September 5th, 2024
Jonah Paquette, PsyD
Welcome to this week's Three Good Things, my newsletter where I share 3 ideas, resources, findings, or skills related to happiness and well-being.
Each week, I focus on a specific theme drawn from the science of happiness, including concepts like awe, gratitude, social connection, managing burnout, mindfulness, and much more.
This week's newsletter focuses on the psychological and health benefits of gratitude. For many of us, the idea of gratitude might seem pretty self-evident. Whether through our family or our faith (or from Oprah!), most of us tend to have a pretty good understanding that it's good to be grateful. But even as someone who's written four books on the science of happiness, I'm always taken aback by just how powerful the practice of gratitude turns out to be. Over the past two decades, countless studies have sought to explore the impact of gratitude on our minds, bodies, and relationships. And the results have been nothing short of remarkable! While a full review of these benefits would be beyond the scope of this short newsletter (and hey, I gotta save some stuff for future editions too!), I'd like to share with you today 3 somewhat surprising and eye-opening benefits linked to the practice of gratitude. And so, without further ado, here are this week's Three Good Things:
- First off this week, I wanted to share this recent meta-analysis of 26 studies that sought to examine the link between gratitude and loneliness. Readers of this newsletter as well as attendees of my talks know that I often love to discuss the many benefits of social connection, as well as the psychological and health risks of loneliness. But can gratitude really be a balm for the sort of loneliness that ails so many of us in this day and age? According to the above study, absolutely! Looking at nearly 10,000 participants across the various studies, the researchers found a robust link between the practice of gratitude and feelings of social belonging along with reduced feelings of loneliness. So in a time of record loneliness (and the many risks associated with that), it may be more important than ever to count our blessings.
2. Not only does gratitude bind us together and increase feelings of connectedness, it also spurs us to behave in more prosocial ways according to this study from the Journal of Positive Psychology. Since kindness towards others results in such incredible benefits both for the giver and receiver (hey, that sounds like a great topic for a future newsletter now that I think about it!), it's important to remember that practicing gratitude may serve as a catalyst for pushing us toward greater kindness, compassion, and prosociality.
3. Lastly, I was struck by this study which examined the impact of ayahuasca use in a retreat setting on both gratitude and attitudes towards nature. In it, researchers looked at 54 people who had recently undergone an ayahuasca retreat and specifically wanted to look at how the experience impacted participants' attitudes towards nature and their sense of gratitude. Remarkably, they found that even more than a month later, participants demonstrated increased levels of overall gratitude, as well as feelings of connection and appreciation towards nature. Similar findings have been shown in other studies looking at other psychedelics, such as psilocybin. While much of the research on psychedelics has understandably focused on specific mental health diagnoses like PTSD and depression, some of their greatest impacts may turn out to be on things like gratitude, connection, creativity, and other positive emotional states.
Take-home/Action Step:
- There are SO many ways to practice gratitude, including direct expressions of gratitude, keeping a gratitude journal, writing a gratitude letter, and much more. But my favorite practice for cultivating gratitude (and the inspiration for the name of this very newsletter!) is probably an exercise called "Three Good Things." Instead of keeping a list of general/broad things we're grateful for (like being alive, having our health, and so on), this practice gets us focused on the very specific and granular. Essentially, each day you simply write down 3 things from that day that have gone well or that you're thankful for, and why they happened. If you want to really get the most out of it, try never repeating an item...meaning that if you do it for 30 days, you'll be up to 90 good things! For an in-depth overview of this cool practice, click HERE.
Stay in touch!
Thanks so much for being part of my newsletter, and I look forward to sharing more fun updates with you each week here. I'd also love to connect with you on social media (links below at the bottom of the page), and share a few fun resources with you in the meantime!
- If you're interested in my books, check out Happily Even After and Awestruck.
- Click here for my TEDx talk on the power of Awe.
- Click here for my TEDx talk on Gratitude & Mindfulness.
- Click here to check out my speaker reel, and here to book me as a speaker for your next event.
- Click here to check out my online course offerings.
- And of course check out my website for more information about my work.
Thanks so much for joining me!
Until next time,
Jonah
