The Neuroscience of Gratitude

We often think of gratitude as a response to something good happening. But it’s also a skill we can practice.

In this episode of Dharma Lab, Cortland Dahl and Richie Davidson explore how to notice and savor everyday moments of gratitude, and extend that appreciation to people we find difficult. They discuss research by psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky and her colleagues on why writing a gratitude letter can be especially powerful, and share small practices they use in their own lives.

Enjoy!

Sources:

Regan, A., Walsh, L. C., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2023). Are Some Ways of Expressing Gratitude More Beneficial Than Others? Results From a Randomized Controlled Experiment. Affective Science, 4(1), 72–81. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-022-00160-3

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In This Episode:

00:00 — Gratitude Is a Skill: A Preview01:12 — Welcome: A Celebration of Richie03:16 — What It Feels Like to Receive Gratitude07:56 — How Gratitude Spreads10:10 — Making Space for Appreciation11:16 — The Science of Training Gratitude13:57 — Why Writing a Gratitude Letter Helps15:12 — How to Practice: Start Where It’s Easy18:09 — Everyday Gratitude: A Moment with a Stranger19:54 — Recognizing and Savoring Gratitude22:22 — What Happens in the Brain?24:40 — The Insula and Feeling Gratitude in the Body27:11 — Why Expressing Gratitude Benefits You, Too28:56 — Intentional Practice: What Science Has Yet to Establish30:56 — Extending Gratitude Beyond Your Inner Circle32:19 — Gratitude Toward Difficult People36:10 — Richie’s Practice: Appreciation, Emails, and Constructive Feedback40:03 — Cort’s Practice: Finding Appreciation in Ordinary Things41:53 — Three Things: A Gratitude Ritual Before Bed43:11 — Closing Gratitude

Written transcript for those who prefer to read:

00:00 — Gratitude Is a Skill: A Preview

Richie: Her work really convincingly shows that gratitude can be trained, that you can improve this by engaging in various intentional exercises to cultivate gratitude. And when you do that, it improves well-being more generally.

Cort: The thing that I’ll always remember is an instruction I got from Mingyur Rinpoche. When he was teaching appreciation as a meditative practice, he was talking about these very mundane things. Like you can even start with yourself, just appreciate the fact that you brush your teeth, appreciate that you got out of bed in the morning. And I thought, “Rinpoche, come on.” It felt so mundane. I wanted some mind-blowing, transcendent experience or something.

Cort: But when I practiced it, I realized actually that is precisely the power of it, because then it is everywhere. If you just get used to noticing that, that is the profundity of it. It’s just that it’s all around you.

01:12 — Welcome: A Celebration of Richie

Cort: Welcome everyone to another episode of Dharma Lab. I am Cortland Dahl, your host, along with my co-host and dear friend and Dharma brother and world-renowned neuroscientist, Dr. Richie Davidson. Today we would talk about appreciation and gratitude, which is a very, very timely topic for us because we just came off a couple days where I would say in my entire life, actually, I’ve never had a few days that were so infused with gratitude. And the cause for that was Richie, actually. Some students of Richie from decades back made a plan actually years ago. I got an email actually two years ago, with a save the date for a celebration of Richie and his career and his life by some people who have been working with him for decades.

Cort: And this culminated in these few days where we really were just sharing both our own lives and our own experience, but especially the many, many ways that we have all had our lives transformed and been benefited by you, Richie. So I’m kind of putting you on the spot here because it was also quite unique for you. You basically had three days or a few days, two or three days of just endlessly receiving the gratitude of others. And it was amazing. I’ve never experienced anything like this. I can’t imagine what it was like for you, Richie. But it was the kind of thing that I think a few of us were talking after the fact.

Cort: Unfortunately, it’s the kind of thing that oftentimes only happens when somebody’s passed away, strangely. We oftentimes don’t say the things until, it’s sort of too late. And this was just a beautiful example where we didn’t wait. We took that opportunity to share the gratitude we all feel for you. And so maybe Richie, I’ll just start with what it was like for you to be on the receiving end of that and what your experience of this was.

03:16 — What It Feels Like to Receive Gratitude

Richie: Yeah, I mean it was humbling and a bit overwhelming at times. There was on Friday a three-and-a-half-hour data blitz where 26 of my former trainees, either graduate students or postdocs or collaborators, each gave seven-minute talks and talked about how their current work was influenced by the time they were in our center or lab. And I was asked to give some remarks. At the end, and I got up there, and I certainly wasn’t planning on this, but I just burst out crying. And really it took a while for me to gain my composure, but I just felt a deep sense of gratitude toward them for all they’re doing and for carrying on.

Richie: This work and a kind of hopefully not an arrogant pride but a quiet pride in the work that they’re doing. I was really proud of them for all they’re doing and many of these people are doing cutting edge science that is really of great benefit to humanity. I have no doubt that the world is much better for their presence. It was so deeply moving to me people came from China, from Europe, from Mexico, from really all over the world I was just so incredibly touched You know, I think that there’s a community that was formed and I think all of us really felt that sense of community and one of the people who was there who was so close to me and I’ve known her for forty years was Roshi Joan Halifax.

Richie: And for those of you who know something about Roshi, you’ll know what I’m talking about. For those of you who don’t, Roshi is someone who brings her practice to the world, to everyday life. And really has a very, very palpable, deep ethical core that you feel. That she brings to the work she’s done with people who are dying, with people who are incarcerated with people who have been living in adversity, who’ve been unfortunate victims of natural disasters, and the list goes on. And she is an embodiment of that and it was so beautiful to share this with her and with so many others.

Richie : So yeah, I’m still feeling very much these ripples and people who weren’t there who couldn’t make it have been sending me videos. I just got one from Angela Duckworth like five minutes ago. Really beautiful. Recounting a very specific instance which I don’t remember honestly of an interaction between us and it was a beautiful interaction you know, from her description I can feel it. So I just truly feel very blessed and I’ll end here. I feel that all of this I think gave each of us a taste of the power of gratitude because we all felt that this was something that contributed to our collective flourishing.

Richie : And I think it’s fair to say that everyone who participated in these three days of events they just their heart was really open and we all were incredibly connected, even those who were meeting…

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