#296 The Neuroscience Of Gratitude In Hard Times

We look at gratitude through neuroscience and psychology, and why it can feel like a lifeline when the world gets heavy. We share evidence-backed reasons gratitude works, plus simple practices you can use in minutes to shift attention without pretending problems do not exist. 

• Evidence that regular gratitude supports well-being and optimism 
• How gratitude engages brain networks tied to reward and moral cognition 
• Negativity bias and how mindfulness helps us notice good 
• Gratitude as a relationship-strengthening emotion that builds trust and reciprocity 
• Links to resilience, less rumination, better sleep quality, and healthier patterns 
• How grief and gratitude coexist and create psychological breathing room 
• Practical tools like gratitude journals, letters, mental subtraction, and exceptions 
• Short mindfulness practices like breathing pauses, body scans, and savour exercises 
 
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Transcript

Welcome And Tonight’s Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hi, this is Sogan. Welcome back to Wellbeing Wednesdays with Sogan. Tonight we talked about gratitude. We examined it from neuroscience and psychology. We provided evidence-based research on how you can incorporate gratitude through the good times and the bad times. We hope you enjoy it.

Why Gratitude Matters Right Now

SPEAKER_00 0:41

I hope you're doing alright in this rainy season of ours. So many folks love the rain like me, and many find it quite melancholy. Regardless of which camp you're in, fear not. Because we have a sweet segment for you tonight on Turn 97.9 FM. We're gonna be discussing the topic of gratitude through the good and the bad times. Why do you ask? Because the world feels like it's a lot lately. I want to lighten that load for us even for just a little while. The research on gratitude shows us it can amplify positive experiences, increase positive emotions, and change cognitive appraisal. If that sounds as good to you as it does to me, stay with us. So much more on this.

Evidence Behind Regular Gratitude

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Evidence-backed data demonstrates that gratitude practices when done regularly, keyword regularly, so that doesn't mean just today and never again, but regularly, can regulate our emotions, positively impact how we relate to others, and the ways in which we interpret experiences. Perhaps you've noticed how popular gratitude exercises have become over the last few years, but this is in part due to the fact that neuroscientists plus mental health professionals have actually been in this space doing this research for more than two decades. For example, findings by Robert Emmons and Michael McAulo have showed that those of us who regularly reflect on things and aspects of life that we're thankful for actually report to have higher levels of well-being and optimism when compared to those who don't. It appears that when things are going well, gratitude helps us direct our attention, making those positive experiences feel even more enjoyable. How so? An fMRI study by Glenn Fox and colleagues found that gratitude engages brain networks that are associated with moral cognition and reward processing. Cool, right? Well, I have even cooler science for you.

Negativity Bias And Noticing Good

SPEAKER_00 3:01

To keep us safe, our brains are wired to pay super close attention to threats and problems. This is called negativity bias. You may have heard of it. It is also a buzzword, particularly in self-help books and self-help podcasts. Negativity bias is why we tend to fixate on the negative aspects of our days more than the positive. It's also why we can recall negative memories more vividly than the better ones. However, studies of gratitude state that we can actually train ourselves to focus on the positive as well. We can practice mindfulness to begin to notice the positive. So you could start that today. How so? Well, here are some ways. You can notice how green the leaves have gotten. Since the last time we spoke, they weren't that green. You can listen to the sounds of the birds before putting on your favorite song. Did you know that listening to bird sounds can give you a boost in your mental health for up to eight hours, according to a neuroscientist that her name is Dr. Tara Swart. I referenced her before, her work is great. But yeah, you could listen to sounds of birds if you don't have access to the greenery and the birds. YouTube could be your friend. There's a whole lot of people who are posting stuff like this, so you could change your algorithm to reflect it. You can look for the moon and see if you can find it and the phase that it's in. It looks different every day. You could look at the shape of the clouds, ask yourself, are they similar or are they different? These are effective and affordable ways to begin noticing the good. You might think to yourself, but this isn't going to fix my problems. And the intention is not that it's going to fix your problems, but the intention is that you're training yourself to focus on what is good rather than focus on what is bad. Because when you leave your mind wandering, sometimes due to that negativity bias, it can focus on the negative.

