Gratitude: What is it and why is it needed?
Gratitude is a feeling we get from good experiences, support, or kind acts. It lasts longer than many other feelings. Sometimes, we can feel grateful our whole lives.
Martin Seligman, who started positive psychology, defined gratitude in his book, “The New Positive Psychology.” He said it means seeing someone as morally good. It also means being able to be surprised and enjoy life.
We feel grateful when people are good to us. We can also feel grateful in a more general way, like being thankful that someone exists. We can even be grateful to things that aren't people, like God, nature, or animals.
Gratitude is a basic human need. When we get something valuable, we want to give something good back. This could be by doing something nice, saying thank you, or just thinking good thoughts.
Tatyana Scheglova, a Gestalt therapist, says gratitude connects to giving and taking. When we get something, we feel happy and want to thank the other person. This can be with our feelings or actions.
Gratitude helps us balance things out, finish an experience, and grow. If we don't feel grateful, we might feel angry or guilty. This can keep us stuck and make it hard to move forward.
For example, Misha's parents always take care of him. They make sure he eats well, sleeps enough, does his homework, and plays sports. But Misha doesn't feel grateful. He gets angry and wants his parents to leave him alone. His parents get annoyed and feel guilty. They try to take even better care of him. The family can find balance if the parents give Misha more freedom. Then, Misha might become more polite and independent. He might start to appreciate his parents' care and feel grateful. This would help their relationship get better.
Gratitude helps people understand each other. It makes both the person giving thanks and the person receiving it feel happy and inspired. Martin Seligman thinks gratitude is important for people to feel good in the long run.
Joel Wong, a researcher at Indiana University, studied how gratitude affects people. He and his team worked with 300 people who had mental health problems, like depression and anxiety. The researchers split the people into three groups. All of them got psychological help. But only one group wrote gratitude letters each week. The study found that writing these letters had several benefits:
Gratitude reduces stress and bad feelings like anger and envy.
Gratitude helps even if the letters are never sent. People who felt too shy to send their letters still started to appreciate others more. They also thought less about the negative things in their lives.
Gratitude helps with learning and making decisions. Brain scans showed that people who practiced gratitude had more activity in the front part of their brain.