This is what I’m adding to the gym’s exercise workouts for November.
I’m going to keep a gratitude journal. (This one’s big given that I can’t even type gratitude journal without wincing.)
The inspiration came from an article, Pay It Forward, Dr Robert Emmons’ account of his research, with Mike McCullough, into the benefits of expressing gratitude.
I so nearly didn’t do this one.
First of all, did I want to add an exercise which seemed so similar to Three Good Things?
Then I felt squeamish about the bland, Pollyanna-ish connotations of “gratitude”.
I also found talk of “expressing” gratitude slightly pious, prissy, self-satisfied, possible because I’m a defector from a denomination which regards expressing gratitude as a ‘healing’ emotion.
The making my mind up phase took some time. In the course of googling “gratitude journal”, I came across Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude on ebay. “Never read” is the description from several sellers and so might I not, had it been given me as a book. I’d not normally take such a title off the shelf. Putting Abundance and Gratitude in the same title?
How cool would you feel asking for the book in a store, given the unfortunate and embarrassing ‘bonus’ that merely enunciating the words abundance and gratitude unavoidably stretches your lips into a bland smile followed syllables later by a smug smirk? I think not.
More last minute googling brings home that I hadn’t realised what an industry keeping a gratitude journal has become. Apparently it’s been featured on Oprah a few times. Perhaps even the Blessed R & J, arbiters of the nation’s reading?
What’s in it for me?
In Pay It Forward, Robert Emmons writes:
Although I believed we’d see the benefits of gratitude, I wasn’t sure this
result would be inevitable or unequivocal. To be grateful means to allow oneself
to be placed in the position of a recipient—to feel indebted, aware of one’s
dependence on others, and obligated to reciprocate. An exercise like ours might
remind people that they need to repay the kindness of others, and they may
resent these obligations and even report strong negative feelings toward their
benefactors.
Exactly.
The workout
The participants in the experiment fell into three groups. Once a week the participants in a group which one of the groups in the study had to keep a journal briefly describing, in a single sentence, five things for which they were grateful that had occurred over the past week.
[Just so you know, another group did the "opposite", describing five hassles that had occurred that week. The group that hasn't featured yet, the control group, was asked to record five events that had affected them that week, with no indication in their brief as to whether these should be positive or negative events.]
The payback
This is definitely what your Michelin Guide would describe as Vaut le Voyage. Plus it’s an exercise you only have to do once a week!
Emmons summarises the payback thus:
So I was surprised at how dramatically positive our results were. At the end of the 10 weeks, participants who’d kept a gratitude journal felt better about their lives as a whole and were more optimistic about the future than participants in either of the other two conditions.
Those in the gratitude condition reported fewer health complaints and even
spent more time exercising than control participants did, and significantly more
time exercising than those in the hassles condition (nearly 1.5 hours more per
week). This is a massive difference. The gratitude group participants also
experienced fewer symptoms of physical illness than those in either of the
other two groups.
Your gear
No purchase is necessary. Scribble on what you’ve got to hand.
If you think it’s necessary to have a special journal, and you don’t have a yummy notebook languishing in your attic, then you could mosey down to Paperbacks and choose a fine notebook. Spend by all means if you think the guilt and pleasure will motivate you to keep up your records.
I suppose the advantage of recording your gratitude (wince,wince) in a special book, especially if its covetability is factored into its price, is that one might keep the journalling up. If its texture grabs you, if you use a pen whose ink flows smoothly, if the paper’s plain (so adult, open, lacking the constraints of ruling) then the sheer tactile pleasure should provide the fix that draws you to your weekly date at the Happiness Gym House.