back to indexThe Science of Gratitude & How to Build a Gratitude Practice | Huberman Lab Podcast #47
link |
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,
link |
where we discuss science and science-based tools
link |
for everyday life.
link |
I'm Andrew Huberman,
link |
and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology
link |
at Stanford School of Medicine.
link |
Today, we are talking all about the science of gratitude.
link |
In part, we're doing this
link |
because of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday,
link |
which of course is all about giving thanks, gratitude,
link |
but also because there's now a wealth of data
link |
showing that having an effective gratitude practice
link |
can impact a huge number of health variables,
link |
both mental health and physical health in positive ways,
link |
things like cardiovascular health,
link |
things like relationships, things like mental health,
link |
things like physical and cognitive performance,
link |
and these are not small effects.
link |
These are very large positive effects.
link |
However, in researching this episode,
link |
I was completely surprised as to what constitutes
link |
an effective gratitude practice.
link |
I, I think like many of you,
link |
would have thought that an effective gratitude practice
link |
simply involves writing down a few things
link |
or many things that we're grateful for.
link |
We're thinking about those,
link |
or really making an effort to somaticize
link |
or feel some of the elements of gratitude
link |
while writing out that list or thinking about that list.
link |
It turns out that an effective gratitude practice
link |
doesn't resemble that at all.
link |
The neuroimaging data, the physiological data,
link |
looking at things like inflammatory markers,
link |
other studies purely looking at the psychology
link |
and the long and short-term effects of an effective
link |
gratitude practice point to a completely different approach
link |
to using gratitude to positively impact health metrics.
link |
Fortunately, these are things that we can all do
link |
Some of them are actually fun.
link |
You can do them in a variety of contexts.
link |
So today we're going to talk about the science
link |
of effective gratitude practices,
link |
and we're going to describe what those are
link |
and how you can incorporate them into your life.
link |
Before we dive into today's topic,
link |
I just want to highlight a particularly interesting set
link |
of findings from the literature.
link |
This is a study that came out in the journal Cell Report,
link |
Cell Press Journal, excellent journal.
link |
It's very relevant to today's topic.
link |
In fact, we're going to spend more time with this paper
link |
a little bit later in the episode.
link |
The study involved having subjects listen to a story.
link |
The subjects are all listening to the same story,
link |
but those subjects are not listening to it together.
link |
They're not rounded up in a circle or all in a room.
link |
They're in separate rooms or entirely separate locations
link |
on the planet, or they are actually brought
link |
into the laboratory on separate days.
link |
What this study found is that different subjects
link |
listening to the same story
link |
undergo the same variation in heart rate.
link |
In other words, the gaps between their heartbeats
link |
start to resemble one another
link |
in response to the same story.
link |
Now, this is very interesting.
link |
This is a coordination of the physiology of the body
link |
in response to a narrative, a story, in different people.
link |
And yet when they line up the heart rates
link |
of these different people who listen to the story
link |
at completely different times,
link |
they find that those heart rates map onto one another
link |
almost identically.
link |
It's really remarkable.
link |
We're going to talk about what this means
link |
in terms of coordination of neural circuits in the brain
link |
and neural circuits in the body and the organs
link |
such as the heart, but also the lungs
link |
and other organs of the body,
link |
and what this means for changing one's overall state.
link |
A key thing that's going to come up today again and again
link |
is the distinction between traits,
link |
which are pervasive aspects of who we are
link |
and how we tend to react to different types of circumstances
link |
and states, which are more transient.
link |
They tend to, you know, you can invoke a state in somebody,
link |
a state of fear or a state of relaxation.
link |
But what this study really starts to point to
link |
is that there are specific approaches
link |
that any of us can take
link |
in order to really rewire our nervous system
link |
such that we are calmer if we want to be calmer
link |
in certain circumstances,
link |
that we are more responsive in certain circumstances
link |
if that's our goal.
link |
So we'll return to how one would go about doing that.
link |
I think these results are just beautiful
link |
in the sense that they really show
link |
that our brain and our body are highly coordinated
link |
because people are listening to the story
link |
and the heart rate is changing in response to the story,
link |
but that there is a, what we call a stereotopy,
link |
a sort of stereotyped response to a given story.
link |
In my mind, there was no reason
link |
why the results had to be this way.
link |
You know, two people listen to the same story.
link |
Why should their heart rates be almost identical
link |
to the same story?
link |
Very, very interesting and points
link |
to the power of narrative and story
link |
in coordinating our physiology.
link |
And this is something powerful that we can leverage.
link |
Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast
link |
is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
link |
It is, however, part of my desire and effort
link |
to bring zero cost to consumer information about science
link |
and science-related tools to the general public.
link |
In keeping with that theme,
link |
I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.
link |
Our first sponsor is Roca.
link |
Roca makes eyeglasses and sunglasses
link |
that are of the absolute highest quality.
link |
I've spent a lifetime working on the visual system,
link |
and I can tell you that the visual system
link |
has a number of important features
link |
that allow you to see things with crystal clarity
link |
no matter what environment you're in.
link |
So that means if you're in bright sunlight
link |
or you go into shadows,
link |
you should be able to see everything clearly.
link |
But many eyeglasses and sunglasses actually short circuit
link |
that feature of our visual system
link |
and make it such that we have to take off our glasses
link |
or if our screen dims,
link |
we feel like we can't see things quite right.
link |
Roca eyeglasses and sunglasses
link |
have completely solved that problem.
link |
In addition, they're very lightweight,
link |
so you don't even remember that they're on your face.
link |
And if you get sweaty, they don't slip off.
link |
They were actually designed for cycling and running
link |
and things of that sort, but they have a terrific aesthetic.
link |
So I wear readers at night or out to dinner
link |
or when I'm driving, I wear their sunglasses.
link |
And the aesthetics are really terrific
link |
even though they're so-called performance glasses
link |
because as many of you know,
link |
performance glasses often make people look like cyborgs.
link |
These sunglasses and eyeglasses
link |
have the kind of aesthetic that you can wear them anywhere,
link |
while cycling, running,
link |
but also doing anything else you might be doing.
link |
If you'd like to try Roca glasses,
link |
you can go to roca.com, that's R-O-K-A.com
link |
and enter the code Huberman
link |
to save 20% off your first order.
link |
Again, that's Roca, R-O-K-A.com
link |
and enter the code Huberman at checkout.
link |
Today's podcast is also brought to us by Inside Tracker.
link |
Inside Tracker is a personalized nutrition platform
link |
that analyzes data from your blood and DNA
link |
to help you better meet your immediate
link |
and long-term health goals.
link |
I'm a big believer in getting regular blood work done
link |
for the simple reason that many of the factors
link |
that impact your immediate and long-term health
link |
can only be analyzed from a quality blood test.
link |
And now with the advent of modern DNA tests,
link |
you can also get insights into your genes
link |
and how those affect or should affect your immediate
link |
and long-term health choices.
link |
A big problem with a lot of blood tests
link |
and DNA tests out there, however,
link |
is that you get the data back
link |
and you don't know what to do with the data.
link |
Inside Tracker has solved that problem
link |
with a very easy to use dashboard
link |
where you get your numbers back from your blood tests,
link |
your DNA tests, and then it points to specific
link |
lifestyle factors, nutritional factors, and so forth
link |
that can allow you to bring the numbers
link |
into the ranges that are optimal for you.
link |
This is a huge advantage over other blood tests
link |
and DNA tests out there.
link |
Another feature that Inside Tracker has
link |
is their inner age test.
link |
The inner age test shows you what your biological age is
link |
and you can compare that to your chronological age.
link |
And of course your biological age is equally,
link |
if not more important than your chronological age.
link |
So this is an important number
link |
that you can get from Inside Tracker.
link |
If you'd like to try Inside Tracker,
link |
you can go to insidetracker.com slash Huberman
link |
to get 25% off any of Inside Tracker's plans.
link |
And if you're listening to this
link |
during the week of Thanksgiving, 2021,
link |
and you live in the United States,
link |
you can get a special offer for this week only.
link |
You can get $200 off their ultimate package,
link |
25% off any other package,
link |
and you'll get the inner age test for free.
link |
Again, just go to insidetracker.com slash Huberman.
link |
Today's episode is also brought to us by Magic Spoon.
link |
Magic Spoon is a zero sugar, grain-free,
link |
keto-friendly cereal.
link |
I'm not following a ketogenic nutrition plan.
link |
What works best for me is to fast
link |
until about 11 AM or noon most days,
link |
and then to eat a low carbohydrate lunch,
link |
a low carbohydrate snack in the afternoon,
link |
and in the evening is when I eat my starches.
link |
That's what allows me to be alert throughout the day
link |
for work, for exercise, and so forth,
link |
and then to sleep really well at night.
link |
That's just what works for me,
link |
but it does require that throughout the day,
link |
I'm eating fewer carbohydrates than I am at night.
link |
And oftentimes I want a snack,
link |
and the snack I want is usually Magic Spoon.
link |
Magic Spoon has zero grams of sugar,
link |
13 to 14 grams of protein,
link |
and only four net grams of carbohydrates in each serving.
link |
It's absolutely delicious.
link |
I particularly like the frosted flavor
link |
because it tastes like donuts,
link |
and then I try not to eat donuts.
link |
No vendetta against donuts,
link |
but it's not really compatible with my eating plan.
link |
They also have flavors like cocoa, fruity, peanut butter.
link |
They're really delicious.
link |
Any ideas you have about keto-friendly cereals
link |
and foods not being delicious,
link |
you have to try Magic Spoon.
link |
It'll change your mind.
link |
In fact, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it right now.
link |
If you want to try Magic Spoon,
link |
you can go to magicspoon.com slash Huberman
link |
to get a variety pack.
link |
Just use the promo code Huberman at checkout
link |
to get $5 off your order.
link |
Again, that's magicspoon.com slash Huberman,
link |
and use the code Huberman to get $5 off.
link |
Let's talk about gratitude.
link |
And to begin, I'd like to emphasize the various aspects
link |
of mental and physical health that have been shown
link |
to benefit from a regular gratitude practice.
link |
There are studies showing that performing
link |
a gratitude practice twice or three times
link |
or even just once a week can lead to a pervasive,
link |
a long-lasting impact on subjective wellbeing.
link |
People report feeling happier, more meaning,
link |
joy, even awe for their life experience,
link |
simply in response to adding a gratitude practice.
