Since we’re on the subject of gratitude, let me share the story of Martin Seligman’s famous “Thank You” Letter Experiment. The results prove a direct link between gratitude and happiness, and besides, you may be inspired.
Here’s some background: Dr. Martin Seligman is a renowned psychologist and, along with several key players, was instrumental in bringing professional prestige and global recognition to the study of positive psychology. In 1998, when Dr. Seligman assumed the presidency of the American Psychology Association, he used his considerable influence from that position to create a new branch within the study of psychology whose primary mission, role and scope was directed toward well-being. Incredible, right? For centuries, psychological study and practice was focused almost entirely on disease and disorder.
After this auspicious start, Dr. Seligman and his colleagues at U Penn, among many others, have studied the impact of various approaches to improving human well-being from the foundation of positive psychology, and one of the studies was on the power of gratitude on happiness. During the course of a week, the study subjects (over 400 people) were asked to write a heartfelt and highly descriptive letter of gratitude to someone whom they’d never properly thanked and to deliver the letter personally. Each subject was to ask for a personal meeting with the recipient without revealing the reason for the visit and, then during the face-to-face visit, read the letter aloud. The results were astounding. The letter writers and recipients exhibited a huge increase in happiness scores and a decrease in depression scores immediately after the exercise, and they sustained a continued benefit for over a month after the visit. The “Thank You” Letter Exercise had a greater impact that any other “happiness” intervention studied by Seligman’s group (Siegel, 2009).
Other researchers have gone on to mimic this study’s results and reinforce its findings, and other studies suggest that sending or delivering the letter are not necessarily essential to a measurable gain in happiness. “Gratitude Letter” writers experience a happiness boost by writing to someone who is deceased or cannot be reached.
How touching and significant: expressing and receiving gratitude can both bring a heightened sense of happiness! Try this if you’d like to explore more opportunities to enrich your well-being with gratitude: set aside a few minutes each day and write down five things—large or small—for which you’re grateful. You may think of a trusted friend you appreciate or a chance encounter that warmed your heart or a beautiful view. As you write, try to be very specific and relive the sensations that you felt. When you remember the whole experience—the sights, smells, sounds and textures from the gratitude moment—you enhance the memory grooves in your brain and increase the chance that the happiness will linger.
Sandwich your days with your own “Thank You” exercises. Start your day with a meditative moment of thanks—whether you have journaling time or not. If you’re too tired to write in your Gratitude Journal one evening, try another approach: speak or silently focus your list of five “Thank Yous” as a practice, making it part of an evening recitation or prayer. Science tells us there’s a happiness boost when you make appreciation a habit.
With Love and Light,
Doctor Mell
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Siegel, R (2009). Positive psychology: Harnessing the power of happiness, personal strength, and mindfulness. Special Health Report. Harvard Medical School, Harvard University. <www.health.harvard.edu>
