Being Grateful
The Tetris Effect
Have you ever played a computer game all day? Something like Tetris or Call of Duty or a Car Racing Game?
What happened next? Did you end up seeing the video game in your everyday life?
Well, researchers at Harvard Medical School paid 27 people to play Tetris for hours a day for three days in a row. For days after, those participants saw Tetris shapes everywhere they looked. Their world became full of Tetris blocks![i]
This is not isolated to video games.
Studies have found that lawyers are 3.6x as likely to suffer major depression.[ii]
Why is this? Well there is a theory that it is due to the training that lawyers go though. From the beginning they are taught to look for the flaws in arguments and be critical rather than accepting.[iii][iv]
While these skills are likely to help them do their jobs well, when it bleeds into their personal life it creates a susceptibility to depression and stress.
Our Built in Spam Filter
So why does this happen?
Well, our brains can’t absorb everything around us. So like a spam filter filters your email, our brains filter out the spam in our world[v]. Or in other words, our brain chooses what it sees and what it doesn’t see. We see what we look for and filter out the rest.
Not convinced.
Inattentional Blindness
Have a look at this video
How did you go?
If you missed it, you’re not alone. In one experiment, 46% of people did too!
Selective Perception
Here is another experiment you can try.
Try this experiment.
Close your eyes and picture the colour red. Really picture it.
Now open your eyes and look around. Are all the red things popping out at you?
Your room wasn’t repainted while you closed your eyes, your mind has is just focusing on red.
So you see, our brain can’t absorb everything. It sees what it is programmed to see.
Can we Reprogram our Spam Filter?
As we looked at earlier, our brains are mouldable.
Picture walking through a forest. The first time you walk, you have to forge your own path. Pushing through the grass, removing twigs and branches from your way.
The next time you walk the same path, it is a bit easier.
As you walk the path over and over again, your wear a path in the grass and the walk gets much easier.
When we practice being grateful, we wear a ‘gratitude path’.
By simply be writing down a list of things you are grateful for, we become more grateful.[vi]
Neuroimaging sudies found that when people wrote gratitude letters, their brains showed increased sensitivity to gratitude[vii].
The Benefits of Being more Grateful.
And studies have found that grateful people are:
More energetic
More emotionally intelligent
More forgiving
Less likely to be depressed, anxious or lonely.[viii]
Psychologist Robert Emmons found that people who listed 5 things they were grateful for in a weekly gratitude journal:
Reported greater optimism and
Reported fewer health problems.[ix]
Reprogram your Spam Filter and be More Grateful.
So give it a go. Try and reprogram your spam filter and reap the rewards.
You could:
1. Write a thank you note to someone expressing your appreciation.
2. Thank someone mentally.
3. Keep a gratitude journal.
4. Meditate on something you are grateful for[x].
[i] Stickgold, R., Malia, A., Maguire, D., Roddenberry, D., & O'Connor, M. (2000). Replaying the game: hypnagogic images in normals and amnesics. Science, 290(5490), 350-353.
[ii] Eaton, W. W., Anthony, J. C., Mandel, W., & Garrison, R. (1990). Occupations and the prevalence of major depressive disorder. Journal of occupational medicine.: official publication of the Industrial Medical Association, 32(11), 1079-1087.
[iii] Benjamin, G. A. H., Kaszniak, A., Sales, B., & Shanfield, S. B. (1986). The role of legal education in producing psychological distress among law students and lawyers. Law & Social Inquiry, 11(2), 225-252.
[iv] Achor, S. (2011). The happiness advantage: The seven principles of positive psychology that fuel success and performance at work. Random House.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Froh, J. J., Sefick, W. J., & Emmons, R. A. (2008). Counting blessings in early adolescents: An experimental study of gratitude and subjective well-being. Journal of school psychology, 46(2), 213-233.
[vii] Kini, P., Wong, J., McInnis, S., Gabana, N., & Brown, J. W. (2016). The effects of gratitude expression on neural activity. NeuroImage, 128, 1-10.
[viii] Achor, S. (2011).
[ix] https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/giving-thanks#4
[x] https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/in-praise-of-gratitude