link |
The key thing is it has to be the right gratitude practice.
link |
And we're going to talk about
link |
what the right gratitude practice looks like
link |
in just a little bit.
link |
But there are additional benefits of a gratitude practice.
link |
There are studies showing that a regular gratitude practice
link |
can provide resilience to trauma in two ways.
link |
It can provide a reframing and resilience
link |
to prior traumatic experiences.
link |
So buffering people against the negative
link |
physiological effects and psychological effects
link |
of earlier trauma, but also inoculating them in many ways
link |
to any traumas that might arrive later in life.
link |
So that's a powerful thing.
link |
And today we will talk about
link |
how that's actually accomplished.
link |
It's actually accomplished by shifting the way
link |
that the fear and defense networks
link |
in the brain actually function.
link |
We'll get right down into the details of that.
link |
The other thing that a gratitude practice does
link |
is it's been shown to benefit social relationships,
link |
but not just for the relationship
link |
in which you express gratitude, right?
link |
So on the face of it, you might think,
link |
okay, if I express gratitude for somebody over and over,
link |
over and over, over and over,
link |
then I'm going to feel better about that person.
link |
And indeed that is one effect of a gratitude practice
link |
that's called a prosocial or inter-social gratitude practice.
link |
But there are now several studies,
link |
recent studies in good journals,
link |
pointing to the fact that a regular gratitude practice
link |
can also enhance one's social relationships
link |
across the board, in the workplace, at school,
link |
with family, in romantic relationships,
link |
and even one's relationship to themselves,
link |
which is really what the subjective feelings
link |
So it's clear to me that an effective gratitude practice
link |
has an outsized effect on many, many aspects
link |
of mental and physical health.
link |
And for those of you that are coming to this conversation
link |
thinking gratitude practice,
link |
oh, that's kind of wishy-washy or woo,
link |
it's going to involve putting your hand on your heart
link |
and feeling into all the amazing things
link |
that you happen to have,
link |
even when things are really terrible,
link |
that's not where we're going at all.
link |
And equally important is to understand
link |
that the neurochemical, the anti-inflammatory,
link |
and the neural circuit mechanisms
link |
that gratitude can invoke are equally on par
link |
with some of the effects of pharmacology,
link |
of things like high-intensity interval training and exercise
link |
and other things that we think of
link |
as kind of more potent forms of self-intervention.
link |
So if you are of the mindset that a gratitude practice
link |
is kind of weak sauce,
link |
buckle up because the data actually point to the fact
link |
that a gratitude practice is a very, very potent way
link |
in which you can steer your mental and physical health
link |
in positive directions,
link |
and that those effects are very long lasting.
link |
Before we dive into the tools and mechanisms
link |
and scientific studies around gratitude,
link |
I'd like to just set the framework for the discussion.
link |
Gratitude is what we call a prosocial behavior
link |
or a prosocial mindset.
link |
Now, you can be grateful for something
link |
without it involving anybody else.
link |
So the social part isn't meant to convey anything
link |
about interpersonal relations, although it can.
link |
And today we're going to talk a lot
link |
about how interpersonal relations can be incorporated
link |
into a gratitude practice in really powerful ways.
link |
But prosocial behaviors are basically any behavior
link |
or mode of thinking that allow us to be more effective
link |
in interactions with other people, including ourselves.
link |
Now, prosocial is not just a name
link |
that we give these different tools
link |
and practices and mindsets.
link |
They're actually neural circuits in the brain
link |
that are specifically wired
link |
for prosocial thoughts and behaviors.
link |
And these are distinctly different
link |
from the circuits in the brain
link |
that are involved in defensive behaviors.
link |
So without getting into too much detail just yet,
link |
we have circuits in the brain
link |
that are what we call a repetitive.
link |
They are designed to bring us closer to things
link |
and to bring us into closer relation
link |
to the details of that sensory experience.
link |
Now, that could be a delicious food that you're eating.
link |
It could be interacting with a loved one.
link |
It could be interacting with a friend
link |
or anyone that you happen to like.
link |
It could even be in your relation to yourself.
link |
These circuits that we're calling prosocial circuits
link |
light up in the brain in neuroimaging,
link |
meaning the neurons are firing more actively,
link |
more electrically, robustly,
link |
sort of like turning up the volume on these neural circuits
link |
And the neural circuits in the brain
link |
that are associated with aversive or defensive behaviors,
link |
things like backing up,
link |
things like covering up the vital organs of the body,
link |
things like a quaking of the voice,
link |
all of the things that are associated
link |
with defensive behaviors are actually antagonized,
link |
meaning they are reduced
link |
when the prosocial circuits are more active.
link |
So the framework here that I'd like to set
link |
is that we have this kind of seesaw
link |
of neural circuits in the brain,
link |
one set that are prosocial
link |
and are designed to bring us closer to others,
link |
including ourselves,
link |
closer to certain sensory experiences, right?
link |
Because a lot of prosocial behaviors
link |
can also be geared towards things like pets or food
link |
or anything that we find we want to be closer to
link |
Whereas the defensive circuits involve areas of the brain,
link |
yes, such as areas that are involved in fear,
link |
but also areas of the brain and body
link |
that are literally associated with freezing
link |
or with backing up.
link |
So the way to think about gratitude
link |
is that falls under this category of prosocial behaviors,
link |
which are designed to bring us closer
link |
to different types of things
link |
and to enhance the level of detail
link |
that we extract from those experiences.
link |
Now, the existence of these two neural circuits
link |
that I've placed on this sort of a metaphorical seesaw,
link |
runs counter to a lot of the messaging
link |
or the ideas that were put forth in the last century
link |
about the psychology of happiness and gratitude
link |
versus the psychology of depression and struggle
link |
and concern about the future.
link |
In fact, I'd like to read a quote from the great,
link |
and we really should call him the great Sigmund Freud,
link |
because despite having certain traits
link |
that people criticize him of,
link |
Freud was indeed a genius about many aspects of psychology.
link |
But I just want to read you
link |
Freud's stance on happiness,
link |
and this invokes elements of gratitude as well,
link |
and then you can gauge for yourself.
link |
Quote, our possibilities of happiness
link |
are already restricted by our constitution.
link |
So he's saying that we're basically wired
link |
to not have happiness easily.
link |
Unhappiness is much less difficult to experience.
link |
We are threatened with suffering from three directions,
link |
one from our own body,
link |
which is doomed to decay and dissolution
link |
and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety
link |
as warning signals.
link |
Two, from the external world,
link |
which may rage against us with overwhelming
link |
and merciless forces of destruction.
link |
And three, and finally, from our relations with others,
link |
the suffering of which from this last source
link |
is perhaps more painful to us than any other.
link |
That's Sigmund Freud.
link |
And not all of his writings were that pessimistic,
link |
What Freud is referring to there
link |
are those defensive circuits.
link |
And of course, he talked about psychological defensives.
link |
And in full disclosure,
link |
I am a huge fan of much of the psychological literature
link |
and psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud
link |
and his descendants, Jung and others.
link |
I think there are strong elements of truth there,
link |
but it gives you a sense of the kind of mindset
link |
of psychology early in the last century.
link |
And then of course,
link |
was the emergence of the positive psychology movement,
link |
which was really about invoking the understanding
link |
and eventually the elucidation of the neural circuits
link |
for things like happiness and awe and affiliation
link |
and things that we are calling prosocial circuits.
link |
So the field of psychology has a dark and light,
link |
and the field of neuroscience has a dark and light.
link |
You have these, what we call parallel pathways in the brain.
link |
And we have parallel pathways in the mind
link |
that set us up for feeling good about things
link |
or for feeling less good about things.
link |
I think what's really salient from the quote from Freud
link |
is that what he's saying is our default
link |
is to be concerned about the future,
link |
to be wrapped in our defenses.
link |
And to some extent that's true.
link |
And the reason we can say that's true
link |
is because most of us need a gratitude practice.
link |
We need to do certain things in order to feel good
link |
and to feel happy.
link |
We actually have to put work into it.
link |
It is quite possible that there's an asymmetry
link |
in the way that these prosocial
link |
versus defensive circuits are set up,
link |
such that because defensive circuits
link |
are designed to keep us safe,
link |
psychologically and physically safe,
link |
that they have more robustness
link |
or they can actually drive our behavior more easily.
link |
I'll give you an analogy in the system
link |
that I'm most familiar with as a neuroscientist,
link |
which is the visual system.
link |
In the visual system, we have parallel pathways.
link |
We have neurons in our eye that respond
link |
when things in our environment get brighter.
link |
Literally when the lights go up,
link |
these neurons start firing like crazy.
link |
And we have neurons in our eye that respond
link |
when things get darker, when things start dimming
link |
or go from white to black.
link |
The circuits for detecting darkening
link |
are much more robust and much more numerous
link |
than are the circuits for brightness.
link |
And that is probably related, probably,
link |
to the fact that dark objects
link |
or experiencing looming, meaning incoming objects
link |
and being able to perceive them
link |
is something that's vital to our survival.
link |
Whereas being able to perceive the brightening of things
link |
might be important to survival in certain contexts,
link |
car lights coming at you at night or something of that sort,
link |
but not as often in a kind of a evolutionary
link |
or ethological context as the darkening of things.
link |
So I think Freud's quote and the field of psychology
link |
now point to the fact that indeed
link |
we have the capacity for happiness
link |
and we have the capacity for great worry and concern
link |
and depression and unhappiness.
link |
And the neural circuit literature also supports that.
link |
The key thing for today's discussion
link |
is that gratitude turns out to be
link |
one of the most potent wedges
link |
by which we can insert our thinking,
link |
and as you also see, the physiology of our body,
link |
between these two circuits
link |
and give a little more levity, if you will,
link |
to the side of the seesaw
link |
that's associated with positive prosocial feelings.
link |
And if you keep imagining this seesaw imagery,
link |
what's really beautiful about gratitude practices
link |
is that if they're performed repeatedly
link |
and not even that often, but repeatedly,
link |
then one can actually shift their neural circuits
link |
such that the seesaw
link |
that I'm calling prosocial versus defensive behaviors
link |
can actually start to tilt.
link |
And the little hinge, if you will,
link |
on the seesaw in the middle
link |
can be adjusted in a little tighter
link |
when the side for gratitude and for wellbeing
link |
and for feelings of happiness is a little bit higher.