Brain Networks And Better Connection

SPEAKER_00 5:14

A. It engages the medial prefrontal cortex, and that is involved in decision making, learning, and understanding others. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is involved in evaluating rewards and subjective value. Areas involved in social bonding, empathy, and moral reasoning are also positively impacted when you do this. And this to me is particularly of interest because I've observed it personally in my professional life and in my personal life. Gratitude is actually considered a relationship-strengthening emotion because it signals recognition of others' efforts, it encourages reciprocity, and it increases trust, prosocial behavior, and relationship satisfaction. And in going back to the negativity bias, gratitude helps us interpret experiences more constructively. It does not get rid of our problems, like I said earlier, but it does change what the brain is prioritizing.

Resilience Sleep And Mental Health

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Did you know that amongst the wonderful aspects of neuroscience and psychology we've already covered, that gratitude can also help you build resilience? Yeah, research shows that those who frequently practice gratitude actually recover more effectively from challenges. They experience lower rates of rumination and increase hope and optimism. During crisis, be it global or personal, gratitude serves to remind us that the resources and sources of support still exist and we can allow ourselves to access them. For a lot of us who are hyper independent, we have to allow ourselves and give ourselves permission to access support. So, gratitude can help you with that. Engaging in gratitude exercises also has been shown to be associated with better sleep quality, more health-promoting behaviors, and better psychosocial patterns and behaviors. The more we identify the positive and express thanks for them, the more we strengthen neuroplasticity in our brains. This is the brain's ability to adapt through experience. In times of hardship, positive appraisals become more accessible as a result of our consistency. Sounds good, right? Want more good news on what practicing gratitude can do for you? I got you. You've likely heard of the amygdala, the alarm system of the brain. Right. It also helps with regulating emotions and reactions through engagement of the prefrontal regions of the brain. Research indicates that grateful people recover more quickly after setbacks and show greater psychological flexibility. A 2020 study called The Effects of Gratitude Interventions, a systemic review and meta-analysis by Greg and Chevens, along with others, found that gratitude is correlated to lower anxiety and depressive symptoms. Another 2023 study found in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by Loyas, Kumar, Ardenston, and Najera claims that gratitude practices produce more emotional outcomes and shift emotional states away from the negative cycles, and they actually help us from getting into that distraction and rumination. Finally, a 2019 study found in Frontier Psychology by researchers Kim and Bey examined how gratitude helps folks engage in post-traumatic growth. So the gratitude and the effects of gratitude can be measurable when we are consistent, genuine, and proactive into integrate into integratism into our lives. That was a lot of ent's. So, thus far we've gone over the ways in which practicing gratitude can support us in

Making Room For Grief Too

SPEAKER_00 9:11

general. But with so much grief in the world, is there room for gratitude here too? The answer is yes. Grief and gratitude can and often do coexist. Researchers studying trauma and loss have found that practicing gratitude exercises can create a, and I quote, psychological breathing room during periods of intense stress helping people recover faster. This is seen in the work by Carolyn L. Todd in 2020, where the concept of post-traumatic growth is examined. Growth in these areas can be seen following trauma and post-trauma challenges, appreciation of life, relationship with others, new possibilities in life, personal strength, and spiritual changes. A 2013 study in the Journal of Happiness Studies found a strong positive correlation between gratitude and all dimensions of post-traumatic growth in 67% of people with breast cancer. A 2009 study published in the Journal of Anxiety, Stress and Coping found, and I quote again, that of 182 college students with a history of trauma, those who reported higher gratitude and less PTSD symptoms did so because they practiced gratitude practices. The broaden and built model by psychologist Barbara Frederickson that I've mentioned in previous segments of Wellbeing with Sogans, all which can be found on our website or on Spotify, has argued that positive emotions like gratitude can actually produce benefits that can lead to even greater well-being in the long term. As you can see, grief and gratitude are able to be present simultaneously, and we are able to hold space for our hurts, validate our pains, and look at that which we're grateful for, what is going well in our lives. I think we now know and understand the significance of gratitude.

