The Science of Gratitude & How to Build a Gratitude Practice | Huberman Lab Essentials

Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials,

where we revisit past episodes for the

most potent and actionable science-based

tools for mental health, physical

health, and performance.

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and opthalmology at

Stanford School of Medicine. Today we

are talking all about the science of

gratitude. There's now a wealth of data

showing that having an effective

gratitude practice can impact a huge

number of health variables, both mental

health and physical health, in positive

ways. However, in researching this

episode, I was completely surprised as

to what constitutes an effective

gratitude practice. I I think like many

of you would have thought that an

effective gratitude practice simply

involves writing down a few things or

many things that we're grateful for or

thinking about those or really making an

effort to summaticize or feel some of

the elements of gratitude while writing

out that list or thinking about that

list. It turns out that an effective

gratitude practice doesn't resemble that

at all. the neuroiming data, the

physiological data, looking at things

like inflammatory markers.

Other studies purely looking at the

psychology and the long and short-term

effects of an effective gratitude

practice point to a completely different

approach to using gratitude to

positively impact health metrics. There

are studies showing that performing a

gratitude practice twice or three times

or even just once a week can lead to a

pervasive a longlasting impact on

subjective well-being. People report

feeling happier, more meaning, joy, even

awe for their life experience simply in

response to adding a gratitude practice.

But there are additional benefits of a

gratitude practice. There are studies

showing that a regular gratitude

practice can provide resilience to

trauma in two ways. It can provide a

reframing and resilience to prior

traumatic experiences. So, buffering

people against the negative uh

physiological effects and psychological

effects of earlier trauma, but also

inoculating them in many ways to any

traumas that might arrive later in life.

The other thing that a gratitude

practice does is it's been shown to

benefit social relationships, but not

just for the relationship in which you

express gratitude. Right? So on the face

of it, you might think, okay, if I

express gratitude for somebody over and

over and over and over over and over,

then I'm going to feel better about that

person. And indeed, that is one effect

of a gratitude practice that's called a

pro-social or interocial gratitude

practice. But there are now several

studies, recent studies in good journals

pointing to the fact that a regular

gratitude practice can also enhance

one's social relationships across the

board in the workplace, at school, with

family, in romantic relationships, and

even one's relationship to themselves,

which is really what the subjective

feelings of well-being are. And for

those of you that are coming to this

conversation thinking gratitude

practice, oh that's kind of wishy-washy

or woo, it's going to involve, you know,

putting your hand on your heart and

feeling into all the amazing things that

you happen to have even when things are

really terrible. That's not where we're

going at all. So if you are of the

mindset that a gratitude practice is

kind of weak sauce, um, buckle up

because the data actually point to the

fact that a gratitude practice is a

very, very potent way in which you can

steer your mental and physical health in

positive directions. and that those

effects are very long lasting. Before we

dive into the tools and mechanisms and

scientific studies around gratitude, I'd

like to just set the framework for the

discussion. Gratitude is what we call a

pro-social behavior or a pro-social

mindset. Pro-social behaviors are

basically any behavior or mode of

thinking that allow us to be more

effective in interactions with other

people, including ourselves. Now,

pro-social is not just a name that we

give these different tools and practices

and mindsets. They're actually neural

circuits in the brain that are

specifically wired for pro-social

thoughts and behaviors. So, without

getting into too much detail just yet,

we will later. We have circuits in the

brain that are what we call appetitive.

They are designed to bring us closer to

things and to bring us into closer

relation to the details of that sensory

experience. Now, that could be a

delicious food that you're eating. It

could be interacting with a loved one.

It could be interacting with a friend or

anyone that you happen to like. It could

even be in relation to yourself. And the

neural circuits in the brain that are

associated with aversive or defensive

behaviors are actually antagonized,

meaning they are reduced when the

pro-social circuits are more active. So,

the framework here that I'd like to set

is that we have this kind of seessaw of

neural circuits in the brain. one set

that are pro-social and are designed to

bring us closer to others, including

ourselves, closer to certain sensory

experiences, right? Because a lot of

pro-social behaviors can also be geared

towards things like pets or food or

anything that we find we want to be

closer to and want more of. Whereas the

defensive circuits involve areas of the

brain, yes, such as areas that are

involved in fear, but also areas of the

brain and body that are literally

associated with freezing or with backing

up. So the way to think about gratitude

is it falls under this category of

pro-social behaviors which are designed

to bring us closer to different types of

things and to enhance the level of

detail that we extract from those

experiences. The key thing for today's

discussion is that gratitude turns out

to be one of the most potent wedges by

which we can insert our thinking and as

you'll also see our the physiology of

our body between these two circuits and

give a little more levity if you will to

the side of the seessaw that's

associated with positive pro-social

feelings. And if you keep imagining this

seessaw imagery, what's really beautiful

about gratitude practices is that if

they're performed repeatedly, and not

even that often, but repeatedly, then

one can actually shift their neural

circuits such that the seessaw that I'm

calling pro-social versus defensive

behaviors can actually start to tilt.