link |
What this means is that
link |
whether or not Freud was right or wrong,
link |
whether or not the neuroscientists in one camp
link |
or another right or wrong,
link |
we now know with certainty
link |
that a regular gratitude practice
link |
can shift the prosocial circuit
link |
so that they dominate our physiology and our mindset
link |
in ways that can enhance many, many aspects
link |
of our physical and mental health by default.
link |
So we don't always have to constantly be in practice
link |
trying to be happy.
link |
So the succinct way of saying all this is,
link |
yes, indeed, we might be wired
link |
or in such that we have a greater propensity
link |
for unhappiness than happiness,
link |
but gratitude practices,
link |
provided they are the effective ones
link |
and they are performed regularly,
link |
can shift those circuits
link |
such that we are happier on average
link |
even when we are not performing those practices.
link |
Now I'd like to talk about some of the neurochemistry
link |
and neural circuits associated with gratitude
link |
and prosocial behaviors.
link |
Numerous times on this podcast,
link |
I've talked about so-called neuromodulators.
link |
Those of you that might've forgotten
link |
or have never heard of neuromodulators before,
link |
neuromodulators are chemicals that are released
link |
in the brain and body
link |
that change the activity of other neural circuits.
link |
They make certain brain areas more likely to be active
link |
and other brain areas less likely to be active.
link |
These neuromodulators have names like dopamine,
link |
serotonin, acetylcholine, epinephrine, and so on.
link |
The main neuromodulators associated with gratitude
link |
and prosocial behaviors tends to be serotonin.
link |
Serotonin is released from a very small collection
link |
of neurons in the brainstem called the RAFA,
link |
R-A-P-H-E, the RAFA nucleus,
link |
and a few other places in the brain.
link |
And the RAFA neurons send these little wires
link |
that we call axons out to numerous places in the brain
link |
and they tend to increase the activity
link |
of particular neural circuits that lend themselves
link |
to more approach to particular types of experiences.
link |
That makes total sense if you think about it,
link |
have a chemical that under certain circumstances
link |
is released in the brain
link |
that triggers the activity of neural circuits
link |
that makes the organism, you,
link |
more likely to stay in an interaction with something
link |
or even lean in and seek a more detailed interaction
link |
with that person, place, or thing.
link |
Beautiful work from a cognitive neuropsychologist.
link |
His name is Antonio Damasio.
link |
He's a world-class neuroscientist,
link |
has been in the game a very long time,
link |
has explored the so-called neural correlates of gratitude.
link |
And two main brain areas are activated
link |
by these serotonergic systems.
link |
And when people experience something
link |
that makes them feel gratitude,
link |
even if it's shallow gratitude or deep,
link |
and if it's all the way to deep gratitude,
link |
they see activation of these particular brain circuits
link |
I'll mention in a moment.
link |
And the amount of activation scales
link |
with how intensely the person experienced
link |
the feeling of gratitude.
link |
And those two areas have particular names.
link |
You don't need to know the names,
link |
but for those of you that want to know,
link |
they are the anterior cingulate cortex
link |
and the medial prefrontal cortex.
link |
And of course, these brain areas are connected
link |
to a number of other networks in the brain.
link |
In fact, that's how they get you or others
link |
to lean into certain experiences
link |
because when these areas are active,
link |
certain thought processes get invoked.
link |
Those thought processes probably resemble something like,
link |
hmm, I'd like to experience more of this,
link |
or hmm, this feels really good.
link |
And then they literally feed onto your muscles
link |
via the neurons, making you happy to stay stationary
link |
if you're experiencing something you like,
link |
or to move closer to something
link |
that you find attractive to you, literally.
link |
So these are powerful circuits.
link |
Of these two brain areas,
link |
the one I'd like to focus on the most
link |
is the medial prefrontal cortex.
link |
Many of you have probably heard
link |
of the medial prefrontal cortex
link |
because this is the area of the brain
link |
that is involved in planning and in deep thinking
link |
and evaluation of different types of experiences,
link |
past, present, or future.
link |
It seems actually that pretty much every study
link |
of a human anything seems to involve
link |
the medial prefrontal cortex,
link |
or at least one could get that impression
link |
just by looking at scientific abstracts
link |
and papers these days.
link |
So I think it's worth us taking a step back
link |
and asking what does the medial prefrontal cortex
link |
How could this one piece of neural real estate
link |
that we all have right behind our forehead,
link |
how could that be involved in so many different things?
link |
And the reason it can be involved
link |
in so many different things,
link |
and the reason it's especially important for gratitude
link |
is that medial prefrontal cortex sets context, okay?
link |
and it literally defines the meaning of your experience.
link |
Now, this is not at all an abstract phenomenon.
link |
I'm going to give a very physiological example of this,
link |
and then we're going to translate it to gratitude,
link |
but I really want everyone to understand
link |
how is it that medial prefrontal cortex
link |
sets the context of everything in your life?
link |
Well, it does it the following way.
link |
You have a number of circuits deeper in your brain
link |
that simply create some sensations,
link |
or they allow you, I should say,
link |
to perceive certain sensations.
link |
Let's use the example of cold exposure,
link |
something that we'd sometimes talk about in this podcast
link |
for other reasons.
link |
If you were to deliberately place yourself
link |
into an ice bath, it would be uncomfortable,
link |
even if you're adapted to cold and so forth.
link |
The discomfort is non-negotiable.
link |
However, if you are doing it because you want to,
link |
or because you have knowledge
link |
that there are particular health benefits,
link |
the medial prefrontal cortex can then control areas
link |
of your deeper brain, like the hypothalamus,
link |
to positively impact the neurochemicals
link |
that are released into your system.
link |
You'll still get a lot of adrenaline
link |
by getting into the ice bath,
link |
but the fact that you are doing this deliberately
link |
and your knowledge that you are making the choice,
link |
that it's you that's deciding
link |
to put yourself through this discomfort,
link |
has been shown to create a very different
link |
and positive effect on things like dopamine,
link |
on things like anti-inflammatory markers
link |
in your immune system, et cetera,
link |
compared to if someone pushes you into an ice bath,
link |
or if you are doing it because someone insists
link |
that you do it and you really, really don't want to.
link |
So there's a very subtle distinction here.
link |
It's just the distinction of motivation and desire
link |
or lack of motivation and being forced into something.
link |
And there are a number of other effects
link |
of this that have been described.
link |
In the episode with Robert Sapolsky
link |
that I did earlier this last year,
link |
he talked about a study in animals,
link |
which has also been shown in humans.
link |
If you take a mouse, for instance,
link |
and it runs on a running wheel,
link |
which mice really like to do,
link |
there are many positive effects
link |
on reducing blood pressure,
link |
improvements in neurochemistry, et cetera, in that mouse.
link |
However, if there's a mouse in the cage right next to it
link |
that's trapped in the running wheel
link |
and it has to run every time the other mouse runs
link |
because the wheels are linked,
link |
well, then the second mouse
link |
that's forced to do the exact same running
link |
experiences negative shifts in their overall health metrics.
link |
Blood pressure goes up, stress hormones go up, et cetera,
link |
because it's not actually making the choice.
link |
Medial prefrontal cortex is the knob,
link |
or the switch, rather, that can take one experience
link |
and allow us to frame it
link |
such that it creates positive health effects.
link |
And the exact same experience framed
link |
as something we don't want to do,
link |
or that we are forced to do,
link |
can create negative health effects.
link |
Now, how exactly the neurons
link |
in medial prefrontal cortex do that is rather complicated
link |
and frankly, not completely understood,
link |
but it's somehow able to adjust the activity
link |
of other neural circuits that are purely reflexive.
link |
As we say in neuroscience,
link |
like really dumb neural circuits
link |
that are just like switches and place a context onto it.
link |
So gratitude is a mindset
link |
that activates prefrontal cortex,
link |
and in doing so sets the context of your experience
link |
such that you can derive tremendous health benefits,
link |
which leads us to the question,
link |
what kind of gratitude practice
link |
is going to accomplish this, right?
link |
Because it is not simply the case that I could take a knife,
link |
don't, please don't do this experiment,
link |
and cut my hand and say, oh, you know,
link |
I'm going to enjoy this.
link |
I'm doing this because this is good for me
link |
and it won't hurt.
link |
Of course it'll hurt just like the ice bath is cold
link |
no matter what, but I can't lie to myself, right?
link |
If I have some knowledge that cutting myself is bad for me,
link |
that's very hard to override.
link |
And so the medial prefrontal cortex
link |
has a tremendous capacity to set context,
link |
and it does that beautifully with respect to gratitude,
link |
but you can't simply lie to yourself.
link |
You can't simply say, oh, well,
link |
every experience is a learning experience,
link |
or, you know, a terrible thing that happens,
link |
oh, good, I'm just going to say good,
link |
and that your body will react as if it's good for you.
link |
And frankly, it's a myth that's fairly pervasive
link |
in the self-help and self-actualization literature.
link |
We have the opportunity to reframe
link |
and set context on our experiences,
link |
but that requires a very specific set of practices.
link |
We can't simply lie to ourselves
link |
or quote unquote fake it until we make it.
link |
Neural circuitry is very powerful and very plastic.
link |
It can be modified, and it's very context dependent,
link |
but it's not stupid.
link |
And when you lie to yourself about whether or not
link |
an experience is actually good for you or not,
link |
So what does an effective gratitude practice look like?
link |
Well, let's examine what an ineffective,
link |
what a poor gratitude practice looks like,
link |
because therein lies some really important information,
link |
including the fact that I,
link |
and I think millions of other people out there
link |
are doing it wrong.
link |
Most gratitude practices that you see online
link |
and that people talk about in various talks and so forth
link |
involve something like writing down or reciting
link |
or thinking about five or 10 or three or 20 things
link |
that you're especially grateful for,
link |
and then really trying to feel into some of those,
link |
really try and think deeply about the emotions,
link |
the sensations, the perceptions that are associated
link |
with those particular people, places,
link |
and things on your list.
link |
Most studies actually point to the fact
link |
that that style of gratitude practice
link |
is not particularly effective in shifting
link |
your neural circuitry, your neural chemistry,
link |
or your somatic circuitry,
link |
the circuits in your body,
link |
because you literally have organs and neural circuits
link |
that are connected, the circuits of your brain and body
link |
toward enhanced activation of prefrontal cortex,
link |
enhanced activation of these pro-social neural networks
link |
that we were talking about earlier.
link |
Now that may come as a surprise to many of you,
link |
and certainly came as a surprise to me.
