An Antidote to Dissatisfaction

Everybody is familiar with the feeling that things are not as they should be. That you're not successful enough, your relationship's not satisfying enough, that you don't have the things you crave. A chronic dissatisfaction that makes you look outwards with envy and inwards with disappointment. Pop culture, advertising, and social media make this worse by reminding you that aiming for anything less than your dream job is failure, you need to have great experiences constantly, be conventionally attractive, have a lot of friends, and find your soulmate, and that others have all of these things and are truly happy. And, of course, a vast array of self-improvement products implies that it's all your fault for not working hard enough on yourself. In the last two decades, researchers have been starting to investigate how we can counteract these impulses. The field of positive psychology emerged, the study of what makes life worth living, while cognitive behavioral therapy was developed to change negative feelings. Scientists began to ask "Why are some people happier and more satisfied than others?" "And are there ways to apply what they're doing right to the rest of us?" In this video, we want to talk about one of the strongest predictors of how happy people are, how easily they make friends, and how good they are at dealing with hardship. 

An antidote to dissatisfaction, so to speak: Gratitude. While gratitude may sound like another self-improvement trend, preached by peoplewho use hashtags, what we currently know about it is basedon a body of scientific work and studies. We'll include them in the description. Gratitude can mean very different thingsto different people in different contexts. It's a character trait, a feeling,a virtue, and a behavior. You can feel grateful towards someonewho did something for you, for random events,like the weather, or even for nature or fate, and it's wired into our biology. 1: How Gratitude Connects Us to Each Other. The predecessor of gratitudeis probably reciprocity. It likely evolved asa biological signal that motivates animals to exchangethings for their mutual benefit and can be foundin the animal kingdom among certain fish,birds, or mammals, but especially in primates. When your brain recognizes thatsomeone's done something nice for you, it reacts with gratitude tomotivate you to repay them. This gratitude makesyou care about others, and others care about you. This was important because, as human brains gotbetter at reading emotions, selfish individuals wereidentified and shunned. It became an evolutionary advantageto play well with others and build lasting relationships. 

For example,if you were hungry and someone else showedyou where to find tasty berries, you felt gratitude towards them and a bond to returnthe favor in the future, a drive to be pro-social. When you repaid them,they felt gratitude towards you. This brought your ancestorscloser together and forged bonds and friendships. So, early forms of gratitudewere biological mechanisms that modified your behaviortowards cooperation, which helped humansto dominate Earth. But, over time, gratitude became more thanjust an impulse to play fair. 2: The Consequences of Gratitude Scientists found that gratitudestimulates the pathways in your brain involved in feelings of reward, forming social bonds, and interpreting other's intentions. It also makes it easier to saveand retrieve positive memories Even more, gratitude directly counteractsnegative feelings and traits, like envy and social comparison, narcissism, cynicism, and materialism. As a consequence, people whoare grateful, no matter what for, tend to be happier and more satisfied. They have better relationships, an easier time making friends. They sleep better, tend to suffer less fromdepression, addiction, and burnout, and are better at dealingwith traumatic events. In a way, gratitude makes itless likely that you'll fall into one of the psychological trapsmodern life has set for you. For example, gratitudemeasurably counters the tendency to forget anddownplay positive events. 

If you work long andhard for something, actually getting it can feeldaft and empty. You can find yourself emotionallyback where you started and try to achievethe next biggest thing, looking for that satisfaction, instead of being satisfied with yourself. Or, imagine being lonely andwanting to have more friends. You actually might have someone or even multiple peoplewho want to hang out, but you might feel thatthis is not enough, that you're a loser andfeel bad about yourself. So you might turn downtheir attempts to hang out and become more lonely. If you feel grateful foryour relationships instead, you might accept invitations or even take the initiative. The more often you risk opening up, the higher the chance ofsolidifying relationships and meeting new people. In the best case, gratitudecan trigger a feedback loop. Positive feelings lead tomore pro-social behavior, which leads to morepositive social experiences that cause morepositive feelings. This is a common experienceafter serious hardship, like chemotherapy, for example. Life can feel amazingafter a crisis is over. The smallest things can bebottomless sources of joy, from being able to taste to just sitting in the sunor chatting with a friend. Objectively, your life is the same ormaybe even slightly worse than before, but your brain comparesyour present experiences with the timeswhen life was bad and reacts with gratitude. So, in a nutshell, gratitude refocuses your attentiontowards the good things you have, and the consequences of this shift are better feelings andmore positive experiences. While it is great toknow these things, is there actually a way foryou to feel more of it? 3: 

How To Make Your Brain More Grateful The ability to experiencemore or less gratitude is not equally distributed. You have what's known astrait gratitude, that determines how muchyou are able to feel it. It depends on your genetics,personality, and culture. This discovery madescientists wonder if they could design exercisesthat change your trait gratitude and lead to more happiness. Let's start withimportant caveats. It's not yet entirely clear to what degreegratitude can be trained or how long the effects last. There are nomagic pills for happiness. Life is complicated. On some days, it feels likeyou're in control of yourself, and, on others, youfeel like you're not. And this is okay. Also, sometimes pursuing happinesscan make you more unhappy if you put too much pressure on yourself. Gratitude should also not be seenas a solution to depression or a substitute for professional help,. It can only be a piece of the puzzle. It's not the solution to the puzzle itself. The easiest gratitude exercise,with the most solid research behind it, is gratitude journaling. It means sitting downfor a few minutes, one to three times a week, and writing down five to tenthings you're grateful for It might feel weird at first, so start simply. Can you feel gratefulfor a little thing? Like how great coffee is, or that someonewas kind to you. Can you appreciate somethingsomeone else did for you? Can you reflect on which things or peopleyou would miss if they were gone and be grateful that they're in your life? We're all different, so you'll know whatworks for you. And that's it, really. It feels almost insulting, like things shouldn'tbe that simple. But in numerous studies, the participants reportedmore happiness and a higher generallife satisfaction after doing this practicefor a few weeks. And, even more, studies have found changes in brain activity some monthsafter they ended. Practicing gratitude may bea real way to reprogram yourself. This research shows thatyour emotions are not fixed. In the end, howyou experience life is a representation ofwhat you believe about it. If you attack your core beliefsabout yourself and your life, you can change yourthoughts and feelings, which automaticallychanges your behavior. It's pretty mind-blowing thatsomething as simple as self-reflection can hack the pathways in our brainto fight dissatisfaction. And, if this is no reasonto be more optimistic, what is? Being a human is hard, but it doesn't needto be as hard. And, if you actively look, you might find that your life ismuch better than you thought. [Happy bark] [Party horn] If you're curious andwant to try out gratitude, we made a thing. Please note that you don't need to buyanything from anyone to practice gratitude. All you need is paper,a pen, and five minutes. Having said that, we've madea Kurzgesagt gratitude journal, based on studies we've read, conversations with experts, and our personal experienceswith gratitude over the last year. It's structured in a way thatmight make it a bit easier to get into the habit ofgratitude journaling. There are short explanationsand reflections to mix it up and make it more interesting. We've also made itas pretty as we could. This video continuesthe unofficial series of more personal,introspective videos, from optimistic nihilism toloneliness and now gratitude. We don't want to bea self-help channel, so we'll keep this sort of videoat roughly one per year. We hope they're helpfulto some of you.