Jeremy Adam Smith - The Gratitude Project

Gratitude arises when we bring an open and full presence to our life, and its sweetness is a feeling of homecoming. The Gratitude Project is an exquisite and wise inquiry into this beautiful expression of the heart!

Tara Brach , author of Radical Acceptance and Radical Compassion

The Gratitude Project is a practical and thoughtful exploration of how appreciation can help us find hope and strengthen our most important relationships. Gratitude is a mind-set that does far more than make you feel good; it can help you be your best self, connect with others, and see the good in the world.

Kelly McGonigal , author of The Joy of Movement and The Upside of Stress

In these difficult times, The Gratitude Project is timely and beautiful. It offers marvelous, wise, loving, and scientific ways to uplift and nourish the heart.

Jack Kornfield, PhD , author of A Path with Heart

Publishers Note

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright 2020 by Jeremy Adam Smith, Kira Newman, Jason Marsh, and Dacher Keltner

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

5674 Shattuck Avenue

Oakland, CA 94609

www.newharbinger.com

Lines from The Lanyard from The Trouble with Poetry: And Other Poems by Billy Collins, copyright 2005 by Billy Collins. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Lines from A Brief for the Defense from Refusing Heaven by Jack Gilbert, copyright 2005 by Jack Gilbert. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

The section Grief, Grace, and Gratitude is adapted from Wisdom in Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder by Arianna Huffington, copyright 2014 by Christabella, LLC. Used by permission of Harmony Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Sara Christian; Acquired by Ryan Buresh; Edited by Brady Kahn

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Smith, Jeremy Adam, 1970- editor. | Newman, Kira, editor. | Marsh, Jason, editor. | Keltner, Dacher, editor.

Title: The gratitude project : how the science of thankfulness can rewire our brains for resilience, optimism, and the greater good / edited by Jeremy Adam Smith, Kira Newman, Jason Marsh, Dacher Keltner, PhD.

Description: Oakland, CA : New Harbinger Publications, Inc., [2020] | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020009883 (print) | LCCN 2020009884 (ebook) | ISBN 9781684034611 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781684034628 (pdf) | ISBN 9781684034635 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Gratitude.

Classification: LCC BF575.G68 G735 2020 (print) | LCC BF575.G68 (ebook) | DDC 179/.9--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009883

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009884

Contents

Preface

The Greater Good Science Center is unique in its commitment to both science and practice. Based at the University of California, Berkeley, one of the worlds leading institutions of research and higher education, we sponsor groundbreaking scientific research into social and emotional well-being. More than that, however, we help people apply this research to their personal and professional lives. Since 2001, we have tried to be at the fore of a new scientific movement to explore the roots of happy and compassionate individuals, strong social bonds, and altruistic behaviorthe science of a meaningful life.

In 2014, we launched Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude, a multiyear project funded by the John Templeton Foundation. We distributed nearly $4 million in funding to researchers across the country, including university faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students. Their work broke new ground in the study of gratitude, ranging from how gratitude can benefit our cardiovascular health to the role of gratitude in romantic relationships to the neuroscience of gratitude.

Through this work, we have discovered that gratitude can have a transformative impact on individuals and on our families, neighborhoods, schools, workplacesand perhaps even nations. Studies have consistently found that people who practice gratitude report fewer symptoms of illness, including depression, and more optimism and happiness. As scientists and journalists describe throughout this book, many of these benefits seem to come to us through the way that gratitude fosters stronger relationships, which are associated with more generous and cooperative behavior.

This book turns that research into tools you can use right now to cultivate gratitude in yourself, the people around you, and the world. In these pages, youll find essays about the basic science of gratitude, supplemented by shorter pieces that highlight specific scientific findings or that complicate the story were telling about gratefulness. Some of the essays are by the scientists themselves, about their own gratitude journeys. Youll also encounter some personal essays by ordinary peopleand conversations with not-so-ordinary peoplewho are struggling to be grateful in their own lives.

Not all pieces will be relevant to all readers, but every one of them has something valuable to say about gratitudes transformative impact. We have aimed to capture how gratitude can be leveraged across a variety of contexts, from our personal lives to the organization of the entire world. Finally, at the website for this book, http://www.newhar binger.com/44611, youll find some research-tested exercises to help you see and appreciate the good things in lifeand, beyond that, to help the rest of the world see and appreciate them, too. (See the very back of this book for more details.)

Most of these insights and tips come straight from our online magazine, Greater Good (https://greatergood.berkeley.edu) , which covers the science of a meaningful life, and Greater Good in Action (http://ggia.berkeley.edu), a free website that collects the best research-based methods for a happier life.

Thanks so much for picking up this bookand we wish you the best.

Part 1:
The Roots and Meaning of Gratitude

In this part of this book, scientists define gratitude and draw from their own research to explore its roots in our behavior, biology, and brains. This information will serve as the basis for everything that comes later in this book.

Researchers define appreciation as the act of acknowledging the goodness in lifein other words, seeing the positives in events, experiences, or other people (like our colleagues). Thats important, but gratitude goes a step further: it recognizes how the positive things in our liveslike a success at workare often due to forces outside of ourselves, particularly the efforts of other people.

Because gratitude encourages us not only to appreciate gifts but also to repay them (or pay them forward), the sociologist Georg Simmel called it the moral memory of mankind. As Malini Suchak and other contributors argue in their essays, this is how gratitude may have evolved: by strengthening bonds between members of the same species who mutually helped each other out.