link |
There is some evidence that if there's a shift
link |
in so-called autonomic arousal
link |
during these gratitude practices,
link |
these ones that I'm calling ineffective,
link |
that they can be made slightly more effective.
link |
So what do I mean by a shift in autonomic arousal?
link |
Well, very briefly, we have a aspect to our nervous system,
link |
both within our brain and body
link |
that we call the autonomic nervous system.
link |
It's a little bit of a misnomer
link |
because autonomic means automatic,
link |
and in fact, we can take control
link |
of the autonomic nervous system.
link |
It has one branch, meaning one set of connections
link |
and circuits that are associated with making us more alert,
link |
the so-called sympathetic nervous system,
link |
or I should say sympathetic arm
link |
of the autonomic nervous system,
link |
but that's really a mouthful.
link |
It's really associated with enhanced alertness of any kind
link |
for excitement or fear,
link |
and it has nothing to do with sympathy.
link |
It's just about enhanced alertness.
link |
And then the other arm of the autonomic nervous system
link |
is the so-called parasympathetic arm
link |
of the autonomic nervous system,
link |
but that's also a mouthful.
link |
So let's just say it's the calming aspect
link |
of the autonomic nervous system.
link |
So it's associated with decreased heart rate,
link |
decreased breathing rate, et cetera.
link |
So we have these two aspects to our autonomic nervous system,
link |
and it has been shown that if people are brought
link |
into a state of heightened sympathetic tone,
link |
meaning more alertness,
link |
then the intensity of the emotions that they experience
link |
in their gratitude practice is enhanced,
link |
and the effectiveness of that gratitude practice
link |
This is seen nowadays somewhat commonly
link |
as having people, for instance,
link |
cyclic hyperventilated breathing,
link |
as we call it in my laboratory,
link |
breathing that's very intense of the inhale,
link |
exhale, inhale, exhale very deeply for 25 or 30 breaths.
link |
Then people will sit in a meditative stance,
link |
or they'll focus on their notepad and paper,
link |
and they'll write out the things that they're grateful for,
link |
and then they'll really try and feel into those things,
link |
or they'll think about those things.
link |
And it makes perfect sense
link |
as to why enhancing autonomic arousal
link |
toward more alertness would create more robust feelings
link |
or more robust impact of these gratitude practices,
link |
because in that state, you are more alert,
link |
and therefore you are able to bring more detail,
link |
more richness to the perception and the understanding
link |
of what those things on your list happen to be.
link |
But, and I should say
link |
that there are numerous other approaches to this,
link |
sort of self-help type stuff
link |
and self-actualization seminars,
link |
people will do things like cold baths,
link |
or they'll do chanting,
link |
or they'll have any number of different experiences,
link |
all of which are mainly geared
link |
towards increased autonomic arousal.
link |
There are even practices out there using pharmacology
link |
to create increased autonomic arousal
link |
and then drop into gratitude.
link |
those increase the potency of the gratitude practice
link |
of listing things out on paper or in one's mind
link |
or saying them out loud.
link |
But somewhat surprisingly, at least to me,
link |
that form of just expressing thanks,
link |
expressing gratitude is not the most effective way
link |
to shift these pro-social circuits in positive ways
link |
for one's physiology and anatomy and psychology.
link |
Turns out that the most potent form of gratitude practice
link |
is not a gratitude practice where you give gratitude
link |
or express gratitude,
link |
but rather where you receive gratitude,
link |
where you receive thanks.
link |
And this to me was very surprising.
link |
There are a number of studies about this now.
link |
One in particular that I think is interesting
link |
is called the prefrontal activation
link |
while listening to a letter of gratitude
link |
read aloud by a coworker face-to-face,
link |
a NIRS study, N-I-R-S.
link |
I'll explain what all this means.
link |
You now know what the prefrontal activation part is.
link |
This is activation of the prefrontal cortex.
link |
The NIRS, N-I-R-S study, that's just a technical term.
link |
It's a form of imaging brain activity.
link |
It's non-invasive.
link |
So it's kind of a skull cap.
link |
It looks like a hoodie with a bunch of wires
link |
coming out of it basically
link |
that can measure neural activity
link |
without having to remove any parts of the skull
link |
or put a person into one of these tube-like fMRI machines,
link |
which is very invasive.
link |
It's also a wonderful tool
link |
because it allows human subjects in the laboratory
link |
to move around and to engage with one another.
link |
So in this particular experiment,
link |
what they did is they had coworkers write a letter
link |
of gratitude of thanks to another coworker,
link |
unbeknownst to the other coworker,
link |
and then they sat down together
link |
and then they imaged brain activity
link |
as this letter was being read
link |
and as the letter was being heard, received.
link |
And it showed very robust effects
link |
on these prefrontal networks
link |
that pointed to the fact that receiving gratitude
link |
is actually much more potent
link |
in terms of the positive shifts that it can create
link |
than giving gratitude.
link |
So this raises a couple of important points.
link |
First of all, if you are somebody
link |
who is prone to write letters of gratitude,
link |
ideally, I think it's requisite
link |
that these be genuine letters of gratitude
link |
or saying things that are genuine expressions of gratitude,
link |
this could be by text or in-person or by phone,
link |
you have within you a very potent form
link |
of shifting somebody else's neurology.
link |
Now, that's wonderful,
link |
and I think there are many people like that out there,
link |
but for many people who want to experience
link |
the positive effects of gratitude,
link |
it's probably not the most advantageous approach
link |
to just sit around waiting,
link |
hoping that someone's going to deliver
link |
all these letters or words of gratitude.
link |
How is it that you can create that sense
link |
of receiving gratitude for yourself
link |
and thereby derive the effects of gratitude
link |
as outlined in this particular study?
link |
And there we go back to the important work
link |
of the great Antonio Damasio
link |
who explored these neural correlates of gratitude
link |
to define the areas of the brain
link |
that are associated with pro-social behaviors
link |
like the prefrontal cortex.
link |
And what's really interesting about the work
link |
that Damasio and colleagues did is,
link |
first of all, they used functional
link |
magnetic resonance imaging.
link |
So this is a very high resolution approach
link |
to exploring what areas of the brain are active
link |
and it has very high, what we call temporal resolution,
link |
meaning you can see things in time at very fine scales.
link |
So a lot of mechanistic detail
link |
can emerge from these sorts of studies.
link |
What they did was interesting.
link |
Rather than have people express gratitude,
link |
they had the subjects go into the scanner,
link |
so their brains are being imaged,
link |
and they watched narratives, stories about other people
link |
experiencing positive things in their life.
link |
And in this case, these were powerful stories.
link |
These were stories about survivors of genocide
link |
so that's what they're watching.
link |
The subjects were subjects
link |
that were not survivors of genocide.
link |
So they were watching these videotapes
link |
of people that had survived genocide
link |
and had people help them along the way
link |
as part of their story of survival,
link |
either psychological and obviously they survived
link |
long enough to make the video or physical survival.
link |
So within these stories,
link |
there was conveyance of a lot of struggle.
link |
These people talked about the horrible situations they were
link |
but also small but highly significant features
link |
of their history that had led
link |
to their own feelings of gratitude.
link |
So for instance, it says a woman at the image,
link |
this is literally from the scientific paper,
link |
somebody had been sick for weeks.
link |
So the woman's describing how she'd been sick for weeks.
link |
And then another prisoner who was a doctor
link |
finds a particular medicine somehow,
link |
it doesn't describe how, and literally saves her life.
link |
Or an ally who was also in a stricken circumstance
link |
gave this person a pair of glasses
link |
when their eyesight started to falter.
link |
So these sorts of stories.
link |
Now, just hearing this in the context
link |
of nothing but a scientific paper and discussion,
link |
these probably aren't that impactful.
link |
What's really important about this study
link |
and is really important for all of us to know
link |
is that these stories of other people receiving things
link |
that were powerful for them in their life trajectory
link |
is embedded in story.
link |
And the human brain especially
link |
is so oriented towards story.
link |
We have neural circuits that like to link together
link |
past, present, future, have different characters,
link |
protagonists and antagonists.
link |
From the time we're very young
link |
until the time we're very old,
link |
story is one of the major ways
link |
that we organize information in the brain.
link |
There does seem to be storytelling
link |
and story listening circuits in the brain.
link |
So what's important is not simply
link |
that these people survive genocide,
link |
that's obviously important and wonderful,
link |
but it's not just that they were helped along the way,
link |
it's that the description of their help
link |
is embedded in a larger story.
link |
So the human subject in this scientific study
link |
is watching these powerful stories.
link |
And the neural circuits associated with prosocial behaviors
link |
and with gratitude become robustly active
link |
when they start to feel some affiliation
link |
with the person telling the story.
link |
They start to feel some resonance.
link |
We might call that empathy,
link |
but it doesn't necessarily have to be empathy.
link |
Empathy is a somewhat complicated thing to define
link |
because it involves literally a setting aside
link |
of one's own emotions and really focusing almost entirely
link |
or experiencing almost entirely the emotions of another.
link |
It could be sympathy, it could be empathy.
link |
What we do know is that the stories themselves
link |
were able to shift the physiology
link |
of the subjects in this study
link |
and activate these what we're calling gratitude circuitry
link |
that involves the prefrontal cortex.
link |
So if you think about the earlier study
link |
that receiving gratitude is the most powerful way
link |
to activate these circuits for gratitude,
link |
the subjects in this study in many ways
link |
are receiving a sense of gratitude,
link |
but through the narrative of one of these other subjects,
link |
which I find fascinating.
link |
I would have thought a great gratitude practice
link |
would be to sit down and list out
link |
all the things you're grateful for.
link |
That just seems so logical to me,
link |
but it turns out that these neural circuits
link |
don't work that way.
link |
That to really activate these circuits for gratitude
link |
and the serotonin and probably the oxytocin system as well
link |
and its prefrontal networks,
link |
one has to powerfully associate
link |
with the idea of receiving help.
link |
The subjects are associating or experiencing empathy
link |
or sympathy for somebody else who received help.
link |
In the other study we described a few minutes ago,
link |
the person hearing the letter was receiving gratitude
link |
and that would amplify the activity of these circuits.
link |
And that takes us to a larger theme
link |
of what are these prosocial circuits?
link |
And an important concept to emerge from this
link |
is one that's most often associated
link |
with the autism literature, frankly,
link |
which is this idea of theory of mind.
