[This piece was first published in Gangatu’s newsletter, sent every Friday to readers who enjoy going deeper. If that sounds like you, you can join the list here.]
Today I want to talk to you about one of the most powerful practices for improving your mental health, one that can genuinely increase your sense of satisfaction with your own life. It’s a simple habit that helps you move towards your goals while staying fully aware of your day to day reality.
If you’re alive you’re probably being heavily bombarded right now with Black Friday content, one offer after another, but worry not because I’m not going to leave you out. I’m putting together a list of wellness essentials you might want to check out, so you’re not missing out on the good stuff.
But setting all this Black Friday chaos aside for a second, I want to remind you why Friday the 28th is Black Friday, and it’s because Thursday the 27th is Thanksgiving, a holiday celebrated in the United States (although also in Canada on a different day). And perhaps if you’re not from there it might sound a bit strange and you may not really know what it’s about.
And since this isn’t a history newsletter I’m not going to give you context about the history and origins of this holiday. You’ve got ChatGPT for that, you can open it whenever you want and it’ll fill you in, and it can also explain the conflicts around celebrating or not celebrating Thanksgiving which also go back to its historical origins.
What I do want to highlight is that this holiday is linked to the concept of gratitude, and this concept for me, for some time now, has felt a little off because a lot of people say that gratitude is good for your mental health, for increasing satisfaction with your life, well, but it’s always felt a little woowoo and I didn’t know whether it really had solid psychological foundations.
That’s why I decided to dig a little deeper, and I’ve found that psychology does indeed consider gratitude as a tool that supports general wellbeing, and that there are decades of research showing that gratitude practices can genuinely benefit both adults and children.
I’ve come across a very particular study on gratitude carried out by a psychologist called Robert Emmonds. Long story short:
He conducted an experimental study and created two groups of participants: one group that had to list every day the things they were grateful for, those experiences that had given them happiness, satisfaction and enthusiasm, all positive experiences, and the other group that he instructed to list each day how they’d felt, as if writing a personal journal.
What the study really showed, and what many others have found since, is that when you notice the things that make you feel well, your mind naturally turns towards them and you’re more willing to name them and recognise them. That kind of practice has very positive effects on our mental mental health, and not only that but it also impacts our social relationships and romantic relationships.
This is closely linked to where we place our attention.
Listen to this.
If I focus my attention on how my day went, how shitty my day was, how horrible work was, the circumstances that happened, the tedium of day to day life, then that’s exactly where my attention (and emotions) will stay.
However…
If what I do is make a mental effort to say look I’m going to set aside everything that happened today and focus on identifying the things I’m grateful for, because I know that thanks to them, to those material things, to the relationships I have in my life, to the transformative experiences I’ve had, today my life is much better, then…
Everything shifts.
This completely changes the way you approach the day to day, where you place your focus.
Whether you place the focus on the things that go wrong or on the things that you’re grateful for. All that without ignoring difficulties and so on, because this isn’t about disconnecting from reality. One can have a negative situation, be living through a difficult situation, but at the same time be aware of and grateful for the rewarding things.
In this gratitude practice, you could say to yourself: “well I know that I’m going through a really rough situation, or this relationship crisis I’m experiencing, or these difficulties at work that I’m having, or these health problems and so on”.
Whatever negative qualities the situation has, one can be aware of that but still create this practice of saying:
“Right now I’m going to set aside all those things that aren’t going well or that aren’t as I’d like them to be and I’m going to focus my attention on what does support me, on the relationships that are here for me, on that partner who’s supporting me, encouraging me and loving me, on those friendships, on that positive experience I had or on that very negative experience I had in the past which, thanks to that pain and that transformative power, means I’m now a more mature, better, more aware, more intelligent person and so on, or simply thanks for having one more day in this life and still being with the people I love or having one more day to keep fighting or keep working towards my goals”.
There really aren’t any rules, you can do it in whatever way works for you.
But you’ve got to write it down.
It’s not enough to just think it. To think: “okay yes I’m grateful for this experience or this thing or this person”.
Writing it down isn’t the same as just thinking it. When you put things on paper you slow your mind down, you choose your words, you make the feeling more concrete. What was floating around in your head becomes something you can actually grasp. It stops being a vague impression and turns into something real, something you can recognise and understand instead of just letting it pass by.
And then there’s the physical part.
Writing involves your mind, your body and your senses all at once, making the emotion settle in a different way. The simple act of moving your hand and watching the words appear helps your brain register what’s happening with more clarity.
That’s why writing your gratitude down usually has a deeper impact than keeping it in your head or saying it once out loud.
So, yes, it’s true, a gratitude practice works very well not only when you’re going through a bad period but also when things are going well. It’s good to be aware of the things that’ve contributed to the wellbeing you feel right now.
Well.
I don’t care where you write this gratitude exercise, you can go to a dollar store and buy a notebook or you can pick up this gratitude journal here, for example. It gives you some questions, some guided prompts to carry out this gratitude exercise if you struggle to start this practice. The point is that you get started and do it.
Our mental health often behaves like a muscle, just as you’ve got to go to the gym to strengthen and tone yourself you’ve also got to strengthen and tone your mind.
In this way you’ll notice in your focus, where you’re directing your attention, whether it’s directed towards lack, towards what you don’t have or what went wrong, or whether it’s directed towards what’s going well now or what’s gone well and contributed to your current wellbeing.
Your mental health depends on this. Now you know too.
All is well
Love,
Noemi
P.S.: To buy the gratitude journal you can get one here.
