What is advanced gratitude?

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When the editorial cartoonist Marshall Ramsey put together a list of things he was grateful for, his two Pulitzer Prize nominations didn’t make the cut.

In fact, even he admits his gratitude inventory sounds a little crazy on paper: his first job after uni as a high school cleaner; the recession that forced him into part-time work; a melanoma diagnosis; all the people who didn’t believe in him.

But every one of those terrible twists, he explains, was responsible for a blessing. That job led him to his future wife, the daughter of a fellow cleaner; getting laid off gave him the time to launch a second career in book illustration and radio; and his cancer diagnosis spurred him to help save hundreds of lives by organising a series of runs to raise melanoma awareness.

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And all those naysayers? Let’s just say they turned out to be the ill winds beneath his wings. “A good analogy is if you’re canoeing downstream and you suddenly hit a rock, it can either sink you or push you in another direction,” explains Ramsey. “If you choose the other direction, then it’s a blessing.”

THE SIMPLE HABITS THAT COULD TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE

Ramsey is a prime example of what might be called advanced gratitude: the ability to identify and appreciate the challenges in life because of what you’ve gained from them.

It’s far from a rare experience - and it’s set to change the way we think about positive psychology forever. Studies have found that gratitude is a prevailing, if counterintuitive, emotion among breast cancer survivors, people with spinal cord injuries and post-9/11 Americans.

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Clearly, you don’t become grateful for difficulties overnight (and rarely in the throes), but once you do, you’re privy to some amazing alchemy that will allow you to heal what hurts and see the victory that’s often at the centre of every seeming defeat.

It also boosts what one leading expert calls your psychological immune system, and it may even physically alter your brain so that gratitude isn’t just something you feel occasionally, but guides how you approach life. It can revolutionise the way you look at life, simplifying your decision-making, slashing stress levels and helping you work out what truly matters. And it all starts with three simple habits.

Key Gratitude Habit 1: APPRECIATE WHAT YOU HAVE

Numerous studies have found that people who keep journals or make lists of what they’re thankful for are happier, more optimistic, more energetic and nicer to other people than those who don’t. Their physical health blossoms, too.

In one of his studies, Robert Emmons, a leading gratitude researcher, found that people who created weekly gratitude lists exercised 90 minutes more, on average, than a control group who tracked their hassles. And grateful people had less pain, slept an hour longer and woke up feeling more refreshed, according to other research.

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One word of advice? Don’t overdo it. Counting your blessings via journalling three times a week can help you build a strong, positive attitude, but doing it any more than that can backfire, according to studies by University of California researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky. “You just adapt to it over time, so it’s no longer as effective,” she adds. “It becomes a chore.” A definite case of less is more.

Key Gratitude Habit 2: RETRAIN YOUR OWN BRAIN

Amazing but true? Tying thoughts of gratitude to the stressful events in your life may even change your neural pathways. A long-accepted concept in neuropsychology is that “neurons that fire together wire together”. So when your stress neurons fire, make your gratitude neurons do the same thing. The reason? This helps the two types connect so that when stress hits, it will be easier to unearth something to be grateful for.

Gratitude can also counteract the many damaging effects of stress on the body, even improving heart health, according to a recent study published in the journal Psychological Science. The upshot? People who regularly practised loving-kindness meditation, which promotes love and compassion towards oneself and others, improved in one tangible measure of heart health - better tone in their vagus nerve, which extends from the brain stem to the gut and regulates heart rate, breathing and relaxation.

Key Gratitude Habit 3: REMEMBER THE TOUGH TIMES

If you have trouble coming up with reasons to be grateful, this technique from Emmons will boost your gratitude stores, fast. “Think of your worst moments - your sorrows, your losses, your sadness, then remember where you are now,” says Emmons, who chronicles a three-week get-thankful program in his book Gratitude Works! “You got through the worst day of your life, you survived the bad relationship, resisted temptation, now you’re making your way out of the dark.”

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He also encourages imagining a life in which you didn’t meet your spouse, live in your current suburb, or encounter people who became lifelong friends. In one study, participants who wrote about ways in which a positive event might not have happened and of how they might never have met their romantic partners felt more positive and happier with their relationships than people who just straightforwardly described the events.

“When we remember how difficult life used to be and how far we have come, we set up an explicit contrast in our mind, and this contrast is fertile ground for gratefulness,” Emmons says.

It builds up your resilience muscles too, so you not only cope well, but you’re also able to find the good no matter how hidden it seems to be. “Gratitude is an element of resilience in that it helps us recover from adversity,” Emmons says. It’s part of a person’s psychological immune system that helps convert tragedy into opportunity.

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The ability to bounce back after a serious life roadblock is what psychologists call post-traumatic growth, a positive transformation that can occur when people go through serious stress. “We’re not talking about people being grateful for the cancer, the injury or the disaster, but for what happens in the aftermath,” explains psychologist Richard Tedeschi. “They tend to go through a process: who am I, what kind of future do I want and what makes sense to do with my time on earth, now that this event has stopped me in my tracks?”

There are lessons learned and lives remade - better than before. And that’s a truly profound thing to discover. Marshall Ramsey admits that after facing his ordeals, he usually threw himself a “pity party”. But over time, he began to notice the pattern: whatever he thought of as the worst thing that had ever happened to him ultimately turned into something positive. “After getting a cancer diagnosis, I came to appreciate life a lot more. I’ve given my mortality a big old kiss,” he jokes.

“So many people who’ve had their melanomas caught come up to me at our runs and say, ‘You saved my life.’ After nearly winning the Pulitzer Prize, I got downsized, but I found that when you lose your dream job, you just create another dream. Now, with this gift of hindsight, when something bad happens and I stop and say, ‘What’s the good in this?’ I’ve found that sometimes, the worst moment of your life turns out to be the best. I’m thankful every day that I now know that.” And if you ask us, that’s one truly life-changing lesson that puts everything into perspective.