“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”
Frequently, we can look at our lives and notice areas that aren’t quite good enough. Or it may feel like there is always something a little wrong. It might be the pick-up food order that’s missing an item when we get home, the small leak in our roof that needs to be repaired, or the highway traffic that we get stuck in.
Although we have much in our lives, we easily forget what we do have because we become used to what we have in our lives. This is known as the hedonic treadmill - a cycle of wanting, getting, then gradually becoming accustomed to what we previously desired.
“I had the blues because I had no shoes until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet.”
This mentality can become a habit, which causes us to focus our energy on the “not enough” or “something’s not perfect” in our lives. For example, if I ask you to take a break from this post and look around you right now.
Notice all the things that are brown.
Stop. Really look around and notice the brown things.
Now, close your eyes for a moment and name all the things that are green.
Well, you probably can’t because I asked you to focus on the color brown.
Similarly, we can look at our lives and make a conscious choice about what to focus on. When we focus on appreciating what we have already and the things going right, we literally create new synaptic connections in our brain.
Neurons that fire together, wire together.
Accordingly, when we create this new habit, we are creating a neural groove of gratitude and reprogramming our default mode network.
“Practicing gratitude modulates key brain circuits that contribute to mood, motivation, resilience, and more. It stimulates the region of your brainstem where dopamine is produced, which has a general motivational effect. It also activates your nucleus accumbens where dopamine gets released for little sparks of joy. And perhaps more importantly it alters the activity in your anterior cingulate cortex to pay more attention to the positive aspects of your reality, helping you get a bigger boost from all the wonderful things in your life that are so easily overlooked.”
Three Gratitude Exercises: To Help You Re-wire Your Brain
1. Morning & Night Gratitude:
Upon awakening each morning, write down three things you are grateful for in a notebook or journal. Then visualize and see those things, people, memories, etc. As you see what you’re grateful for, take a moment to feel the gratitude in your body. This practice is a great way to start your day. Later at night, you can again think of three great things that happened that day. This practice can help you hone in on the positive parts of your life.
2. Silver Linings:
Consider the “bad” things in your life and ask, “How can I be grateful for that?” Everything has some small silver lining in it, although it may not be immediately evident. For example, I can think of multiple breakups and heartaches I’ve had in my life. At the time, I considered them bad events. But now looking back, I can say I’m grateful for those relationships because I learned how to be a better partner and ultimately it led to me finding my wife and having our daughter.
3. Seeing Yourself Without:
This mental exercise allows one to increase appreciation for what you currently have by imagining that you don’t have it any more. One example is to imagine that you lost your wallet or purse. For a moment, what would that feel like? How much effort would you have to put in to replace the cards, IDs, etc. in there? Fortunately, this hasn’t happened and you can feel more gratitude for what you have right now. You can even take this a step further and briefly imagine you’ve lost your job, pet, or family member. Doing this for a minute can tremendously increase your gratitude for what you have while you have them.
So what gratitude practices can you incorporate into your life right now? Can you think of 10 things you’re grateful for right now? What are the silver livings for the negative events that have occurred?
If you have an ingrained thought pattern of complaining, finding the faults in yourself and others, and feeling like not having enough, it’s going to take some practice. As a matter of fact, lots of practice. So please be patient and have compassion for yourself as you cultivate an attitude of gratitude.
Learn more about the hedonic treadmill in the video below!
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