What this means is that we now know with

certainty that a regular gratitude

practice can shift the pro-social

circuit so that they dominate our

physiology and our mindset in ways that

can enhance many many aspects of our

physical and mental health by default.

So we don't always have to constantly be

in practice trying to be happy. Now I'd

like to talk about some of the

neurochemistry and neural circuits

associated with gratitude and pro-social

behaviors. Numerous times on this

podcast, I've talked about so-called

neurom modulators. For those of you that

might have forgotten or have never heard

of neuromodulators before,

neuromodulators are chemicals that are

released in the brain and body that

change the activity of other neural

circuits. They make certain brain areas

more likely to be active and other brain

areas less likely to be active. These

neurom modulators have names like

dopamine serotonin acetylcholine

epinephrine, and so on. The main neurom

modulators associated with gratitude and

pro-social behaviors tends to be

serotonin. Serotonin is released from a

very small collection of neurons in the

brain stem called the Rafé R a PH, the

Rafé nucleus, and a few other places in

the brain. And the Rafé neurons send

these little wires that we call axons

out to numerous places in the brain. and

they tend to increase the activity of

particular neural circuits that lend

themselves to more approach to

particular types of experiences. That

makes total sense if you think about it.

have a chemical that under certain

circumstances is released in the brain

that triggers the activity of neural

circuits that makes the organism you

more likely to stay in an interaction

with something or even lean in and seek

a more detailed interaction with that

person, place or thing. And two main

brain areas are activated by these

serotonic systems. And when people

experience something that makes them

feel gratitude and the amount of

activation scales with how intensely the

person experience the feeling of

gratitude. And those two areas have

particular names. You don't need to know

the names, but for those of you that

want to know, they are the anterior

singulate cortex and the medial

prefrontal cortex. And of course, these

brain areas are connected to a number of

other networks in the brain. In fact,

that's how they get you or others to

lean into certain exper experiences

because when these areas are active,

certain thought processes get invoked.

Those thought processes probably

resemble something like, hm, I'd like to

experience more of this or this feels

really good. And then they literally

feed onto your muscles via the neurons

making you happy to stay stationary. if

you're experiencing something you like

or to move closer to something that you

find attractive to you literally. Many

of you have probably heard of the medial

prefrontal cortex because this is the

area of the brain that is involved in

planning and in deep thinking and

evaluation of different types of

experiences past, present or future. And

the reason it can be involved in so many

different things and the reason it's

especially important for gratitude is

that medial prefrontal cortex sets

context. Okay? It sets context and it

literally defines the meaning of your

experience. How is it that medial

prefrontal cortex sets the context of

everything in your life? Well, it does

it the following way. You have a number

of circuits deeper in your brain that

simply create sensations or they allow

you, I should say, to perceive certain

sensations. Let's use the example of

cold exposure, something that we

sometimes talk about in this podcast for

other reasons.

If you were to deliberately place

yourself into an ice bath, it would be

uncomfortable. Even if you're adapted to

cold and so forth,

the discomfort is non-negotiable.

However, if you are doing it because you

want to or because you have knowledge

that there are particular health

benefits,

the medial prefrontal cortex can then

control areas of your deeper brain like

the hypothalamus to positively impact

the neurochemicals that are released

into your system. Your knowledge that

you are making the choice, that it's you

that's deciding to put yourself through

this discomfort has been shown to create

a very different and positive effect on

things like dopamine, on things like

anti-inflammatory markers uh in your

immune system, etc., compared to if

someone pushes you into an ice bath, or

if you are doing it because someone

insists that you do it and you really

really don't want to. So, there's a very

subtle distinction here. It's just as

it's just the distinction of motivation

and desire or lack of motivation and

being forced into something. If you take

a mouse for instance and it runs on a

running wheel, which mice really like to

do, there are many positive effects on

reducing blood pressure, improvements in

neurochemistry, etc. in that mouse.

