Thankful therapy: Gratitude can soften sorrow
Thank goodness for gratitude. In the worldwide wave of growing depression, there is an antidote in gratitude. It is tough to be down and grateful at the same time. Sure there are the backhanded attempts at gratitude when we say things like "I am so glad he didn't have to suffer," when we are really aching inside and out with sorrow for the loss of a loved one. But even there the sorrow is softened.
In the everyday world, gratitude would be a good thing to carry around in our pockets along with any other lucky charms. We can pull it out from time to time and rub it or massage the list of things that are wonderful.
Gratitude has an interesting effect on the brain. For one, it forces a person to focus. To move the internal machine to concentrate on one subject is an important act of wellness. It is like redirecting one of those large construction cranes to pick up a load. It forces an ignoring of other distractions and complete dedication to a delicate task. Paying attention is the first step to learning. The person must increase the energy to the portions of the brain required to positive thought and move down the dimmer switch on those areas of memory that are more melancholy.
Being appreciative also retrieves positive memories with their attached emotions. We file memories by feelings so when we pull out a story from the past, the emotions come with it as a package deal. So, if one thinks about gratitude, there is a reliving of the moment of joy as the story is reconstructed from a multitude of places in the brain. We don't have our trip to New York over in this corner and the images and impressions of the feeling of our first kiss over here under a pile of neurons. Instead the brain pulls from this pattern of cells for one part and from another bundle for the other part of the past. Stirring it together into a stew of scenes, senses and sensations, the brain delivers up the past partly as it wants to and partly what really happened. Thinking about a laughing moment on a long car trip as part of the list of thanks takes us to that feeling of fun.
Being grateful also can be from the tiniest object in the universe to the universe itself. Once I was showing my infant son an apricot blossom, and all of a sudden I was back in my senior biology class learning about pistils and stamen and the role of bees in pollination. I asked a father what his 1-year-old son had taught him, and he immediately answered "ants." As I write this, I picture a whole army of leaf-cutting ants that trailed across the jungle floor carrying their loads twice their size. Or every time I look at a picture from the Hubble space telescope my mouth drops open with wonder. Wow is an important part of gratitude.
Being grateful compels an exercise in the mental review of people and relationships. That association regardless of storminess or the sorrow over lost moments also can prompt positive feelings. There will be the times when we remember our mother when she reached out to touch our hand or taught us some tough lesson that hurt at the time, but now we savor as a gift.
Friends bring out the same feelings that come with the good memories. A friend in the fourth grade who came over to play hockey with skates, two sweep brooms and a glass-jar lid for the puck. A neighbor who calls up at 10:30 at night to ask to come over to play pingpong. When we pull up good memories, friends come with them.
Memories are made every day. Gratitude is, too, thank goodness.
Joseph Cramer, M.D., is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, practicing pediatrician for more than 25 years and an adjunct professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah. He can be reached at jgcramermd@yahoo.com.