Journals Letters And Mental Subtraction

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Have you heard of gratitude journals? They've become super popular, hey? The point here is to savor positive experiences that happen to us rather than treating them as background events. You can go ahead and purchase a journal, or you can do what I do and use old stationery for my school days or diaries that I forgot that even existed and never used. But regardless of what kind of paper you use, and please try to actually write it. I know a lot of people like to use the note app, and I just have a conspiracy theory that we need to spend more time away from our phones. That's just my conspiracy theory. And because of that, I think that if you have self-control on your phone and you can just use the phone app or the notes app and not go on any other apps, great, maybe that'll work for you. But for the most of us, our fingers will also go on other apps and then go on text, and then it kind of takes the gratitude practice away from us a little bit. So, regardless of what medium that you do use, although there's a lot of research that backs the effects of doing it on paper, please do try this. Write down what you were happy about that took place that day. Write down a successful moment you had. And I want you to really think about this, right? Like I successfully drove to the studio today. That is something that maybe I would overlook if I wasn't trying to be intentional with this gratitude practice. You could also write down one aspect of your life that's going well. Like I'm Iranian, as many of you know, and there's currently war going on in my country, and that's the country that I was born in. Canada's the country that raised me, and both are my countries, and while I'm here and I'm grateful to be here, I also have so much love for that country too, and I can experience that grief and that gratitude at the same time, but I'm also grateful that I'm able to spend this time with you and share my research with you rather than probably being home and watching the news. So that's what I mean. Really being intentional about your gratitude, what is going well in your life, because that negativity bias will have you constantly thinking about what is not going well. Another strategy to practice gratitude is by the use of gratitude letters. You can write to someone that has helped you, alleviated your sorrows, affected you positively. This not only increases your positive emotions, but also strengthens social connections. Sometimes you might find yourself wanting to write to someone who is no longer with us. It still can be helpful to write. There's actually a lot of research on bereavement and how gratitude has helped with bereavement as well. Mental subtraction is another effective way to show gratitude to yourself. We often think about how things could be better in times of hardship. But do we ever think about how things could be worse? Probably not. Right now there's a whole lot going on in the world. But at least the weather isn't super chilly, the roads aren't full of ice, and we don't have to worry about shoveling snow, right? Those are some positive things. We're able to actually see grass. Remember how like a month ago we didn't have grass? Yeah. We're able to walk on the grass. If you're like me and you like being barefoot on the grass, it feels really good. You're able to smell the fragrance of the flowers, the budding flowers, and you can actually spend longer hours with more sun and light. These practices that I've just done with you very briefly help you increase your appreciation. Another method that you can lean on is pairing gratitude with difficult times. So consider what has helped you cope in the past. This is also an exercise called exceptions. Who did you rely on before? What services were accessible to you? Sometimes when we are in a moment of grief, we forget what helped us in the past and we think that we are stuck. But when reflecting on the past, you can see that you've overcome a lot of other really bad things. You overcome this one too. I hope these are ways that you can incorporate the aforementioned findings. So

Mindful Gratitude Pauses And Body Scans

SPEAKER_00 15:27

now I want to focus on gratitude rooted in some more mindfulness. We've talked about mindfulness before on Wellbeing Wednesdays with Silgand, so let's talk about it now with the lens of gratitude practices. So, one way that you could do this is a mindful gratitude pause. And by the way, all of these things that I'm mentioning are super short, they might take a few minutes, tops in your day. A lot of folks often tell me that, hey Sogan, you know, when I'm less busy at work or when I'm finishing this course and stuff, then I can focus on gratitude. But we need to find ways to embed gratitude into our days. So several times during the day, you are invited now to stop what you're doing, right? And obviously, this is when you're safe to do so. So this might be during your coffee break at work, before you log in at work, at nighttime, before you put your phone down to actually sleep. Just notice your breathing. How are you breathing? Right? Are you doing shallow breaths, which is what most of us do when we are anxious, and sometimes we don't even recognize that we are anxious because we're so accustomed to the shallow breaths. Are we doing actual deep breaths? If you find that you are doing more shallow breaths, you might want to stop, pause, and actually do three deep breaths. That also has been demonstrated to turn off the amygdala, which is that alarm system in the brain. You can also ask yourself, what's supporting me right now? And that could be physical, like right now, I'm sitting on these beautiful couches in the studio. That could be a chair in your car that's super comfortable as you're listening to us on your way home. That could be a bed that you're listening to us on, really just tapping into what is supporting me. But it could also be emotional. Do you have a friend that you rely on? Do you have a medical or mental health professional that's really supporting you? What's supporting you? And identify one thing you might actually overlook. For example, clean water. When I came into the studio, I asked for a cup of water. And that is something I'm always grateful for because I recognize that unfortunately in our beautiful land of Canada, there are people that don't have access to clean water. Also overseas, there's a lot of people that don't have access to clean water. It is a privilege to have water, but how many of us recognize that when we drink it? That's a gratitude exercise right there. Sunlight, having more sun. You know, it was only a few months ago when we didn't have a whole lot of sun, it was kind of dark. At this time, particularly, it would look like it's midnight, and so that's something to be grateful for. And another thing that you could do is a whole gratitude body scan. And so this is going to move attention to the body and through the body and appreciation for maybe what you're not always recognizing. For example, your feet, they carry you from place to place. Your legs, they allow movement. Have you ever had a cramp in your leg? You know how much that hurts, especially if you I always see this meme and it's like adulting is stretching the wrong way and getting hurt, but it's true. So, you know, when we cramp, we say to ourselves, oh no, this hurts so much, but we're not thinking about that until that cramp happens. What about our lungs? The breathing, they're helping us breathe. Our hearts, it beats without us actually asking it to do so. Our eyes, you know, they allow perception. And if there's people listening from the low vision community, there's also so many other ways that they have found to navigate the world, and appreciation for those other ways as well. These practices can increase appreciation for bodily dysfunction, sorry, bodily functioning rather than dysfunctioning. And another one is a savoring practice. This is something that I personally do in my work with clients, in my work with meetings. I always like to have food, and a it's because it just tastes good, but for me, it's also an experience each time. I've really trained myself to actually go through the taste buds. What am I really tasting? What kind of temperature is it? The sweetness, the saltiness, and this is also something that could be taught. There are so many meditations that you can look into for eating meditations and mindfulness practices. But yeah, just really spending a few seconds thinking about the sensations, the textures, the smells. Again, these are all really cheap ways, but really accessible ways for you to tap into your internal gratitude.

