30 Days of Gratitude - Does it Make You Happier?
I set myself the challenge of posting an image on Instagram, of something that made me happy, every day, for the thirty days of November.
Q: Why did I want to create and practise this Gratitude habit?
A: Because I have set this assignment to many of the clients and students I’ve worked with, over the last ten years.
It is one of the first exercises that I give them as it is so simple and yet has such strong results. The Harvard Business Review cites Dr. Guy Winch, author of the book Emotional First Aid, explaining the process as:
“Gratitude is an emotion that grounds us and is a great way to balance out the negative mindset that uncertainty engenders. When we express gratitude, our brain releases dopamine and serotonin — two hormones that make us feel lighter and happier inside.”
The only problem, however, is staying accountable and lasting the course, as the need to do this every day can make it feel like a chore, and once it feels like that, the joy is sucked out of the event. This is the downfall for many people (and myself included in previous attempts). In my experience, the average number of days that most people stick to this task is between three to five.
For myself, therefore, I knew I had to be held publicly accountable in order to stick to this new habit. The month of November also seemed the perfect time as it is traditionally one of the toughest months of the year, especially the school year, as the days are getting darker and the workload feels intense and there is little jolliness to look forward to.
One of my prime motivators for setting myself this exercise was also to be the student again. So often in the worlds of coaching and teaching, we know what helps others, and we can see how certain practices or techniques will make a big difference, and yet it is not so easy for us to apply the same teachings to ourselves, and to practise what we preach, and walk our own talk.
So, what were the effects of this 30-day gratitude practice?
The honest truth is that some days it was very easy and highly enjoyable, and others, it was really tough. There were days when I didn’t feel like posting an image or struggled to think of anything different (that was part of the challenge - 30 individual different things to be grateful for). And yet, that was the intention behind the exercise. I knew that by forcing my brain to search for something that made me feel positive, and that sparked joy inside me, or that made me smile, was all I needed to do, to lift my mood a little.
Of course, once I started searching high and low for things that made me feel happy, my brain got busy and I soon found more items that I could use for my gratitude image that day. I’m very aware that this is the prime function of the reticular activating system (see footnote 1) in my brain - I remember learning about this whilst I studied for my diploma in Sophrology, and realising that there was no coincidence behind the fact that when I was pregnant, I started seeing other pregnant women everywhere. And when I was thinking of changing our car, I began to see VW camper vans all over the place. The more we focus on something, the more we become aware of its existence and allow it to grow as a feature in our lives.
Therefore, when I primed my brain to find what gave me joy and asked myself that question daily, the answers started to come fast and furious. I know that my default, and that of most people, can be to notice the negative: what has gone wrong in the day, or in an encounter with another person. Indeed, one of my children, when I tried to engender this positive daily habit into their bedtime routine, and asked them what was the best thing about their day, would always start with: “Well, my LEAST favourite thing was…”, and then go on to list quite a few things.
By being aware of this negative default, and thinking of it purely as a setting on a dial, I realised that I had the power to shift it to what was good and what had gone well in my day, and noticing that there were little moments that amounted to enough in my day to spark joy. And that was all I asked of myself. By reducing the expectation from big events to tiny ones - the colour of vibrant red berries on a tree, the strong shade of blue in the sky, the feeling of warmth from the sun on my face - life felt more gentle, less demanding and a little, dare I say it, happier.
Gratitude can often be dismissed as too simple, too Pollyanna, especially for the hard-edged side of the corporate world, which seeks evidence and data to prove what is sometimes better being experienced, and felt in the subtleties of a shift in our emotions, a slowing of our breathing and the lift of the corner of the mouth in the first movement of a smile.
To those who have read this far, I implore you to try this for yourself. My questions to help you stay on track and last beyond the initial high of the first three days, are:
How will you stay accountable?
Will you write or use images, or both?
How will you overcome the moments / days when you don’t feel like continuing with the practice?
What might be the uplifts and benefits of practising this exercise?
Where would you like your default setting to be? How would that feel? What one action can you take today to set this intention on course?
I hope that helps and I’d always love to hear how this practice goes for you. Do let me know if you last the course and how that feels for you. If you need any help with starting new positive and healthy habits, do book in for a 1:1 coaching session , or email me with any questions.
FOOTNOTE:
The reticular activating system (RAS) is a network of neurons located in the brain stem that project anteriorly to the hypothalamus to mediate behavior, as well as both posteriorly to the thalamus and directly to the cortex for activation of awake, desynchronized cortical EEG patterns.
SOURCES:
Harvard Business Review, Ascend:
https://hbr.org/2020/10/use-gratitude-to-counter-stress-and-uncertainty
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/veterinary-science-and-veterinary-medicine/reticular-activating-system#:~:text=The%20reticular%20activating%20system%20(RAS,awake%2C%20desynchronized%20cortical%20EEG%20patterns.
