Gratitude Part II, or "How Do I Get That Goodness In Me?!?"(to quote my dear friend)...and a couple of studies actually listed, to give myself some semblance of credibility.

In my previous post, I was very good at listing the benefits one receives from being grateful, but a little cryptic on how to do it (some people already know, but if you don't, I'm about to help you out).

By the way, I'm posting this, not because I am good at any of the techniques, but to motivate myself. When I came home from Education Week, I was all fired up, and I did a family night lesson about it (and my kids all still write in their gratitude journals, so they are more "expert" than I am), but then I let life get in the way, and haven't been writing in mine. I have started again at the "count blessings in my head" level. Which is an excellent level, right?

While listing blessings in your head is a great way to start and will generate some immediate benefits, the studies have found that if you take things just a little bit further, the magnitude of benefits increases. A lot.

There are a myriad of ways to increase gratitude, and they are all good, but it appears that the two most effective gratitude exercises for lasting physical and psychological results (according to a study done by Martin E.P. Seligman, Tracy A. Steen, Nansook Park and Christoper Peterson), are the following:

1. Keep a gratitude journal. Every day (or 3-4 times a week to reap good benefits), list one to three things (or more, if you'd like) you are grateful for. The key is to be specific, and to not list the same thing every day.

So rather than putting "I am thankful for my dog," put, "I am thankful for my dog, Chewy, because he braves the arctic winds and snow to go out and hunt food for our family, keeping us away from death's door."

1a. When you pray, pray about the things you wrote down in your gratitude journal. Thank your Heavenly Father for them. This wasn't listed in the studies, but the lady who spoke at Education Week mentioned it as a good idea. It really is a great idea. It enhances a person's prayers and feelings of gratitude not only for the people/things he listed in the journal, but also for the One Who Gave it All to us.

2. Periodically do a "Gratitude Visit." Write a very specific thank you/gratitude note to someone. Take time in the construction of the note. Think about what you are writing. Make it about a page long. Then, hand deliver it to the person, and read it to them face to face. Apparently, this is a life changing exercise. Positive effects generated by a single visit last a month or more.

A further note about the Gratitude Journal. One of the main studies on journaling was done by Edmonds and McCullough. In this study, subjects were divided into three groups. Those who journaled blessings, those who journaled hassles (negative things that happened in their day), and those who journaled neutral events (ie. "I got up and ate breakfast.").

When I heard about this study, after hearing about the positive effects of gratitude journaling, I thought, "those poor people who had to record their daily hassles! How funny! Here are these people in the blessings group, reaping these great benefits from recording blessings, and the hassles people are probably sitting around, all depressed, and hounded with illnesses...heh, heh, heh."

Then it dawned on me...there are days when all I do are "record" hassles in my brain! I go over them and over them. And let me just say, these days don't usually end up getting labeled as "good." To put it mildly.

So sometimes I participate in the "hassles group" part of the study, but I am hoping that by consciously focusing on increasing my gratitude, I will find myself in the "blessings group" more often!

Will using other methods of increasing feelings of gratitude generate positive mental and physical benefits?

YEP!

Here, I am going to refer to you the Wall Street Journal's article again. Specifically, the little colored insert in the article. You will find it about half way down (if my link doesn't work). Click on it to see it large. This will give you more ideas of ways to increase your gratitude.

You can also find all sorts of ways online and in your head.

One I found in my head a couple weeks ago, that I am going to attempt to implement this year, is the "Gratitude Christmas Tree." I am going to set the tree up, with lights, but leave the ornaments in a box next to the tree. Each day, at some point when everyone is home at the same time (wish me luck with this--it may be at midnight), we will meet by the tree and discuss things we are grateful for from the day. For each "gratitude," we will put one ornament on our tree. (We are also doing small alpine trees-one for each kid- for little acts of service we do throughout the day...yes, I have a bunch of alpine trees, just sitting around...).

Some of you know the blogger at this address. If you click on the link, you will see something they have implemented in their family--a great idea that she found here. So fun!

An idea that the "Gratitude Lady" at Ed. Week had, that she has implemented, is to take a bunch of 3x5 cards and put something like "Thanks, you made my day" on them. Then, as you are out and about, and you see someone being kind to someone else, or someone who helps you in some way, or just needs a "pick me up," you can walk up to them, hand them a card, and tell them what it is for (or I guess you could quickly write down what it is for on the back of the card).

