Ep. 18: Why Gratitude Is a Gift to Yourself

We think of gratitude as a gift to others, but it's often a wonderful gift to ourselves. Dr. Hanson and Forrest move on to the fifth of the twelve strengths they’ll be covering during this series: Gratitude. During this episode they explore the role of positive emotions generally, and particularly the value of “thankfulness.”

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The material in this podcast comes in large part from our book Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness. If you like the podcast, you'll love the book!

Timestamps:

1:00: Why use “gratitude” as a blanket term for positive emotions?

1:45: What benefits do positive emotions have for mental health?

5:55: Why did you choose to focus your work on increasing positive experiences rather than reducing negative ones?

8:15: What are the psychological benefits of “thankfulness?”

12:20: Critiques of telling people to ‘just be grateful for what they have.’

17:00: Dealing with blocks to thankfulness.

23:30: How can we become more thankful?

28:25: Using gratitude to move into agency.

31:00: Recap

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