confident are able to be more productive, because they can direct more of their focus towards their work. This operates at both a conscious and subconscious level - we may be getting mentally distracted by our worries, or more commonly, parts of our subconscious mind are expending energy to suppress negative information and concerns. z1

As gratitude has been shown to increase self-esteem and reduce insecurity, this means that it can help us focus and improve our productivity.

Gratitude is no cure-all, but it is a massively underutilized tool for improving life-satisfaction and happiness.

Convinced of the benefits? Read this post: How Grateful Are You? Interactive Quiz + Seven Strategies for Cultivating Gratitude

References
Which benefit excites you? Comment below!

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The 31 Benefits of Gratitude You Didn't Know About: How Gratitude Can Change Your Life

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Do you want more from your life? More happiness? Better health? Deeper relationships? Increased productivity? What if I told you that just one thing can help you in all of those areas? An Attitude of Gratitude What the heck? Gratitude? Is [...]

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Einstein's "Theory of Happiness" Teaches a Profound Truth | Big Think

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Einstein's "Theory of Happiness" Teaches a Profound Truth | Big Think

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Albert Einstein is, of course, world famous for coming up with the theory of relativity, which in many ways changed our conception of time and space. Einstein was also not averse to writing on matters other than physics and has offered many a pithy and poignant opinion on topics from love to government and god. He also wrote what has been called "the theory of happiness," which recently sold for $1.56 million at an auction in Jerusalem.

This theory was written down by Einstein for a bellboy on a piece of hotel stationary at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo in 1922. Einstein was there on a lecture tour and had just heard about his Nobel Prize win. Not having any change to tip the bellboy, he wrote down some words of wisdom, prefacing that the piece of writing could be worth more than a tip one day. Indeed, the payday has reportedly come to the nephew of the bellboy who ended up with the note.

What exactly did Einstein write down?

"A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness," wrote the physicist.

He also wrote another short note on a second sheet, saying " Where there's a will, there's a way." That paper sold for $250,000.

A picture taken on October 19, 2017, shows Gal Wiener, owner and manager of the Winner's auction house in Jerusalem, displays one of two notes written by Albert Einstein, in 1922, on hotel stationary from the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo Japan. (Photo credit: MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images)
The auction was carried out through Winner's Auctions and Exhibitions in Jerusalem, which originally estimated that the notes would go for somewhere between $5,000 and $8,000.

The auction house said that part of the background of the notes is that Einstein heard about his Nobel Prize win just recently, informed by a telegram. He was immediately overwhelmed by well-wishers and was trying to write down his thoughts about what happened when the bellboy came. It was certainly fortuitous for the boy that Einstein didn't have any cash on him as "he decided to make the most of his new exalted status," elaborated the auction house, according to the

One wonders how much Einstein was really the best model for such words himself as it's hard to say he led a "calm and modest life". Nonetheless, the descendants of the bellboy are happy with making so much money on Einstein's positive tip and his words ring true to many.

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Einstein's "Theory of Happiness" Teaches a Profound Truth

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Albert Einstein is, of course, world famous for coming up with the theory of relativity, which in many ways changed our conception of time and space. Einstein was also not averse to writing on matters other than physics and has offered many a pithy and poignant opinion on topics from love to government and god.

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This  is my twin brother Tyren. My other half, my partner in crime. I am thing 1, he is thing 2, because I was born first. He means a lot to me. I do not know what I'd do without him.
You mess with him, you mess with me.  That's just the way it goes

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If They Love you like Family, They're Family.

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If They Love you like Family, They're Family.

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This is my Blood family. My dad, and three brothers. I have a few more siblings but I do not have recent pictures of my entire family.  No matter what you go through with your family, no matter the circumstances you have dealt with together, the love you have for each other will never fade away.  Nothing  will ever breaks us down, nor break us apart.