link |
So just very briefly, theory of mind
link |
is the ability to attribute
link |
or to understand the experience of another
link |
without actually experiencing the thing
link |
that they're experiencing.
link |
Again, it kind of sounds like empathy,
link |
but this was actually a term
link |
that's now been demonstrated
link |
in the psychology and neuroscience
link |
that's been linked to some very robust findings
link |
associated with brain areas and so forth
link |
that was looking at autistic kids and non-autistic kids.
link |
The person largely responsible
link |
for developing theory of mind is Simon Baron Cohen.
link |
I believe he's either the brother or the cousin,
link |
I can't recall which,
link |
to the comedian Sasha Baron Cohen.
link |
Simon Baron Cohen is a professor at Oxford University,
link |
or at least he was the last time I checked.
link |
And the theory of mind test
link |
can be done on adults or on children.
link |
And we can sort of do that experiment right now,
link |
if you like, and you can think about how you would behave
link |
if you were a subject in a theory of mind test.
link |
Theory of mind test involves you or a child
link |
or some other adults sitting down
link |
and watching a video of a child going into a room
link |
or a person going to a room,
link |
opening up a desk or a dresser, a drawer, for instance,
link |
or a desk drawer, and placing something in it,
link |
like a pen or a toy, and then leaving.
link |
And then another person walking into the room
link |
and clearly looking for something in the room,
link |
and one presumes it's the toy or the pen,
link |
depending on the context.
link |
People who have strong theory of mind
link |
make the obvious conclusion
link |
that the person looking around for the pen or the toy
link |
is confused or they're perplexed.
link |
They don't know where the toy is.
link |
They're looking for the toy.
link |
Someone who is fairly far to one side
link |
of the autism or Asperger's spectrum
link |
will simply focus on the location of the object,
link |
on the location of the pen or the toy.
link |
And this is especially true in children.
link |
They will say, well, it's in the second drawer.
link |
It's in the second drawer.
link |
And they'll say, well, how does the person
link |
who comes into the room feel?
link |
And they'll say, well, it's in the drawer.
link |
So they tend to focus on the specific factual elements
link |
of the scenario rather than place their mind
link |
into the mind of the other person, so-called theory of mind.
link |
Now, that doesn't mean that people with autism
link |
and Asperger's don't have empathy.
link |
In some cases, they can.
link |
It sort of depends on where they are in the spectrum
link |
But theory of mind has very strong basis
link |
in these prefrontal cortex neural circuits
link |
that we were talking about because, as you now know,
link |
the prefrontal cortex sets context
link |
on what we see and experience.
link |
And the theory of mind task that I just described
link |
very briefly is a pure example of context setting, right?
link |
It's not about just the factual elements
link |
about the location of the objects.
link |
It's about the context.
link |
Someone is looking for something that someone else
link |
put someplace that makes it such that that object
link |
So basically, theory of mind is your ability
link |
to put yourself into the mindset of another.
link |
And in order to get activation of these gratitude circuits,
link |
one needs to put themselves into the mindset of another
link |
or to directly receive gratitude.
link |
So let's just take a moment and start to think about
link |
how we are going to build out
link |
the ultimate gratitude practice,
link |
meaning the most effective gratitude practice for us to do
link |
because of all the many positive effects
link |
that an effective gratitude practice can have
link |
if it's the proper one.
link |
It's very clear that receiving gratitude is powerful,
link |
but it's also very clear that waiting around
link |
to receive that gratitude is an impractical approach.
link |
Now, there are methods that have been developed
link |
by my colleague at Stanford, Kelly McGonigal,
link |
and others that actually have developed things
link |
for the workplace, for school, for coworkers and students
link |
to write out particular worksheets related to
link |
what they're thankful for from others and exchange them.
link |
And so those are very useful practices.
link |
I don't want to take anything away from the important work
link |
that Kelly and others have done.
link |
But in the absence of having other people
link |
to do these practices with,
link |
what we know for sure is that
link |
there has to be a real experience
link |
of somebody else's experience,
link |
and that the best way to do that is story.
link |
So in thinking about how to build out
link |
an effective gratitude practice,
link |
it's very worthwhile, I believe,
link |
to find someone's narrative that's powerful for you.
link |
In many ways to think about this is
link |
it's got to be a story that inspires you
link |
because of the, for lack of a better phrase,
link |
the beauty of the human spirit
link |
or the ability of humans to help other humans.
link |
And I find this remarkable because what this really means
link |
is that the circuits for gratitude
link |
are such that we can exchange gratitude.
link |
We can actually observe someone else getting help,
link |
someone else giving help.
link |
And that observation of our species
link |
doing that for one another
link |
allows us to experience the feeling of a genuine chemical
link |
and neural circuit activation lift, if you will.
link |
Very, very different than simply writing out the things
link |
that you're thankful for, right?
link |
And so how would you do this?
link |
Well, people digest story in a number of different ways.
link |
People watch movies, people listen to podcasts,
link |
people read books.
link |
There are a tremendous number of stories out there.
link |
It's clear that an effective gratitude practice
link |
has to be repeated from time to time.
link |
So what I would not suggest is that we build a protocol
link |
in which you're constantly foraging
link |
for inspirational stories over and over again.
link |
Social media and the internet are replete with those.
link |
That's not going to be a very potent protocol or tool
link |
because the most potent protocol or tool for gratitude
link |
is going to be one that you repeat over and over again.
link |
Rather, the most effective protocol or tool
link |
is going to be either to think into,
link |
and you could write this out if you like,
link |
but think into when somebody was thankful
link |
for something that you did
link |
and really start to think about how you felt
link |
in receiving that gratitude or, and or I should say,
link |
imagining or thinking about deeply the emotional experience
link |
of somebody else receiving help.
link |
Now, what narrative you select
link |
is going to be very dependent on you and your taste.
link |
It's going to be very dependent on what resonates with you.
link |
But again, I want to emphasize that the story
link |
that you select does not have to have any semblance
link |
to your own life experience.
link |
It's just about what happens to move you.
link |
And so the way that one could do this,
link |
and actually I've started this practice for myself
link |
on the basis of the learnings I've had
link |
in the last few weeks around preparing for this episode,
link |
is to find a story that's particularly meaningful for you
link |
and then to just take some short notes, bullet point notes
link |
about maybe list out, for instance,
link |
on just a small sheet of paper or in your phone,
link |
if that's your preference, just list out, for instance,
link |
what the struggle was, what the help was,
link |
and something about how that impacts you emotionally.
link |
Okay, this is something just for you.
link |
You don't have to share it with anybody.
link |
That kind of shorthand list of bullet point notes
link |
serves as your shorthand for getting into this mode
link |
that we're calling gratitude and actually closely mimics
link |
a lot of what was done in these various studies.
link |
Because even though the studies I've talked about
link |
up until now were really focused on what we call acute
link |
imaging studies, where someone watched a story
link |
or received gratitude while the experiment was done
link |
and then that's it, one and done.
link |
There are other studies looking at gratitude in this context
link |
over many weeks, up to six weeks.
link |
And what one observes is that there's so-called
link |
neuroplasticity of these circuits.
link |
Neuroplasticity is the brain and nervous system's ability
link |
to change in response to experience.
link |
And that these neural circuits start developing
link |
a familiarity with the narrative.
link |
So that, for instance, let's say you sit down
link |
the first time you've found a story
link |
that you find particularly compelling,
link |
you've written down a few notes about what that story is,
link |
just to remind you, and then you read those out
link |
and you think into the richness of that experience,
link |
that receiving of gratitude, or if you prefer,
link |
you're doing the protocol where you're thinking about
link |
when someone was deeply grateful or was genuinely grateful
link |
to you, that you're thinking about that,
link |
the neural circuits become activated more easily
link |
with each subsequent repeat of the practice.
link |
Now, this could be done literally for one minute
link |
or two minutes or three minutes.
link |
This is not an extensively long practice.
link |
And that's another beauty of gratitude practices
link |
is that they have these outsized positive effects
link |
on so many aspects of our physiology,
link |
but these are very short practices.
link |
They're the kind of thing that you can do,
link |
walk into your car, the kind of thing you can just sit down
link |
for a minute and set a timer and do,
link |
because they are really about changing
link |
your state of mind and body.
link |
And if you have an experience of receiving gratitude
link |
or a story that's very potent for you,
link |
it becomes a sort of shortcut into the gratitude network,
link |
these pro-social networks,
link |
meaning the activation of these circuits
link |
becomes almost instantaneous.
link |
And that's very different
link |
than a lot of other practices out there.
link |
I'm not aware of any meditation practices, for instance,
link |
that you can do only a few times,
link |
and then within a week or so,
link |
you just have to do them for one minute,
link |
you immediately drop into the kind of optimal state
link |
that that meditation practice is designed to create.
link |
There are some shorter meditation practices
link |
that are very potent and very effective like that,
link |
but gratitude and the circuits associated with it
link |
appear to be especially plastic,
link |
meaning especially prone to being able to be triggered
link |
in the good sense of the word triggered,
link |
just by simply reminding yourself
link |
of this particular narrative.
link |
Now there's another very clear and positive effect
link |
of using this narrative or story-based approach
link |
to a gratitude practice.
link |
And that's what story does for our physiology.
link |
Earlier in the episode,
link |
I mentioned this really incredible study
link |
in which listening to a story
link |
coordinated the heart rate of different individuals
link |
and literally changed the way that their heart was beating.
link |
The title of this study
link |
is conscious processing of narrative stimuli
link |
synchronizes heart rate between individuals.
link |
The first author is Perez, again, published in Cell Reports,
link |
Cell Press Journal, excellent journal.
link |
And it's a really elegant study.
link |
They looked at instantaneous heart rate.
link |
They use electrocardiogram to do that,
link |
which is simply a way to look at heart beats
link |
with very fine precision.
link |
They also looked at the breathing of subjects
link |
as they listened to these stories.
link |
Some of you may know that breathing and heart rate
link |
are actually linked to one another
link |
in a really interesting way.
link |
The simple way to put it is that when you inhale,
link |
your heart rate speeds up a little bit.
link |
And when you exhale, your heart rate slows down.
link |
And this is because of the movement of the diaphragm
link |
in your thoracic cavity.
link |
And the physicians and medical types
link |
call this respiratory sinus arrhythmia.
link |
There's a mechanism there we could get into,
link |
but I don't want to distract us from the main theme here.