For example, you could hand someone a card and say "I really appreciated the way you didn't yell at your toddler when he was having a meltdown. You are a good mom," and hand them the card.

As I thought about how the "non-yelling mom" would feel to get a card, and know that someone noticed her patience, I got a the best feeling in my gut--an excited feeling. The feeling you get when you know you have the best present to give someone at Christmastime and can hardly wait to give it to them. What a great idea!

One more idea: use your blog (or start one) to motivate you to post your blessings. Here are a few examples: one, two, three. You will notice, these guys actually blog about what they are grateful for, rather than spewing forth evidence on how to be, and why to be grateful. :) There are probably other sites on my blog roll to the right that post blessings on the blog...those three just came to mind quickly.

Now, lest you get overwhelmed with ideas (I hate that feeling), remember that just taking time out during the day to go over blessings in your head will give you noticeable benefits. Start there. I know I am.

I am grateful to you, who managed to read this whole, long post. Hugs!

To all of you "list-ers of Gratitude:" I give you more fuel for your fire...

At Education Week this year, I went to a class that was completely about gratitude. The cute lady had had a personal experience where she noticed that she was able to lift her mood by trying to count her blessings (the whole story is a little long, but the gist is that her husband moved her to NYC after a lifetime of living in Georgia, and she was depressed about it. She was walking through the cold, dreary streets of NY, thinking of how Georgia was sunny and warm at that time of year, and was having a pity party with herself. She noticed a woman who could barely walk, and thought to herself, "well, at least I can walk." And she noticed her mood lifted a bit. She decided to list other blessings, and noticed she felt much better.).

This experience was the catalyst for her obsession with studying gratitude for almost a whole year after that. She read book after book, study after study on the effects of being grateful, keeping a gratitude journal, gratitude visits (where you write a grateful note, and then take it to the person you wrote it to and read it to him or her in person), etc.

My experience in that class got me all fired up about helping myself and my family be more grateful. I came home and looked up all the positive benefits I could find (I tried to write them all down in the class, but she moved too fast), so that I could share them with my family and others. I am not going to list all of the books and sites and references and studies, because BORING; but let's just say there are MANY of each. If you want to start to research it yourself, and good place to start is by googling "Martin Seligman gratitude." Martin Seligman is one of the main gratitude/positive mood guys. You can also google "effects of gratitude," or "studies on gratitude."

Also, the WSJ had a GREAT article on gratitude yesterday, summing up a lot of what you will find in my list, and specifically emphasizing helping kids be more grateful. You can find the article HERE.

Here is the list of the benefits of gratitude I put together (these are in no particular order, and you will notice some refer directly to people in various studies. Also, I didn't edit much for grammar or spelling. I was going to make this a nice, well-written article, but I wasn't getting around to it, so I decided just to post it):

BENEFITS OF GRATITUDE

People studied were happier and less depressed 3 months and 6 months later (even if they had stopped their gratitude journaling)

Balances heart rhythms

Lowers heart attack risk

Decreases physical symptoms of pain and illness

Increases our sense of well-being

Exponential growth in joy—the more often you tap into joy, the more joyous you feel, and the deeper you feel it.

Increased immune function. Grateful people get sick less frequently.

People who keep gratitude journals exercise more.

Wards off depression and anxiety--25% happier overall—three weeks of keeping a gratitude journal, and people were still happier even 6 months after the study.

more optimistic about the week ahead

feel better about their lives

Goal Setting: When it came to setting goals, the gratitude group was making great progress toward important goals within a two months period. Goals such as health based, academic and inter personal were getting much closer with the gratitude group. On the other hand, those who didn’t practice daily gratitude failed to make progress.

More enthusiasm

Higher level of awareness

Increased problem solving skills. 60% better ability at tri-bond.

More determination

More positive energy

More helpful towards others

People with neuromuscular disease (21 day gratitude intervention) had greater amounts of high energy positive moods and greater sense of feeling connected with others.

More optimistic about the week ahead.

Sleep better and are able to stay asleep. Better duration and quality.

Fall asleep more quickly.