However, if there's a mouse in the cage

right next to it that's trapped in the

running wheel and it has to run every

time the other mouse runs because the

wheels are linked. Well, then the second

mouse that's forced to do the exact same

running experiences negative shifts in

their overall health metrics. Blood

pressure goes up, stress hormones go up,

etc. because it's not actually making

the choice. Medial prefrontal cortex is

the knob. It is or the switch rather

that can take one experience and allow

us to frame it such that it creates

positive health effects and the exact

same experience framed as something we

don't want to do or that we are forced

to do can create negative health

effects. Now how exactly the neurons in

medial prefrontal cortex do that is

rather complicated and frankly not

completely understood. But it's somehow

able to adjust the activity of other

neural circuits that are purely

reflexive as we say in neuroscience like

really dumb neural circuits that are

just like switches and place a context

onto it. So gratitude is a mindset that

activates prefrontal cortex and in doing

so sets the context of your experience

such that you can derive tremendous

health benefits. Which leads us to the

question, what kind of gratitude

practice is going to accomplish this?

You can't simply lie to yourself. You

can't simply say, "Oh, well, every

experience is a learning experience or

um you know, a terrible thing happens.

Oh, good. I'm just going to say good."

And that your body will react as if it's

good for you. That's a myth. And

frankly, it's a myth that's fairly

pervasive in the self-help and

self-actualization literature. We can't

simply lie to ourselves or quote unquote

fake it until we make it. Neural

circuitry is very powerful and very

plastic. It can be modified and it's

very context dependent, but it's not

stupid. And when you lie to yourself

about whether or not an experience is

actually good for you or not, your brain

knows. So, what does an effective

gratitude practice look like? Well,

let's examine what an ineffective what a

poor gratitude practice looks like.

because therein lies some really

important information including the fact

that I and I think millions of other

people out there are doing it wrong.

Most gratitude practices that you see

online and that people talk about in

various talks and so forth involve

something like writing down or reciting

or thinking about five or 10 or three or

20 things that you're especially

grateful for and then really trying to

feel into some of those. really try and

think deeply about the emotions, the

sensations, the perceptions that are

associated with those particular people,

places, and things on your list.

Most studies actually point to the fact

that that style of gratitude practice is

not particularly effective in shifting

your neural circuitry, your

neurochemistry or your somatic

circuitry. the the circuits in your body

because you literally have organs and

neural circuits that are connected the

circuits of your brain and body toward

enhanced activation of prefrontal

cortex, enhanced activation of these

pro-social neural networks that we were

talking about earlier. Turns out that

the most potent form of gratitude

practice is not a gratitude practice

where you give gratitude or express

gratitude, but rather where you receive

gratitude, where you receive thanks. And

this to me was very surprising. There

are a number of studies about this. Now,

uh, one in particular that I think is

interesting is called prefrontal

activation while listening to a letter

of gratitude read aloud by a co-orker

face to face, a near study, NIR. I'll

explain what all this means. You now

know what the preffrontal activation

part is. This is activation of the

prefrontal cortex. The NER's NIS study,

that's just a technical term. So, in

this particular experiment, what they

did is they had co-workers write a

letter of gratitude, of thanks to

another co-orker, unbeknownst to the

other co-orker. And then they sat down

together and then they imaged brain

activity as this letter was being read

and as the letter was being heard,

received. And it showed very robust

effects on these prefrontal networks

that pointed to the fact that receiving

gratitude is actually much more potent

in terms of the positive shifts that it

can create than giving gratitude. For

many people who are want to experience

the positive effects of gratitude, uh

you it's probably not um the most uh

advantageous approach to just sit around

waiting hoping that someone's going to

deliver uh all these uh letters or words

of gratitude. How is it that you can

create that sense of receiving gratitude

for yourself and thereby derive the

effects of gratitude as outlined in this

particular study? And there we go to the

important work of the great Antonio

Damasio who explored these neurooralates

of gratitude to define the areas of the

brain that are associated with

pro-social behaviors like the prefrontal

cortex. What they did was interesting.

Rather than have people express

gratitude, they had the subjects go into

the scanner. So their brains are being

imaged and they watched narratives,

stories about other people experiencing

positive things in their life. And and

in this case, this was these uh were

powerful stories. These were stories

about um survivors of genocide. So

that's what they're they're watching.

The subjects were were subjects that

were um not survivors of genocide. So

they were watching these videotapes of

people that had survived genocide and

had people help them along the way as

part of their story of survival either

psychological and or obviously there

they survived long enough to make the

videos so or physical survival. So

within these stories there was uh there

was a conveyance of a lot of struggle.

