Blessed are those who count their blessings
Feeling grateful can lower stress, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and boost immunity, write Craig and Marc Kielburger
Thanksgiving can be an epic letdown. If the turkey is dry, the wine is bitter and your relatives are unpalatable, the event you spent weeks looking forward to becomes a small suff ering. When unrealistic expectations signal the start of the holiday season, it can be hard to feel grateful if they aren't fulfi lled. How's that for irony on the holiday with the word ‘ thanks' in it?
When we say grateful, we don't mean giddy anticipation for the big meal and the long weekend. We're talking about a permanent state of mind.
Gratitude is the current catchword in the eternal quest for happiness. Oprah opined on the life- changing power of giving thanks in her latest book, What I Know For Sure ( Flatiron, 2014).
New Late Show host Stephen Colbert teared up during his interview for GQ's September issue, talking about the sudden death of his father and two brothers in a plane crash when he was 10 years old.
“It would be ungrateful not to take everything with gratitude,” he said.
Gratitude isn't just the latest celebrity fad. There are plenty of tangible benefi ts to being thankful as we gorge ourselves at the holiday dinner table.
GRATITUDE IS GOOD FOR BODY AND MIND
In her new book, The Gratitude Diaries ( Dutton, 2015), Janice Kaplan explores gratitude as a lifestyle. For an entire year, the American writer and producer reframed negative thoughts, keeping a gratitude journal and even maintaining a gratitude diet.
She ate only foods she felt truly thankful for, which didn't include stale cookies in the back of the cupboard, or any processed foods because “nobody could feel grateful after reading those labels.” Kaplan lost 10 pounds in the process.
Research in the fields of neuroscience and psychology suggests that negative emotions restrict our focus and limit our ability to think of new ideas, whereas positive emotions increase creative output and activate neural pathways associated with creative thought.
“Gratitude is a medicine with no negative side- eff ects,” writes Michael Mantell, clinical psychologist and author of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ( Hachette, 1997). Indeed, numerous studies show that feeling grateful lowers our stress, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and boosts our immune system.
GRATITUDE IS GOOD FOR YOUR KIDS
Gratitude is associated with positive youth development, improved academic performance and self- esteem.
We’ve seen the transformation among our youth participants on Me to We Trips. Overseas with a group of strangers, youth form a circle of gratitude before evening meals. You can almost hear eyes rolling in the heads of teens when they are first asked to give thanks in front of their peers.
By the second night, participants eagerly share their favourite moments of the day, offer “shout- outs” to each other for kind gestures they’ve observed, and reflect with teary eyes on how fortunate they are to have the lives they enjoy. It’s a bonding experience that fosters relationships, and kids often continue the practice back home by starting new family traditions of daily or weekly gratitude sessions.
GRATITUDE IS GOOD FOR THE WORLD
New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote about gratitude as a “social glue” that nurtures connections, “not by self- interest but by loyalty and service.”
According to Brooks, gratitude is a reprieve from our capitalist consumer culture of one- for- one favours and debt repayment. Studies have, in fact, found that gratitude is a potent antidote to materialism, enhancing our appreciation for what we have and reducing our yearnings for ever more stuff.
Most importantly, expressing vocal appreciation for the people in our lives strengthens our relationships and makes social interactions endlessly more enjoyable. Few conversations end with smiles and hugs as much as ones that include “thank you.”
So don’t wait until Thanksgiving to be grateful. Make gratitude your default setting all year. Brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger founded a platform for social change that includes the international charity Free The Children, the social enterprise Me to We and the youth empowerment movement We Day. Find out more at we. org.