More alert

More attentive.

More likely to help someone with a problem—especially emotional problems

Felt more grateful

Greater vitality

Lower levels of depression

Lower levels of stress

The disposition toward gratitude enhances pleasant feeling states.

More empathetic

More generous

People who engage in prayer are more likely to be grateful.

Grateful people place less importance on material goods

Less likely to judge their own and others success in terms of possessions accumulated

Less envious of others

More likely to share their possessions with others relative to less grateful persons

4 times a week for as little as 3 weeks is enough to create a meaningful difference in one level of happiness.

Increase in connectedness to other people.

People who are grateful (and have a more positive outlook on life) are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.

Increases brain function.

Feel better about their lives—more satisfaction

More optimistic about the future

Fewer health problems

Felt more refreshed in the morning

Improves cognitive functioning—some research shows it helps decrease risk of Alzheimer's

Counteracts negative effects of stress.

Reduces effects of Fibromyalgia

Higher levels of control of their environments, personal growth, purpose in life and self acceptance.

Have more positive ways of coping with difficulties in life, are more likely to seek support from other people, spend more time planning how to deal with the problem.

Less negative coping strategies, less likely to try to avoid the problem, deny the problem, blames themselves, or cope through substance abuse.

Has been said to have one of the strongest links with mental health of any character trait.

Cope better with life transitions.

ETC., ETC., ETC.!

The whole concept is just amazing. And yet it shouldn't be surprising at all. It is just another example of the world finding evidence to support something that the Gospel of Christ has been telling us to do for years.

Doctrine and Covenants 78:19 And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more.

Keep up all of the Gratitude lists!

Listen closely to what he says right after Paul says "who's that?" and right before I say "goooood." Then he says it again very emphatically right after he runs his finger down the picture.

He has been saying "Jesus" for a few weeks now. It sounds a bit like "Dss-Uss." Sometimes he pokes his tongue out too far and you get spit on, but it is cute. We have a picture of Jesus on the wall in the hall across from his room. Whenever he wakes up in the morning or from a nap, he points to the picture and says "Jesus" over and over again. Then he wants to go over and touch the picture.

Yesterday, I went to a funeral and had to take George. As we were walking toward the building, he started pointing at the building and saying "Jesus." George knows.

Me: 1 (I had a head start this morning--he slept in)
George: 3
Favorite Clear Glasses: -1 boo.

Who is Your Favorite Singer or Band?

This was a question on a homework assignment Ted had.

His answer:

"My favorite singers are my sisters."

Love that!

Things I have learned over the past few months:

1-if your husband upgrades from an iphone 3 to a 3GS, you will get an iPhone too--an old 3, but you won't care.

2-if your husband upgrades from an iPhone 3GS to an iPhone 4, you will get an old 3GS, but you won't care!

3-if you get an iPhone 3GS, your kids will get an old, deactivated iPhone 3 that they can play on sometimes.

4-if you put an iPhone 3GS (that you just got a week prior) in a cooler that has ice in it, the 3GS will fall into the ice water--even if you set it on something not submerged in the ice water.

5-ice water in an iPhone 3GS will permanently ruin it.

6-ruining your iPhone 3GS in the ice-water-manner will not get you a new iPhone 4.

7-it will get to relegated back to an iphone 3.

8-if you get relegated back to a 3, your kids will no longer have an old deactivated iPhone 3 they can play on sometimes.

9-you won't care about either of these developments, because a) anyone dumb enough to set their phone INSIDE a cooler with ice in it, does not deserve a new iPhone 4...she probably doesn't deserve the iphone 3 back. And b) kids don't need expensive phones to play on.

10-if enough time goes by, and your birthday is coming up, and your son has been working his tail off, trying to earn an iPod (and finally does) your husband will devise a plan to kill two birds with one stone...

11-you will receive an iPhone 4 for your birthday, and your son will receive an old iPhone 3 to use as an iPod.

12-you will feel guilty because you probably still don't deserve it, but your husband won't care.

13-well, maybe he cares a little because he says as he gives it to you "you may have this if you don't set it right on the edge of the tub when you are taking a bath, like you did last night."

Drawing Smiles from Heaven

For the significance of the following, I refer you to THIS POST from last year.

{smile}