These people talked about the the

horrible situations they were in, but

also small but highly significant

features of their history that had led

to their own feelings of gratitude. So

for instance um you know it says a woman

at the im this is literally from the

scientific paper um you know somebody

had been sick for weeks. So the woman's

describing how she'd been sick sick for

weeks and then another prisoner who was

a doctor finds a particular medicine

somehow. it doesn't describe how and

literally saves her life. So these sorts

of stories now just hearing this in the

context of nothing but a scientific

paper in discussion. These probably

don't aren't that impactful. What's

really important about this study and is

really important for all of us to know

is that these stories of other people

receiving things that were powerful for

them in their life trajectory is

embedded in story. And the human brain

uh especially is so oriented towards

story. We we have neural circuits that

like to link together past, present,

future, have different characters, um

protagonists and antagonists from the

time we're very young until the time

we're very old. Story is one of the

major ways that we organize information

in the brain. There there does seem to

be storytelling and and story listening

circuits in the brain. So, what's

important is not um simply that these

people survived genocide. That's

obviously important uh and and

wonderful, but it's not just that they

were helped along the way. It's that the

description of their help is embedded in

a larger story. So the human subject is

uh in this scientific study is watching

these powerful stories and the neural

circuits associated with pro-social

behaviors and with gratitude become

robustly active when they start to feel

some affiliation with the person telling

the story. So if you think about the

earlier study that receiving gratitude

is the most powerful way to activate

these circuits for gratitude.

The subjects in this study in many ways

are receiving a sense of gratitude

but through the narrative of one of

these other subjects which I find

fascinating. You know, I would have

thought a great gratitude practice would

be sit down and list out all the things

you're grateful for. That just seems so

logical to me. But it turns out that

these neural circuits don't work that

way. that to really activate these

circuits for gratitude and the serotonin

and probably the oxytocin system as well

and the prefrontal networks, one has to

powerfully associate with the idea of

receiving help. So let's just take a

moment and start to think about how we

are going to build out the ultimate

gratitude practice meaning the most

effective gratitude practice for us to

do because of all the many positive

effects that an effective gratitude

practice can have if it's the proper

one.

It's very clear that receiving gratitude

is powerful, but it's also very clear

that waiting around to receive that

gratitude is an impractical approach.

What we know for sure is that there has

to be a real experience of somebody

else's experience and that the best way

to do that is story. So, in thinking

about how to build out an effective

gratitude practice, it's very

worthwhile, I believe, to find someone's

narrative that's powerful for you. In

many ways, to think about this is it's

got to be a story that inspires you

because of the, for lack of a better

phrase, the beauty of the human spirit

or the ability of humans to help other

humans. And I find this remarkable

because what this really means is that

the circuits for gratitude are such that

we can exchange

gratitude. We can actually observe

someone else getting help, someone else

giving help. And that observation of our

species doing that for one another

allows us to experience the feeling of a

genuine chemical and neural circuit

activation lift, if you will. very very

different than simply writing out the

things that you're thankful for, right?

And so, how would you do this? Well,

people digest story in a number of

different ways. People watch movies,

people uh listen to podcasts, people

read books. There are tremendous number

of stories out there. It's clear that an

effective gratitude practice has to be

repeated from time to time. So what I

would not suggest is that we build a

protocol in which you're constantly

foraging for inspirational stories over

and over again. Rather, the most

effective protocol or tool is going to

be

either to think into, and you could

write this out if you like, but think

into when somebody was thankful for

something that you did and really start

to think about how you felt in receiving

that gratitude or and or I should say

imagining or thinking about deeply the

emotional experience of somebody else

receiving help. I want to emphasize that

the story that you select does not have

to have any semblance to your own life

experience. It's just about what happens

to move you. And so the way that one

could do this is to find a story that's

particularly meaningful for you. And

then to just take some short notes,

bullet point notes, just list out for

instance, you know, what the struggle

was,

what the help was, and something about

how that impacts you emotionally. you've

written down um a few notes about what

that story is just to remind you um and

then you read those out and you think

into the richness of that experience

that receiving of gratitude. Now this

could be done literally for one minute

or 2 minutes or 3 minutes. This is not

an extensively long practice. Now if you

have an experience of receiving

gratitude or a story that's very potent

for you, it becomes a sort of shortcut

into the gratitude network. these

pro-social networks, meaning the

activation of these circuits becomes

almost instantaneous. And that's very

different than a lot of other practices

out there. Now, there's another very

clear and positive effect of using this

narrative or storybased approach to a

gratitude practice and that's what story

does for our physiology.

