I know what you’re thinking: practicing gratitude is not usually part of the professional’s performance toolkit. But it should be.
Thanks to a golden era in neuroscience research, we’ve learned more in the last 20 years about how the brain actually works than in the previous two thousand. These insights couldn’t have come at a more critical time. Today, many of us make our living with our minds as our most important asset. We are “cognitive athletes” now and should cater to our brains as carefully as Olympians do their bodies.
In that vein, there are several reasons why practicing gratitude makes us feel good and perform better, and neuroscience provides some insights as to why.
First and foremost, when you are grateful, your brain releases a cascade of neurochemicals associated with positive emotions and social bonding.
Practicing gratitude over a personal situation activates the brain’s reward system and releases dopamine, producing pleasure and motivation. When expressing gratitude leads to feelings of happiness, you create a positive feedback loop: it gives you joy, and your brain uses dopamine to reinforce that link so that you repeat it.
Expressing gratitude towards others stimulates the brain’s release of oxytocin, prompting feelings of social connectedness. In other words, it’s like getting a big hug from a friend.
The benefits aren’t just emotional, however. Practicing gratitude also increases activity in the brain’s prefrontal cortex, the area responsible for executive functions such as planning and emotional regulation. Gratitude helps you reframe experiences of anxiety and stress. This is why you feel calmer and more in control when you lean into a grateful moment.
The science is clear: gratitude triggers profoundly positive neurochemical reactions in our brain that help us perform, transform, and flourish. But how do we turn this into news we can use?
Practicing Forward, Backward and Final Gratitude
Here are three types of gratitude mindsets.
First, remember that something you took for granted today was something you dreamed of achieving in the past. Maybe it’s the city you moved to three years ago or your current job. You made some goals come true but have since forgotten about them. I call the habit of reminding yourself of achieved dreams “backward gratitude.”
Second, no matter how badly you may feel about your health, fitness, or appearance right now, understand that ten years from now, you’ll look back at pictures of yourself and realize: “hey, I looked pretty damn good back then!” Maybe you’ll have to overcome some serious adversity in the future, in which case this moment of relative calm will seem blissful in comparison. This is what I describe as “forward gratitude.”
Finally — and I mean that literally — a powerful way to feel better instantly is to imagine whatever activity you’re about to do — that upcoming HIIT class or the monthly dinner with your best friend — is the last time you’ll get to do it. It’s not about visualizing your mortality so much as realizing that all things come to an end. When they do, you’ll wish you had gotten an advanced warning. Here it is. Appropriately, I call this “final gratitude.”
Stoic philosophers have long preached the wisdom of “memento mori” (remember you must die), and this approach is a healthy way to embrace the finitude of life.
So adopt gratitude today as a performance mindset. By activating reward centers, regulating emotions, and promoting social connection, gratitude helps us feel instantly better. Even more important, it enables us to have a more fulfilling life. Gratitude belongs in everyone’s toolkit for many reasons, but perhaps most because neuroscience shows us that it works.
