Mental Health Matters: Gratitude

I want to begin today’s column with a quotation I found while doing a Google search on the difference between gratitude and thankfulness.  It comes from the YMCA of the North: “Gratitude is a state of being, whereas thankfulness is the expression of that state of being. Unlike thankfulness, gratitude isn't an emotion or response to a state of affairs. It's a mindset rooted in awareness, acceptance, compassion, and non-judgment that exists regardless of external factors.”

This quote speaks to another difference I found expressed in many places, specifically, that thankfulness is an immediate response to a present situation, whereas gratitude is cultivated by reflecting on a multitude of moments in your life.

A meta-analysis of 62 studies looking at the association between gratitude and depression found there is a significant association between the two, “indicating that individuals who experience more gratitude have lower levels of depression,” (Iodice, et al., 2021).

A 2020 study by Bohlmeijer, et al., found that just six weeks of intervention focused on gratitude had a greater effect on an individual’s well-being than six weeks of self-kindness or no intervention at all. The gratitude intervention consisted of daily journals and other written exercises designed to help the participants reflect for at least 10-15 minutes a day on people, objects and events in their life, and to cultivate gratitude about these.

I encourage you to try these written exercises using some of the questions the participants were given (some are paraphrased for brevity):

1. “Write each day (or at least on 5 days) . . . about three good things of that day. Describe the event, but also why you felt grateful."
2. Write about an aspect of your life, imagining that it isn’t there anymore. “For example, clean water from the tap, a pet, a beloved one or the washing machine. What would it be like if this aspect of your daily life is absent? . . . What do you feel grateful for?”
3. Think about a person who did something nice for you and write them a letter of gratitude. What do they mean to you?
4. Think about a difficult life event then try to think about any positive outcomes. What did you learn from the event? How did you change? “Can you experience gratefulness for the positive consequences of the difficult event?”

A shorthand version of the above exercises is to think of any aspect of your life and then reflect on 1) the ways you appreciate it, 2) how it affects, changes or enhances you, and 3) where you would be without it. 

Doing these exercises helps us focus not just on the good, but on the meaning. In addition, cultivating gratitude helps us feel an enhanced connection with the world around us, which can help us rise above negative emotions that affect our ability to function to the best of our ability.

This is my first Thanksgiving without my mother, and I confess it can be hard to think of being thankful or grateful this year. Knowing what I do about how gratitude improves well-being and reduces depression, I want to be mindful of the deeper, lasting state of gratitude.

Not only am I thankful for a meal surrounded by family, I am also grateful for the unconditional love that brings us together meal after meal in good times and in bad.

I appreciate the ritual of Thanksgiving, which is repeated in much the same way, year to year, home to home, creating a connection of culture through time and place. When I make the cranberry sauce this year, I will think of my mother and all the ways she enhanced my life and family. I will reflect on how, without her, I would not be where I am now.

I will allow myself to appreciate life with its highs and its lows, its sorrows and its joys because life is a precious gift I am grateful for.

Nora Sinclair is a licensed professional counselor and national certified counselor based in Lexington, S.C.