What this means for your gratitude

practice is that having a story that you

return to over and over again, even if

it's not the entire story, you're just

using the shorthand bullet point uh

version of your story, will create a

perceptible and real shift in your

heartbeat and in your breathing. And

actually, that's been demonstrated over

and over now that an effective gratitude

practice is one that can rapidly shift

not just the activation of these

circuits in your brain for pro-social

behaviors, but also

activation of particular circuits in

your heart and in your lungs and the

other organs of your body such that you

can get into a reproducible state of

gratitude each time. The key thing is

that you want to use the same story,

even if it's if it's your own experience

or somebody else's, and keep coming back

to it over and over again. That makes it

a very potent tool that you can get a

tremendous amount of benefit from with

even as short as 60 seconds of practice.

Earlier, I talked about how you can't

lie to yourself and say, you know, I'm

so grateful for this thing that I

actually hate. There's a really

interesting study published in

scientific reports which is a nature

research journal. Uh the title of it is

neural responses to intention and

benefit appraisal are critical in

distinguishing gratitude and joy. It's a

somewhat complicated study. So I'm just

going to hit on some of the high points

but basically what they did is they use

functional magnetic resonance imaging so

they could look at brain circuitry

activation with very high precision. And

they had people receiving money in this

in the context of this uh experiment and

they had some knowledge as to whether or

not the money that they were receiving

was given to them wholeheartedly or

reluctantly. They looked at whether or

not the sense of gratitude scaled with

the amount of money received

andor the intention of the benefactor.

whether or not the person giving the

money was doing it wholeheartedly or

reluctantly. And what's remarkable is

that while the amount of money given was

a strong component in whether or not

somebody felt grat that they had

received gratitude, which makes sense.

You know, the amount of money is is some

some metric of whether or not uh

somebody feels uh thanked.

The stronger variable, the bigger impact

came from whether or not the person

giving the money was giving it with a

wholehearted intention and not a

reluctant intention. This tells us um

many things that extend way beyond

gratitude practices, which is that

genuine thanks are what count. So this

constrains our gratitude practices

somewhat, but I think in an interesting

and important way. You can't tell

yourself that an experience was great or

that um you know I got a lot of money

and therefore it justified it uh even

though you know I think that they gave

it to me reluctantly or my boss hates me

but they gave me a raise and that tells

us that if if we are the giver that we

better be giving wholeheartedly or we

are undermining the sense of gratitude

that someone is going to receive from

us. So, we are gradually building up the

ultimate gratitude practice based on the

variety of scientific literature that's

out there. And I know that many people

are probably interested in developing a

gratitude practice that has long

lasting, maybe even permanent positive

effects on their neural circuitry. So,

with that in mind, I want to turn our

attention to a really interesting study.

It's entitled Effects of Gratitude

Meditation on neural network functional

connectivity and brain heart coupling.

And to make a long story short and a lot

simpler than that title, repeated

gratitude practice changes the way that

your brain circuits work. And it also

changes the way in which your heart and

your brain interact. You're familiar

with the fact that your brain controls

your heart because you could be stressed

about something that's perceived with

your brain and then your heart rate will

speed up. You're probably also familiar

with the fact that if your heart rate

speeds up for some reason or no reason,

you probably think, well, what's making

my heart rate speed up? And that's

because they the brain and the heart are

reciprocally in innervated as we say.

They're talking to one another in both

directions. It's a two-way highway. This

study looked at changes in so-called

functional connectivity within the brain

and between the brain and the heart in

response to gratitude practices. To make

a long story short, what they found is

that a repeated gratitude practice could

change the resting state functional

connectivity in emotion and motivation

related brain regions. If I haven't

mentioned a strong enough incentive for

doing a regular gratitude practice until

now, this is definitely the one to pay

attention to because what they found was

a regular gratitude practice

could shift the functional connectivity

of emotion pathways in ways that made

anxiety and fear circuits less likely to

be active and circuits for feelings of

well-being, but also motivation to be

much more active. I find that remarkable

and important because a number of people

struggle with issues of motivation. A

lot of people who are highly motivated

also have issues with anxiety and fear.