link |
So just remember when you inhale, your heart rate speeds up.
link |
And when you exhale, your heart rate slows down.
link |
They looked at breathing.
link |
They looked at heart rate in different individuals.
link |
And listening to a story produced very consistent gaps
link |
between the heart rates of the people who are listening.
link |
Different individuals in the study who were not located
link |
in the same place when they listened to the story,
link |
listening to the story in different times,
link |
different days entirely,
link |
had very similar heartbeat patterns listening to this story.
link |
What this means for your gratitude practice
link |
is that having a story that you can return to
link |
over and over again, even if it's not the entire story,
link |
you're just using the shorthand bullet point
link |
version of your story,
link |
will create a perceptible and real shift
link |
in your heartbeat and in your breathing.
link |
And actually that's been demonstrated over and over now
link |
that an effective gratitude practice
link |
is one that can rapidly shift,
link |
not just the activation of these circuits in your brain
link |
for pro-social behaviors,
link |
but also activation of particular circuits in your heart
link |
and in your lungs and the other organs of your body
link |
such that you can get into a reproducible state
link |
of gratitude each time.
link |
So an important component here
link |
is that there be some element of story.
link |
Again, you don't have to listen to or read
link |
or think about the entire story start to finish
link |
in order to extract these benefits
link |
and that it be the same story over and over.
link |
And as a consequence, that's going to shift your physiology
link |
into presumably a more relaxed state
link |
because typically that's the one
link |
that's associated with gratitude.
link |
Although activation of these gratitude circuits
link |
has also been shown to create sense of awe or sense of joy.
link |
There are a few studies looking at and kind of parsing
link |
the difference between gratitude and joy.
link |
I was able to find a few studies about that,
link |
but in general, the neural circuits that are activated
link |
tend to overlap quite a lot
link |
with those that create a sense of gratitude.
link |
So we don't want to split hairs unnecessarily there.
link |
The key thing is that you want to use the same story,
link |
even if it's your own experience or somebody else's
link |
and keep coming back to it over and over again.
link |
That makes it a very potent tool
link |
that you can get a tremendous amount of benefit from
link |
with even as short as 60 seconds of practice.
link |
Earlier, I talked about how you can't lie to yourself
link |
and say, you know, I'm so grateful for this thing
link |
that I actually hate.
link |
And in a moment, I'm going to tell you
link |
about some scientific data
link |
that proves the statement I made is true
link |
and that you can't just lie to yourself
link |
and derive the benefits of a gratitude practice.
link |
The data are also going to point to the fact
link |
that if you are giving gratitude,
link |
not just receiving it, but giving gratitude,
link |
that too has to be genuine.
link |
There's a really interesting study
link |
published in Scientific Reports,
link |
which is a nature research journal.
link |
The title of it is, neural responses to intention
link |
and benefit appraisal are critical
link |
in distinguishing gratitude and joy.
link |
It's a somewhat complicated study,
link |
so I'm just going to hit on some of the high points.
link |
But basically what they did
link |
is they use functional magnetic resonance imaging.
link |
So they could look at brain circuitry activation
link |
with very high precision.
link |
And they had people receiving money
link |
in the context of this experiment.
link |
And they had some knowledge as to whether or not
link |
the money that they were receiving
link |
was given to them wholeheartedly or reluctantly.
link |
And there were a number of different variables in the study,
link |
including how much money was given.
link |
So in some cases it was very little,
link |
in other cases it was modest,
link |
in other cases it was a lot more.
link |
And they also varied the extent
link |
to which the giver of the money,
link |
that they called the benefactor,
link |
was doing it wholeheartedly
link |
or seemed to be doing it somewhat reluctantly.
link |
And they looked at whether or not the sense of gratitude
link |
scaled with the amount of money received
link |
and or the intention of the benefactor,
link |
whether or not the person giving the money
link |
was doing it wholeheartedly or reluctantly.
link |
And what's remarkable is that
link |
while the amount of money given was a strong component
link |
in whether or not somebody felt
link |
that they had received gratitude, which makes sense,
link |
you know, the amount of money is some metric
link |
of whether or not somebody feels thanked.
link |
The stronger variable, the bigger impact,
link |
came from whether or not the person giving the money
link |
was giving it with a wholehearted intention
link |
and not a reluctant intention.
link |
And of course there was an interaction
link |
where the best circumstance of course
link |
is where the person received a lot of money
link |
from somebody who wholeheartedly
link |
wanted to give them a lot of money.
link |
And they did every derivation of this,
link |
but this is important.
link |
This tells us many things that extend way beyond
link |
gratitude practices,
link |
which is that genuine thanks are what count, okay?
link |
We could probably presume that,
link |
but receiving genuine thanks is also a strong variable
link |
in determining whether or not we experience real gratitude
link |
or whether or not it's empty,
link |
regardless of the size of a gift.
link |
So this constrains our gratitude practices somewhat,
link |
but I think in an interesting and important way,
link |
you can't make this stuff up.
link |
You can't tell yourself that an experience was great
link |
or that, you know, I got a lot of money
link |
and therefore it justified it,
link |
even though, you know,
link |
I think that they gave it to me reluctantly
link |
or my boss hates me, but they gave me a raise.
link |
That stuff stings for all the right reasons,
link |
because there are circuits in our brain and body
link |
that are oriented towards these pro-social interactions.
link |
And in some sense, what we are looking for as a species,
link |
what these circuits want, if you will,
link |
is to receive things from people
link |
that are giving them wholeheartedly.
link |
And that tells us that if we are the giver,
link |
that we better be giving wholeheartedly
link |
or we are undermining the sense of gratitude
link |
that someone is going to receive from us.
link |
So we are gradually building up
link |
the ultimate gratitude practice
link |
based on the variety of scientific literature
link |
And I know that many people are probably interested
link |
in developing a gratitude practice
link |
that has long lasting,
link |
maybe even permanent positive effects
link |
on their neural circuitry.
link |
So with that in mind,
link |
I want to turn our attention to a really interesting study.
link |
It's entitled Effects of Gratitude Meditation
link |
on Neural Network Functional Connectivity
link |
and Brain-Heart Coupling.
link |
And to make a long story short
link |
and a lot simpler than that title,
link |
repeated gratitude practice changes the way
link |
that your brain circuits work.
link |
And it also changes the way in which your heart
link |
and your brain interact.
link |
You're familiar with the fact
link |
that your brain controls your heart
link |
because you could be stressed about something
link |
that's perceived with your brain
link |
and then your heart rate will speed up.
link |
You're probably also familiar with the fact
link |
that if your heart rate speeds up
link |
for some reason or no reason,
link |
you're probably thinking,
link |
well, what's making my heart rate speed up?
link |
And that's because the brain and the heart
link |
are reciprocally innervated, as we say.
link |
They're talking to one another in both directions.
link |
It's a two-way highway.
link |
This study looked at changes in so-called
link |
functional connectivity within the brain
link |
and between the brain and the heart
link |
in response to gratitude practices.
link |
And as a control, they used what I think
link |
is very interesting, a resentment intervention.
link |
I think resentment is an apt control
link |
and quite different than gratitude.
link |
To make a long story short,
link |
what they found is that a repeated gratitude practice
link |
could change the resting state,
link |
functional connectivity in emotion and motivation
link |
related brain regions.
link |
If I haven't mentioned a strong enough incentive
link |
for doing a regular gratitude practice until now,
link |
this is definitely the one to pay attention to.
link |
Because what they found was a regular gratitude practice
link |
could shift the functional connectivity of emotion pathways
link |
in ways that made anxiety and fear circuits
link |
less likely to be active
link |
and circuits for feelings of wellbeing,
link |
but also motivation to be much more active.
link |
I find that remarkable and important
link |
because a number of people
link |
struggle with issues of motivation.
link |
A lot of people who are highly motivated
link |
also have issues with anxiety and fear.
link |
And so this study really points to the fact
link |
that it's a twofer.
link |
If you have a good gratitude practice
link |
and you repeat it regularly,
link |
you reduce the fear anxiety circuits,
link |
you increase the efficacy of the positive emotion,
link |
feel good circuits and the circuits associated
link |
with motivation and pursuits are actually enhanced as well.
link |
So that's very strong incentive
link |
to have a gratitude practice and one that you use regularly.
link |
We'll talk about how regularly in just a moment.
link |
I don't want to go into too many details of this study,
link |
although we will put a reference to it if you like,
link |
it includes a lot of FMRI data,
link |
imaging data of different brain areas,
link |
many, many tables and examples of matrices
link |
of before and after gratitude, after resentment, et cetera,
link |
you do indeed have circuits in your brain for resentment,
link |
whether you like it or not, we all do.
link |
And some people just,
link |
those circuits are more robust than others.
link |
But the remarkable thing is one can shift these circuits
link |
in the direction that I think most people would like,
link |
which is more sense of wellbeing and motivation
link |
and less resentment and fear, literally.
link |
And what's really cool about this study also
link |
is that the interventions are only five minutes long.
link |
It's incredible, five minutes long.
link |
And so as we start to build out
link |
our ideal gratitude practice,
link |
we know that it has to have certain features.
link |
First of all, it has to be grounded in a story,
link |
probably a story that you've heard in its entirety
link |
at least once, but then you can have a shorthand version,
link |
the so-called bullet points that I talked about before
link |
that allow you to drop into that story
link |
or the emotional associations with that story.
link |
So you don't have to listen to the whole story each time.
link |
And that story should be one in which you are genuinely
link |
being thanked for something and it made you feel good.
link |
Or it could be a story about someone else
link |
genuinely expressing thanks, okay?
link |
Based on the description of the gratitude practices
link |
that we talked about earlier.
link |
Your gratitude practice can be very brief.
link |
I mean, it can be as brief as one minute, 60 seconds
link |
or five minutes, which still seems very brief to me.
link |
Although in these studies,
link |
they were getting these really major effects
link |
just from five minutes of gratitude practice.
link |
Some of these papers involve people doing some focusing
link |
on their breathing and calming themselves
link |
as they go into the gratitude practice,
link |
but that's within the five-minute block.
link |
So if you decide that you're going to do
link |
a gratitude practice that involves first,
link |
doing some calming breathing,
link |
exhale-emphasized breathing, for instance,
link |
or physiological sighs,
link |
things I've talked about before on this podcast
link |
that can help calm you down
link |
because they have a lot of exhales,
link |
which you now know slows your heart rate down,
link |
and then doing your gratitude practice, that's fine.
