As an Adjunct Professor at Drury University, I would assign my students the task of writing a letter of gratitude to someone in their life who they felt had made a significant impact upon them. I asked the students to be specific and detailed while writing the gratitude letter in the way that person had influenced their life. I required the students to schedule a meeting with that person and to read the letter to them in person. If meeting the person was not possible, I required the students to call the person and read the letter to them over the phone. After completing that part of the assignment I then asked the students to write down their perceptions of how they believed the recipient of the letter responded and then to record how they felt as the one offering gratitude.
Initially, there were some moans, groans, and other complaints such as “I can’t do this,” “I don’t know anyone,” “Do we have to,” and other creative responses. I would remind them that topass this course of Positive Psychology they would have to complete the assignment. Each semester, every year, after completing the assignment most of my students would report back amazing results. Every year or two there was the occasional student who would report back that nothing significant happened. Also, there were a few times that some students declared that their experience had been life changing.
Gratitude is just being grateful and thankful to life and all that life brings us, to others, to ourselves, to God, to Nature, to just life itself. The benefits of living a grateful life are enormous, endless, and powerful. Living a grateful lifestyle can be life-changing and research shows it can be brain changing. The neuroscience of gratitude shows that it impacts relationships, resilience, mental and physical health. When we experience gratitude, it creates physiological changes at the neurotransmitter level of the brain (Fox et. al., Frontiers in Psychology, 2015). Also, gratitude regulates the sympathetic nervous system and can condition the brain to filter the negative ruminations and focus on positive thoughts (Wong et. al., Psychotherapy Research, 2018.)…