How A Gratitude List Can Change Your Life- Lessons from Neuroscience

- Yes, Forreal!-

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Self help books tout it as one of the first steps to changing your life, morning routine videos on Youtube are sharing it as one of the steps “successful” people use to get themselves ready for the day and self love bloggers and influencers are vlogging their routines around it.

So, what is this magical solution everyone is raving about?

None other than a gratitude list.

Each day you simply write down five to ten things you are grateful for, these can range from being thankful for the weather to something deeper- say, a friend who supported you when you were in need.

It sounds easy, almost too easy.

As “feel good” as this concept is, I began to wonder…

What is this really doing for our health?

Why is everyone and their mother recommending it?

And is this practice something that can seriously change our lives?

Turns out, it is.

Gratitude Lists Physically Change Your Brain

Yes, you read that right!

Writing down what you are grateful for each day changes the physical structure of your brain! How cool?!

Our brain is made up of pathways of nuerons connected through synapses, each time we repeat an action, thought or feeling we strengthen the particular pathway it used.

Like a river we carve each pathway deeper and deeper into the structure of our brain.

This is called “Neuroplasticity”

“Neuroplasticity” is the finding in psychology that we are constantly changing and building our brain’s neurological structure.

When we learn something new we create a new neural pathway, and overtime, as we practice, we strengthen this path.

This is an insanely exciting discovery because it proves that we have control over our brains and our learning patterns after initial development.

In fact, you can create new pathways up until the day you die!

Nueroplasticity and Creating Habits

A great example of how nueroplasticity works is through the experience of habits.

Have you ever tried to break a habit? It’s difficult, very difficult!

The reason for this is because we have carved such a strong pathway that once we get triggered our brain wants to immediately go down the deeper carved path, the stronger one.

This works not only with actions but with perceptions as well.

Whenever something happens it becomes really easy for us to take a route of positivity or negativity depending on what we are used to focusing on.

If we have practiced optimism there is a much larger chance our brains will automatically reroute us to find the optimistic response.

When we get into a daily habit of creating a gratitude list our brain begins to build a deep pathway for gratitude.

We become used to looking for what is going right in our lives and start to focus on and find things to appreciate during our day to day.

Through repetition we actually change the structure of our brain to be primed for happiness!

Gratitude Lists Can Help Us Be More Successful!

Okay, that was a broad statement, I know. BUT building on what we just spoke about in the last section I would say that it is 100% true!

In these modern times we are bombarded with millions of different stimuli every. single. day.

Our brains cannot process every thing that is happening around us let alone the stimuli coming from the inner world.

To deal with this influx of stimuli our brain develops a filter.

In the book the “Happiness Advantage” the author, Shawn Achor tells us that scientists estimate we only remember 1 out of every 100 pieces of information we perceive, the rest gets filtered out.

Now how does our brain decide which information to focus on and which information to dump?

Based on what we are looking for.

When you begin to change your brain to focus on the good things you begin to reap the rewards as your brain begins to filter out the negative and focus on the positive.

This change in perspective can help us stay in a happy mood, longer.

“This is great and all Liana, but how will this help me be more successful?”

Great Question!

In the book “The Happiness Advantage” the author speaks about the benefits of being happy.

“Happiness is the precursor to success, not merely the result. Happiness and optimism actually fuel performance and achievement- giving us what I call the happiness advantage”

And one more!

“Cultivating positive brains makes us more motivated, efficient, resilient, creative and productive, which drives performance upward”

From this we begin to understand that a daily practice of gratitude not only positively effects our personal life but our work life as well

Gratitude Lists Help Us Cope With Stress!

In our current world we are overwhelmed with so many triggers and stressors that many of us are stressed the heck out!

In fact, 18% of the US population suffers every day from anxiety and around 6.7% will suffer from Major Depressive Disorder (ADAA).

Gratitude can actually help both of these disorders and acts as a natural stress detox.

When we practice gratitude we release many different neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. These neurotransmitters help change our biological response and fight off depressive states.

Not only does a gratitude practice create positive neurotransmitters, it also decreases cortisol, by 23%!

A simple daily routine of gratitude lists can help us in so many ways, mentally and physically!

How to Use A Gratitude List

Now that we know why gratitude lists work, let’s take a look at how to actually use them productively.

Like anything else that is going to affect change in your life, it is going to take time and repetition.

Consistency is the name of the game.

“So when should I create my gratitude list?”

As for timing, I have heard arguments for both.

Morning sets you up on the right path for the day, you get your mindset in the right place and prime yourself for noticing the good things that come along during the day.

On the other hand at night you can reflect upon the day and look at what went right.

You put yourself into a good feeling place before sleep, a time of day where we can easily slip into worry or anxiety reflecting on the past or stressing about the future.

My suggestion? Figure out what works for you!

Some people will love waking up bright and early and getting the day started on the right foot, others (like me) will want to reflect and journal at night with a hot mug of tea and a book to follow.

To really see change you want to do this every day, I would recommend starting by pairing it with something that is already part of your normal routine- in habit development they call this “habit stacking”.

Do you always make coffee right as you wake up? Write it as you drink it!

Journal at night? Write it before the rest of your reflection!

By pairing it with something you are already used to doing it can seamlessly infuse itself into your life.

“What should be in it?”

Anything!!

The only rule is that you can’t repeat yourself every day.

Try and find something each day to get really excited about! Since you have to write down 5-10 examples each day you begin to run out of generals really quickly.

Instead of writing “I am grateful for my sister” what about writing “I am grateful my sister made me lunch today!” “I am so grateful my mom sent me the sweetest text today” “The man at the coffee shop who complimented my shirt!”

Getting detailed in your gratitude list is the fastest way to get you really excited and helps you to begin noticing the smaller moments in your day to day life.

To really milk it I will read over my list a couple times and bring myself back to the moments I am reflecting on and try to really experience the feelings.

Sometimes I even imagine myself physically sending out the good vibes to everyone who I am expressing gratitude towards!

Let me know below in the comments if you keep a gratitude journal! Do you feel like it helps? How would you say it affects your mindset?