link |
It's actually not necessary,
link |
but a lot of these studies used that.
link |
I think once a narrative has been set,
link |
you've heard the story and it has meaning for you,
link |
or you have a recollection of a story
link |
where you are genuinely thanked,
link |
then I think just 60 seconds
link |
or maybe 120 seconds should be sufficient.
link |
Then the question becomes how often
link |
to repeat this gratitude practice.
link |
That's not exactly clear from the existing literature.
link |
I can't point to any one study that says five times a week
link |
or four times a week.
link |
So I'm going to throw out a number,
link |
which is three times a week,
link |
and then people will ask,
link |
well, when should I do that gratitude practice?
link |
And I'll tell you what I tell most everybody
link |
about most every practice with a few exceptions,
link |
which is the best time of day to do this practice
link |
is when you first wake up in the morning
link |
or before you go to sleep at night or any time of day.
link |
So we've talked about some of the neural circuitry changes
link |
associated with a regular gratitude practice.
link |
And I should mention that there's an additional
link |
neural circuitry shift that occurs.
link |
It relates to a structure that I mentioned
link |
just briefly earlier, which is the so-called ACC
link |
or anterior cingulate cortex.
link |
This is an area of the brain that has several functions,
link |
but more and more data are pointing to the fact
link |
that the ACC is actually involved in empathy
link |
and is involved in understanding the emotional states
link |
of others in general,
link |
even if it doesn't invoke a sense of empathy.
link |
And there are several studies that point to the fact
link |
that in humans who have a regular gratitude practice,
link |
the ACC becomes more robustly engaged,
link |
even with these very brief gratitude practices.
link |
We actually have a project in our lab.
link |
This is actually done in animal models
link |
where animals observe other animals
link |
experiencing certain emotional states.
link |
And one of the brain areas that we've identified
link |
as important for this,
link |
it's kind of a primordial form of empathy
link |
because we really don't know what these mice are thinking.
link |
We work on humans.
link |
In the case where we work on humans, of course,
link |
we ask them and they tell us
link |
what they think they're thinking.
link |
With the mice, we ask them,
link |
but they don't tell us much of anything interesting.
link |
Instead, we measure a number of physiological signals.
link |
But the important point is that the ACC,
link |
the anterior cingulate cortex,
link |
seems to be an important hub
link |
for the generation and execution of empathy
link |
as it relates to feelings and empathic behaviors,
link |
altruistic behaviors of animals helping animals
link |
and humans helping other humans.
link |
We see this in the animal models, we see this in humans.
link |
So if you want to be a more empathic person,
link |
a gratitude practice is also going to be
link |
very effective for that, it appears,
link |
especially using this narrative type approach
link |
where you are using someone else's narrative
link |
of receiving gratitude
link |
as a way to tap into your own sense of gratitude.
link |
Thus far, we've mainly talked about the effects of gratitude
link |
on neural circuit activation and changes
link |
a little bit about some of the changes that are happening
link |
in terms of the body, heart rate and breathing and so forth.
link |
But we haven't talked a lot yet
link |
about the changes in health metrics,
link |
in things like inflammation or reductions in inflammation
link |
and immunity and things of that sort.
link |
So with that in mind, I'd like to describe the results
link |
of a really interesting recent study
link |
that was published in the journal
link |
Brain Behavior and Immunity.
link |
This was published 2021.
link |
The title of the study is Exploring Neural Mechanisms
link |
of the Health Benefits of Gratitude in Women,
link |
a Randomized Control Trial.
link |
The first author is Hazlitt.
link |
And basically what this paper showed was that
link |
women who had a regular gratitude practice
link |
of the sort that we've been talking about up until now
link |
showed reductions in amygdala activity,
link |
a brain area associated with threat detection,
link |
a intimate part of the fear network in the brain.
link |
So reductions in amygdala activation
link |
and large reductions in the production
link |
of something called TNF alpha,
link |
tumor necrosis factor alpha and IL-6, interleukin-6.
link |
Now, if you happen to have listened to the episode
link |
that I did on activating your immune system
link |
and immune function, you heard about TNF alpha and IL-6.
link |
TNF alpha and IL-6 are inflammatory cytokines.
link |
These are chemicals that exist in your body
link |
and that are released from cells
link |
when there is damage or kind of a systemic stress
link |
when your system is in duress.
link |
And in the short term, they can be beneficial.
link |
They can call in signals for wound healing
link |
and repair of cells, et cetera.
link |
But you don't want TNF alpha and IL-6 levels to be too high
link |
and you don't want those levels to be up for too long.
link |
And so this study is really nice
link |
because they showed significant effects
link |
in reducing TNF alpha and IL-6
link |
in response to a gratitude practice.
link |
And because they also observed reductions
link |
in amygdala activation,
link |
this area associated with threat detection and fear,
link |
it's likely, and I should emphasize likely
link |
because I don't know, that the direction of the effect
link |
is that there are neural circuit changes
link |
which in turn shift the degree
link |
to which these inflammatory cytokines
link |
are released in the body.
link |
Although for all I know, it could be the other way too.
link |
It could be that having a gratitude practice
link |
shifts something about heart rate and breathing,
link |
which in turn shifts or lowers the amount of TNF alpha
link |
and IL-6 and that in turn reduces activation of the amygdala.
link |
We don't really know the direction of the effect,
link |
excuse me, but if I had to speculate,
link |
I would speculate that it was a shift in neural circuitry
link |
that led to a change in the circuits of the body.
link |
And another interesting aspect of this study
link |
is that the reductions in amygdala activation
link |
and the reductions in TNF alpha and IL-6 were very rapid.
link |
They occurred almost immediately
link |
after the gratitude practice was completed.
link |
And even though that study was performed
link |
exclusively on female subjects,
link |
based on the biology and circuitry of the amygdala
link |
and the biology of TNF alpha and IL-6
link |
performing this inflammatory role in both men and women,
link |
I don't see any reason why the results of that study
link |
wouldn't pertain to both men and women.
link |
So what about the chemistry associated with gratitude?
link |
Are there certain chemicals in our brain
link |
or that we could enhance in our brain
link |
that would enhance our gratitude practice?
link |
Indeed, there are.
link |
And earlier I mentioned the chemical, the neuromodulator,
link |
serotonin, as having a powerful influence
link |
on the activation of neural circuits
link |
associated with prosocial behaviors and gratitude
link |
and other sort of feel-good behaviors.
link |
To make a long story short,
link |
neuromodulators like dopamine and epinephrine
link |
and norepinephrine tend to place us
link |
into a state of exteroception,
link |
meaning a state of observing things and focusing on things
link |
outside the immediate reach of our body
link |
and confines of our skin.
link |
They tend to put us in pursuit
link |
or in thinking about things out in the future
link |
or out away from our physical body.
link |
Whereas the neuromodulator serotonin
link |
and some of the associated pathways
link |
like oxytocin and other neurochemicals tend to,
link |
I want to emphasize, tend to be associated
link |
with states that are about contentment
link |
with what we have within the confines of our body
link |
and our immediate experience.
link |
So they're not so much about pursuit,
link |
but about gratitude and about appreciation
link |
for what we already have.
link |
I'd be remiss if I didn't therefore point out
link |
that if one were to shift their chemistry
link |
toward having higher levels of serotonin,
link |
you would, by all logic,
link |
experience heightened levels of gratitude.
link |
And indeed, some people do this.
link |
They will take compounds that increase serotonin.
link |
There are a number of compounds out there.
link |
As you know, I'm certainly not suggesting people do that.
link |
A couple of the supplement-based
link |
legal over-the-counter approaches to this
link |
are things like 5-HTP, which is a precursor to serotonin.
link |
Some people will take 5-HTP to try and enhance their sleep.
link |
I'm not a fan of doing that personally.
link |
I've talked about this in the sleep episodes,
link |
but the state that we call sleep has a very complex
link |
and important architecture as it relates to neurochemicals.
link |
And by taking serotonin by supplement
link |
or by stimulating serotonin release by supplement
link |
with 5-HTP or with tryptophan,
link |
which is an amino acid precursor to serotonin,
link |
one can run into the problem
link |
of disrupting the normal architecture of sleep cycles
link |
throughout the night.
link |
I experienced that as if I've taken 5-HTP or tryptophan,
link |
I fall asleep very deeply,
link |
but then I wake up three hours later
link |
and I can't fall asleep at all.
link |
And actually it sometimes even messes up my sleep
link |
the subsequent night.
link |
Some people are not so sensitive to 5-HTP and tryptophan
link |
and they actually really like it.
link |
So again, you have to talk to your doctor,
link |
decide what's right for you,
link |
you're responsible for your health, not me,
link |
and you have to determine what works for you.
link |
Everyone's slightly individual.
link |
But one could imagine enhancing their amount of serotonin
link |
in their brain and body by taking 5-HTP or tryptophan
link |
before gratitude practice.
link |
That seems a little bit extreme
link |
given that the gratitude practice is only about a minute
link |
to five minutes long on a regular basis.
link |
But there may be instances in which you're really trying
link |
to amplify these circuitry in the brain and body
link |
that are associated with gratitude.
link |
And therefore that might be something
link |
that you want to explore.
link |
There's a new compound that's out there,
link |
a legal over-the-counter compound.
link |
At least it's legal in the United States.
link |
I don't know about overseas.
link |
And that's a compound called KANA, K-A-N-N-A.
link |
It's an interesting compound.
link |
It goes by another name as well, which is,
link |
and I'm going to mispronounce this and I apologize.
link |
This is selecium tortosum.
link |
Please see our timestamps if you want to see the spelling
link |
of that, but I'll just call it KANA
link |
by its other name for short.
link |
It's an herb that is traditionally chewed
link |
prior to stressing endeavors,
link |
is how it's described on examine.com.
link |
But I looked at some of the studies on this.
link |
It's kind of interesting.
link |
It very likely increases the amount of serotonin in the body
link |
and pretty potently.
link |
It is generally taken in dosages
link |
of anywhere from 25 to 50 milligrams.
link |
And it creates a kind of a pro-social gratitude enhancing,
link |
or I should say gratitude circuitry,
link |
pro-social neural circuitry enhancing effect
link |
because of the ways that it interacts
link |
with the serotonergic pathways of the brain.
link |
So it also has another name.
link |
It's sometimes called the zembrin, Z-E-M-B-R-I-N.
