GRATITUDE BOOMERANGS

A boomerang is a clever hunting device developed by ancient peoples. Most people think only of indigenous Australians. But they have been found in digs over 30,000 years old in Poland as well as in ancient Egypt and in Navajo lands. They are designed to throw out and bring something you need -- food -- back to you.

Photo: Aoineko. Australia Cairns Boomerang.

It turns out, gratitude is a boomerang that returns happiness and satisfaction to you -- food for your mind, body and soul. And that turns out to make you a healthier human, physically, psychologically, and spiritually.

 

Gratitude is a state of being in which you notice and appreciate the positive in the world.

Photo: Courtesy of eGuide Travel.

Gratitude has been found to have one of the strongest links with mental health of any character trait. Recent studies suggest that grateful people are more likely to have higher levels of happiness and lower levels of stress and depression.

 

Here are some of the specifics:

 

• Grateful people also have higher levels of control of their environments. They can better determine the qualities of where they live, work, play, and who they do it all with.
   

• Grateful people are better at coping adversity. They are more likely to seek support from other people and to grow from the experience.
   

• Grateful people are less likely to use negative coping strategies. They are less likely to try to avoid the problem, deny there is a problem, blame themselves, or cope through substance use.
   

• Grateful people sleep better. They think less negative and more positive thoughts just before going to sleep.
   

• Grateful people cope better with change and life transition. Births, deaths, gains, losses, and shifts are experiences we all live through. They both present challenges and opportunities. Gratitude can help you to reap more benefits from change.
   

• Grateful people take better care of themselves. University of California Davis psychology professor Robert Emmons' research indicates that grateful people engage in more regular exercise, a healthy diet, (and) regular physical examinations." His research also revealed that grateful people tend to be more optimistic, a characteristic that boosts the immune system.
   

• Grateful people have healthier hearts. Blair Justice, Ph.D., professor-emeritus of psychology at the UT School of Public Health at Houston reports that growing body of research supports the notion that rediscovering a sense of abundance by thinking about those people and things we love lowers the risks of coronary events."

Photo: Ed Yourdon.

Gratitude offers lots of other benefits, both for your life and the lives you touch:

 

• Gratitude makes you more generous. Studies show that gratitude directly correlates to monetary giving. Grateful people tip more. Gracious people are more likely to sacrifice individual gains for communal profit.
   

• Gratitude makes you more empathetic.

Photo: Ed Yourdon.

Gratitude makes you a better lover, partner, parent, friend, family member, community member, and team mate.

While numerous studies have demonstrated that people gain many benefits by expressing gratitude,  a new study, led by Sara Algoe, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found that expressions of gratitude correlated with positive effects on both sides of relationship units. This is the first to show how the target of gratitude reaps these relationship benefits.

Photo: Courtesy of The Unbounded Spirit.

Seventy-seven partners rated their relationship satisfaction and were filmed expressing gratitude to each other for something nice their partner had done for them recently.

After receiving gratitude, the participants rated their partner’s responsiveness --  how much their partner seemed to understand, validate, and care for them. Previous studies showed that the more responsive partners are to each other, the more intimate they are with each other.

Photo: Courtesy of Having Time.

The results, published in the journal Emotion, show that after receiving gratitude, participants saw their partner as significantly more responsive to their needs and were more generally satisfied with their relationship. And, these positive effects were still observed six to nine months later. A kind word goes a long way.

 

The researchers also observed that expressing and receiving gratitude seemed to have jump-started an “upward spiral of gratitude-fueled mutual displays of responsiveness that would contribute to improved relationship quality.”

 

Photo: Uzma Hayat.

 

Algoe has received a grant through the Greater Good Science Center’s Expanding Gratitude project to advance her research into the specific aspects of gratitude communication that lead to better relationships.

Photo: Courtesy of If I were a Rainbow.

Here are some Gratitude Exercises that we like:

 

1. Gratitude Letter – Write a letter of gratitude to someone who has been a positive influence in your life describing how you were affected and what it meant to you. For maximum benefit, deliver the letter in person.
    

2. Three Good Things – At the end of each day, think of three good things that happened that day, considering even the smallest positive event.
    

3. Best You – Reflect on an experience that demonstrated you at your very best. Write about it and describe your feelings.
    

4. New Use of Signature Strengths – Understand your special skills and abilities often called your signature strengths. Each day find a new way to utilize one of your strengths.
    

5. Three Questions – At the end of each day, ask yourself these three questions:

   1. "What/Who has surprised me?,"

   2. "What/Who has touched me?"

   3. "What/Who has inspired me?"
       

See for yourself how this works. Check out the Gratitude Experiment by SoulPancake in this video that we featured in The New Science of Gratitude.

Photo: Courtesy of Live With Gratitude.

If you’d like a lovely reminder, Live with Gratitude offers beautiful carved wooden gratitude boomerangs. They hang them over their doorways to remind them, and everyone who walks through them, that gratitude can change their lives.

Photo: Courtesy of Ethereal Wellness Counseling.

Read more about Gratitude, as it relates Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact in our posts throughout this week, including New Ideas about Gratitude, The New Science of Gratitude, Food Gratitude, But You Did, & I Thank You, and Top 10 Thanks for Travel.

Get busy and enter the BN Competitions, Our theme this week is Gratitude. Send in your images and ideas. Deadline is 12.01.13.

 

Photo: Courtesy of InterActiveMediaSW.

Also, check out our special competition: The Most Beautiful Sound in the World! We are thrilled about this effort, together with SoundCloud and The Sound Agency. And we can’t wait to hear what you’ve got!