Support Systems And The Already Here

SPEAKER_00 20:08

And lastly, gratitude for support systems. I've made it a mission of mine whenever I go to a drive-thru to thank people and try to compliment them. It always catches them off guard at drive-throughs, and I love doing it. It's like a power. Obviously, I mean it, but they're not expecting it, they're just expecting to give you the thing that you paid for and you can be on your merry way. But I always find something, whether it's their eye color, whether it's their tone of voice, something while I'm waiting for that drink or whatever that I paid for to come. I always find a way to compliment them and it catches them off guard, and I know that is something that they will be happy about for the rest of the day. That in return has brought me a lot of people doing the same to me, and that is gratitude, it helps you see appreciation in yourself and appreciation in others, and that's something we mentioned earlier in the segment that it strengthens social connections. So these are just some ways that you can consider, you know, incorporating some gratitude into your days. Again, they don't make the bad stuff go away, but momentarily they shift your attention, and your brain needs that because we are not meant to be constantly in a state of fight or flight. So there's one thing called the already here practice. See, research shows us that a lot of people are constantly searching for things to be grateful for in the future. Instead, I challenge you to ask yourself, what's already here that I haven't noticed? Some examples might be shelter, food, safety, knowledge, physical abilities, mental abilities, access to nature. I know there's a lot of people on social media every time I post in our beautiful river valley or anywhere that's green, they send me messages and they say, We are in places called the concrete jungle. There's not a whole lot of greenery, and that is something to be grateful for. The fact that we have so much beautiful access to greenery. Another thing that you could do is write three good things from the day. These could be the stuff that I mentioned earlier or other things that you're grateful

Free Resources And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 22:23

for. So to wrap it up, what I went through just in the last couple of segments: mindful breathing practices, gratitude body scans, reflections on your internal resources and who you can rely on. I've mentioned this before, but there are so many free resources in the city, whether it's mental health hotlines, whether it's groups. I actually just signed up for a neurodivergent free group that I saw on LinkedIn. I'm very excited for that. There are so many groups, there are so many virtual support helps out there, and there are niche-specific ones too. If you are from a geographical area that you feel that you're not being understood, I really encourage you to look for more support and really challenging yourself to just doing this gratitude, whether it's a good day or a bad day, but even more so on bad days, because even on those bad days, you can find that you're able to find some good things when you have practiced this. We hope this was beneficial and advantageous for you. There is a popular saying that there's always something to be grateful for, and I just couldn't agree more. I'm grateful that you tuned into this episode of Wellbeing Wednesdays with Sogan. See what I did there. I can't wait to hear about how you use these resources that I went through, and I look forward to joining you again next week for another segment on 97.9 FM Universal Radio.

Closing Thanks And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Hey! Thank you so much for listening to this segment. We hope that you enjoyed our deep dive into the neuroscience and psychology of gratitude and its significance during the good times and the bad times. Please follow us at the Universal Radio on social media, and we hope you enjoyed the segment of Wellbeing Wednesdays with Sogand. This is Turn 97.9 FM 29