link |
Again, I'm not suggesting that people run out
link |
and take this stuff, but there is an emerging practice
link |
of people using zembrin,
link |
salicium tortosium, also called KANA, K-A-N-N-A,
link |
in order to enhance these states
link |
that are about comfort and pleasure
link |
with what one has in their immediate sphere of experience.
link |
And so one could imagine if it's safe for you
link |
and right for you and legal where you live,
link |
in enhancing serotonin by taking KANA
link |
and then doing your gratitude practice.
link |
What's the logic behind that?
link |
Well, oftentimes we hear about supplements
link |
and pharmacology for quote unquote,
link |
increasing plasticity or opening plasticity.
link |
If I had a dollar for every time someone said,
link |
I hear that such and such opens plasticity.
link |
Well, indeed there are molecules associated
link |
with the thing that we call neuroplasticity,
link |
but neuroplasticity is not an event.
link |
It's a process, meaning it has many, many steps.
link |
It occurs during wakefulness.
link |
It's consolidated during sleep and so forth.
link |
So taking a substance that increases a neurochemical
link |
in your brain will likely,
link |
provided it's the right substance
link |
and it's the right practice,
link |
will likely enhance the amplitude
link |
or the intensity of that practice
link |
and make it a more potent form of inducing neuroplasticity,
link |
meaning it will create longer lasting
link |
or more robust brain changes
link |
than if one hadn't increased their chemistry
link |
in this way, this way of taking something.
link |
But that doesn't necessarily mean
link |
that you couldn't get to the very same place without it
link |
by simply doing a slightly longer gratitude practice
link |
or putting a little bit more mental effort into it.
link |
That said, I think the future of neuroplasticity
link |
really resides in not just one approach,
link |
not just neurochemistry and taking substances
link |
to increase neuroplasticity,
link |
not just behavioral practices
link |
to try and increase neuroplasticity,
link |
not just brain machine interfaces
link |
or devices to increase neuroplasticity,
link |
but rather the convergence of multiple tools.
link |
So you could imagine enhancing serotonergic transmission,
link |
as we say, in the brain using something like Kana
link |
combined with a gratitude practice
link |
in the not too distant future.
link |
This will probably also be combined
link |
with some sort of noninvasive device
link |
to stimulate the prefrontal cortex at the same time.
link |
Please don't do that recreationally.
link |
Those devices are for clinical use only currently.
link |
But I think you start to get the idea.
link |
So for those of you that are a little bit more exploratory
link |
and you want to go and do some reading on this,
link |
I thought you might find Kana interesting.
link |
There are a number of studies that will pop up on PubMed.
link |
I recommend using examine.com as your jumping off point.
link |
There are some decent studies that they describe
link |
in their so-called human effect matrix.
link |
So those are studies done on humans.
link |
And the main effects that have been documented
link |
in the scientific literature are minor
link |
but significant increases in cognition, executive function.
link |
Executive function is something that's also associated
link |
with prefrontal cortex and reductions in anxiety.
link |
And that seems to be a common theme that we're seeing
link |
You saw this in the study, the trial where we saw reductions
link |
in TNF alpha and reductions in amygdala activation.
link |
So which would ostensibly lead to reductions in anxiety.
link |
You're seeing increases in activity and brain networks
link |
that are associated with feelings of wellbeing.
link |
So again, back to that kind of push-pull
link |
of defensive anxiety and fear-like circuitry in the brain
link |
being antagonistic, as we say,
link |
to the circuits that are associated with pro-social,
link |
feeling good, receiving good feelings type circuitry
link |
and events in life.
link |
So as you now know, there is a lot of science
link |
about how gratitude can positively impact neural circuits
link |
in the brain, anti-inflammatory markers in the body,
link |
brain, heart, breathing coordination,
link |
and on and on and on.
link |
I'd like to just highlight the key elements
link |
of the most effective, at least to my knowledge,
link |
gratitude practice.
link |
And when I say the most effective,
link |
what I'm doing is I'm gleaning from the scientific studies
link |
I was able to find and combining the various findings
link |
of those studies into what I think is a very practical
link |
and what should certainly be a very effective
link |
gratitude practice for all the positive effects
link |
that we described.
link |
First of all, that gratitude practice has to be grounded
link |
in a narrative, meaning a story.
link |
You don't have to recite or hear that story
link |
every single time you do the gratitude practice,
link |
but you have to know what that story was
link |
and what the gratitude practice references back to.
link |
Second of all, that story can be one
link |
of you receiving genuine thanks.
link |
And the key elements there are that you are the one
link |
receiving the thanks, the gratitude,
link |
and that it's being given to you genuinely, wholeheartedly.
link |
Or it can be a story of you observing someone else
link |
receiving thanks or expressing thanks.
link |
And that has to be a genuine interaction as well,
link |
both between the giver and the receiver.
link |
So those are the first three elements.
link |
What I recommend would be after you've established
link |
the story that you want to use for your gratitude practice,
link |
that you write down three or four simple bullet points
link |
that can serve as salient reminders of that story for you.
link |
It will serve as kind of a cue for that story
link |
without having to listen to or talk out the entire story.
link |
I would recommend writing down something about the state
link |
that you or the other person were in
link |
before they received the gratitude,
link |
the state that you were in or that the person was in
link |
after they received the gratitude,
link |
and any other elements that lend
link |
some sort of emotional weight or tone to the story.
link |
This could be three pages of text if you like,
link |
or it could just be a couple of bullet points.
link |
I don't think it really matters.
link |
The important thing is that it's embedded in your memory
link |
and that it's really associated
link |
with this genuine exchange of thanks
link |
and the receival of thanks.
link |
I think those are the key elements.
link |
And then it's very simple.
link |
The entire practice involves reading off these bullet points
link |
as a cue to your nervous system of the sense of gratitude.
link |
And then for about one minute,
link |
which is a trivial amount of time
link |
if you really think about it, or maybe two minutes,
link |
or if you're really ambitious up to five minutes
link |
of just really feeling into that genuine experience
link |
of having received gratitude
link |
or observed someone else receiving gratitude.
link |
And then in terms of frequency,
link |
I think a good rule of thumb would be to do that
link |
about three times a week.
link |
And the time of day doesn't really matter.
link |
I can't see why there would be
link |
any so-called circadian effects of this.
link |
I know some people like to do a gratitude practice
link |
before they go to sleep at night.
link |
I don't see any problem with doing this
link |
before you go to sleep at night.
link |
I also don't see any problem with you doing this
link |
on your lunch break or mid-morning
link |
or first thing in the morning.
link |
I can't see any logic for placing it
link |
any one time of day and not another.
link |
So I think the most important thing
link |
is that you do it at least three times a week.
link |
And as mentioned before, it's very, very brief.
link |
So there are very few barriers to entry for doing this.
link |
So if we just take a step back from this protocol
link |
and compare it to what's typically out there
link |
in the literature, which is,
link |
make a list of all the things you're thankful for,
link |
recite in your mind all the things you're thankful for,
link |
count your blessings.
link |
So I think everybody should be
link |
counting their blessings all the time.
link |
There's always something to be thankful for.
link |
But in terms of a scientifically grounded
link |
gratitude practice that is also scientifically demonstrated
link |
to shift your physiology at the level of your immune system
link |
and your neural circuitry, reducing anxiety,
link |
increasing motivation, all these wonderful things
link |
that so many of us are chasing all the time as goals,
link |
I think a gratitude practice reveals itself
link |
to be an immensely powerful tool for any and all of us
link |
to use, and that should come as no surprise
link |
because these pro-social circuits,
link |
these circuits for gratitude are not a recent phenomenon.
link |
Discussions about gratitude date back hundreds,
link |
if not thousands of years.
link |
What we've done today is to take the modern science
link |
right up until 2021 and to really distill from that
link |
the neuroimaging data, the neurochemistry,
link |
the various aspects of brain-body connectivity,
link |
look at the protocols, take various subject groups,
link |
some were done in women, some were done
link |
in between two individuals, some were done
link |
with brain imaging, all the various changes on a theme
link |
that allow us to point to a simple
link |
but very effective protocol that certainly we could all use
link |
around Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving is just but one day
link |
throughout the entire year, of course.
link |
I personally have been using a gratitude protocol
link |
for the last several years, but that protocol was based
link |
on my ignorance really about the scientific literature
link |
and was mainly based on what I'd heard out there
link |
on the internet, which is that I should list out
link |
or think about or verbally recite the things
link |
that I'm grateful for.
link |
The sort of protocol that we arrived at today
link |
based on the scientific literature
link |
is distinctly different from that.
link |
And as a consequence, I've started to script out
link |
a protocol identical to the one I just described,
link |
and I intend to use that going forward.
link |
If you're learning from and or enjoying this podcast,
link |
please subscribe to our YouTube channel.
link |
That's a terrific zero cost way to support us.
link |
In addition, please subscribe to us on Apple and Spotify.
link |
And on Apple, you have the opportunity to leave us a comment
link |
and up to a five-star review.
link |
Also, please check out our sponsors mentioned
link |
at the beginning of this episode.
link |
That's the best way to support this podcast.
link |
In addition, we have a Patreon,
link |
it's patreon.com slash Andrew Huberman,
link |
and there you can support this podcast
link |
at any level that you like.
link |
During today's episode and in many previous episodes,
link |
I mentioned supplements.
link |
Supplements aren't for everybody,
link |
but if you are going to use supplements,
link |
it's imperative that those supplements
link |
be of the very highest quality.
link |
For that reason, we partnered with Thorne,
link |
that's T-H-O-R-I-N-E, because Thorne supplements
link |
have the highest levels of stringency
link |
in terms of the quality of the ingredients they include
link |
and the precision of the amounts of the ingredients
link |
they include in their products.
link |
They partnered with every major sports team
link |
as well as the Mayo Clinic,
link |
so we're delighted to be partnered with them as well.
link |
If you want to see the supplements that I take,
link |
you can go to thorne.com slash the letter U slash Huberman,
link |
and there you can see all the supplements that I take,
link |
and you can get 20% off any of those supplements,
link |
or if you navigate into the site through that portal,
link |
thorne.com slash U slash Huberman,
link |
you can also get 20% off any of the other supplements
link |
that Thorne makes.
link |
Thank you for your time and attention today,
link |
learning about the science of gratitude,
link |
and last, but certainly not least,
link |
thank you for your interest in science.
link |
I'll see you in the next one.