And so this study really points to the

fact that it's a twofer. If you have a

good gratitude practice and you repeat

it regularly, you reduce the fear

anxiety circuits. you increase the

efficacy of the positive emotion

feel-good circuits and the circuits

associated with motivation and pursuit

are actually enhanced as well. Thus far,

we've mainly talked about the effects of

gratitude on neural circuit activation

and changes. a little bit about some of

the changes that are happening in terms

of the body heart rate and breathing and

so forth. But we haven't talked a lot

yet about the changes in health metrics

in things like inflammation or

reductions in inflammation and immunity

and things of that sort. So with that in

mind, I'd like to describe the results

of a really interesting recent study

that was published in the journal Brain

Behavior and Immunity. This was

published 2021. And the title of this of

the study is exploring neural mechanisms

of the health benefits of gratitude in

women a randomized control trial. The

first author is HLlett. And basically

what this paper showed was that

women who had a regular gratitude

practice of the sort that we've been

talking about up until now showed

reductions in amygdala activity, a brain

area associated with threat detection, a

intimate part of the fear network in the

brain. So reductions in amydala

activation and large reductions in the

production of something called TNF alpha

tumor necrosis factor alpha and IL6

interlucan 6. Now if you happen to have

listened to the episode that I did on

activating your immune system and immune

function you heard about TNF alpha and

IL6. TNF alpha and IL6 are inflammatory

cytoines. These are chemicals that exist

in your body and that are released from

cells when there is damage or kind of a

systemic stress when your system is in

duress. And in the short term, they can

be beneficial. They can call in signals

for wound healing and repair of cells

etc. But you don't want TNF alpha and

IL6 levels to be too high and you don't

want those levels to be up for too long.

And so this study is really nice because

they showed significant effects in

reducing TNF alpha and IL6 in response

to a gratitude practice. And another

interesting aspect of this study is that

the reductions in amygdala activation

and the reductions in TNF alpha and IL6

were very rapid. They occurred almost

immediately after the gratitude practice

was completed. And even though that

study was performed exclusively on

female subjects, based on the biology

and circuitry of the amygdala and the

biology of TNF alpha and IL6 performing

this inflammatory role in both men and

women, I don't see any reason why the

results of that study wouldn't pertain

to both men and women. I'd like to just

highlight the key elements of the most

effective, at least to my knowledge,

gratitude practice. First of all, that

practice has to be grounded in a

narrative, meaning a story. You don't

have to recite or hear that story every

single time you do the gratitude

practice, but you have to know what that

story was and what the gratitude

practice references back to. Second of

all, that story can be one of you

receiving genuine thanks. And the key

elements there are that you are the one

receiving the thanks, the gratitude, and

that it's being given to you genuinely,

wholeheartedly.

Or it can be a story of you observing

someone else receiving thanks or

expressing thanks. And that has to be a

genuine interaction as well, both

between the giver and the receiver.

So those are the first three elements.

What I recommend would be after you've

established the story that you want to

use for your gratitude practice that you

write down three or four simple bullet

points that can serve as salient

reminders of that story for you. It will

serve as kind of a cue for that story

without having to listen to or uh talk

out the entire story. I would recommend

writing down something about the state

that you or the other person were in

before they received the gratitude. the

state that you were in or that the

person was in after they received the

gratitude and any other elements that

lend some sort of emotional weight or

tone to the story. This could be three

pages of text if you like or it could

just be a couple bullet points. I don't

think it really matters. The important

thing is that it's embedded in your

memory and that it's really associated

with this genuine exchange of thanks and

the receival of thanks. I think those

are the key elements. And then it's very

simple. The entire practice involves

reading off these bullet points as a cue

to your nervous system of the sense of

gratitude and then for about 1 minute

which is a trivial amount of time if you

really think about it or maybe two

minutes or if you're really ambitious up

to five minutes of just really feeling

into that genuine experience of having

received gratitude or observed someone

else receiving gratitude. So if we just

take a step back from this protocol and

compare it to what's typically out there

in the literature, which is, you know,

make a list of all the things you're

thankful for, recite in your mind all

the things you're thankful for, count

your blessings. I think everybody should

be counting their blessings all the

time. There's always something to be

thankful for. But in terms of a

scientifically grounded gratitude

practice that is also scientifically

demonstrated to shift your physiology at

the level of your immune system and your

neural circuitry, reducing anxiety,

increasing motivation, all these

wonderful things that so many of us are

chasing all the time as goals. I think a

gratitude practice reveals itself to be

an immensely powerful tool. Thank you

for your time and attention today

learning about the science of gratitude.

And last, but certainly not least, thank

you for your interest in science.

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