351. How gratitude changes your brain

We’re always told that gratitude is the route to happiness – that we should be grateful for every experience we have. But when life feels like it’s falling apart, gratitude can feel less like a comfort and more like pressure. In reality, gratitude and pain often have to coexist. In this episode, we ask whether gratitude actually does make us happier - what it really is, how it rewires the brain, and why it sometimes feels impossible. We explore: • What makes gratitude so powerful • The cognitive and neuroscientific mechanisms behind gratitude • Toxic gratitude when life simply feels hard • The gratitude paradox • The guilt associated with not being grateful enough • Some alternatives for when gratitude feels inaccessible If you’ve ever struggled with the idea that you ‘should’ be thankful for the hard times in life, this episode is for you. ORDER MY BOOK https://www.psychologyofyour20s.com/copy-of-book Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg https://www.instagram.com/jemmasbeg/?hl=en# Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast https://www.instagram.com/thatpsychologypodcast/?hl=en# For business: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 0:33Jemma Sbeg?

  I've been approaching my health really differently this year. I used to be really focused on maximizing and doing more. And now I'm just realizing that if I listen to what my body needs, I perform way better. And that's why I am obsessed with my Whoop. Truly, you guys, you know I'm such a data and information-driven person. And I love opening my Whoop app and seeing how my sleep, my stress, my strain is correlating with my mood, with my running performance, with how I'm just feeling day to day. I'm not an elite athlete by any means, but I do really benefit. And I also just really enjoy knowing more about my body. And Whoop also gives me these actionable, personalized insights

• 1:16Jemma Sbeg?

  that have made me more intentional and meant that I make smarter decisions day to day about what I need, rather than just putting my foot on the gas and just going, going, going, going. New members can try Whoop with a 30-day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join.whoop.com/psychology for your free month of Whoop. Hey, question. Are you an Extra Care member at CVS? Because there is literally no reason not to be. It's super easy to join and members instantly get extra big deals on things you buy most. I mean, this is stuff you're already buying, things like snacks, personal care products, all of it. And after you join, the savings just show up. Deals refresh every two weeks, but they don't last long.

• 2:01Jemma Sbeg?

  Head to your local CVS or open the CVS app, look for extra big deals, and start saving today.

• 2:10Jemma Sbeg?

  This episode is sponsored by Gymshark. Gymshark has spent over 14 years obsessing over gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good. Their everyday seamless collection is light, it's soft, it's stretchy. All of their stuff just looks good on and it's made for people who love to exercise, whatever exercise that is, lifting, cardio, Pilates, running around campus, maybe just doing errands. Discover Gymshark and find your new favourite gym clothing at gymshark.com.

• 2:47Jemma Sbeg?

  These days, there are more people than ever telling you how to manage your health. Your social media feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max and so much more. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? Health versus Hype from the American Medical Association breaks it all down. Emmy nominated host Trace Dominguez talks through health influencers, real people, and most importantly, doctors, to separate fact from fiction. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to really matters. Listen to Health vs. Hype wherever you get your podcasts.

• 3:30Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello everybody and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties. The podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology.

• 3:49Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello everybody, welcome back to the show, welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course, break down the psychology of our twenties. You guys might not want me to say this, but like it or not, we are coming closer to the end of the year and also the holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year. And famously, there is a hu- Huge emphasis on reflecting on the year and showing gratitude for our lives. So I thought, what better time than now to do an episode on gratitude, which for some reason I have never done before.

• 4:33Jemma Sbeg?

  I don't know exactly how I have missed it, but today is the day. Also, before we get into it, I want to let you know this episode is actually also a video episode on YouTube. So if you prefer watching episodes with video and getting to like, see, I don't know, see me speaking to you through a screen. Go and check that out. I'll leave a link in the description, but let's get into it. Gratitude journals, gratitude challenges, daily affirmations. You know, I even have a daily affirmations, well, weekly affirmations podcast. It's everywhere. If you've ever opened Instagram, which I'm assuming you have, you have probably seen a post at some time, at some point about manifesting abundance.

• 5:16Jemma Sbeg?

  If you've ever been to therapy, chances are you have encountered a therapist that has encouraged gratitude. I know I shall have. It is presented to us as this almost like magical cure all. Be grateful and you will be happy. People talk about gratitude like it is this like magic pill, this magic way to be a more happy, well-rounded person. In some ways it is, but that claim can feel a little bit too neat, a little bit too like one dimensional. Can it really fix everything? Probably not. Is it always that easy to tap into?

• 5:58Jemma Sbeg?

  Definitely not. But today we're going to talk about it and we're going to ask that big question. Does gratitude actually make us happier? And what forms or ways of expressing gratitude are the most effective? We're going to look at, of course, the psychology. Do I even need to say that? Probably not. The neuroscience and also importantly, the limits of gratitude. Because yes, it is amazing. Yes, it does fundamentally change your brain. There's also a more nuanced side to it. That gratitude can elicit a lot of guilt and a pressure to be thankful. And it can actually stop or halt emotional processing. That needs to be part of the conversation.

• 6:41Jemma Sbeg?

  So I am excited to dive deeper into this topic. It has been a long time coming. Without further ado, let's get into the psychology of gratitude.

• 6:56Jemma Sbeg?

  First things first, definition of gratitude. We need to kind of get that, get that ironed out. This is actually ironically kind of a hard concept to get a clear definition on. One of the best ways it's described and that I found it described was actually in a 2010 paper written by researchers in Ohio, who actually talked about how gratitude is both a trait. So for example, some people just naturally feel more grateful. And it's also an attitude or an emotion. It's also something that we can elicit for ourselves and kind of force into occurring. There are even more definitions about this.

• 7:39Jemma Sbeg?

  Is gratitude also just like a coping response? Is it a coping mechanism? Is gratitude like a spiritual experience? Is it just something that like we have to trip into to find? Is it just something that comes up spontaneously? A lot of people actually have different thoughts about it. How I like to see it and how this paper defined it and gratitude in the broader sense is an appreciation of what is valuable and meaningful to oneself. Whether it is a trait, whether it is forced, it's just an appreciation. To add to this, psychologist Robert Edmonds and Michael MacLau, they are like the leading researchers on gratitude. And I like their definition as well.

• 8:24Jemma Sbeg?

  They define it as a two-step process, which is recognizing that something good has happened and acknowledging that someone else or something else beyond you had to play a role in it. So the first definition is really like, it's just feeling like the world or something is beautiful and being able to notice it. The second definition that we're working with is that you're able to attribute it to something. In other words, it's not just an experience. It's also a feeling of being connected, but also supported more broadly, whether it's by your family, whether it's by. The God you believe in, by the universe, by nature, whatever it is, there's an appreciation for that outside force.

• 9:08Jemma Sbeg?

  Psychologically, gratitude is seen as just like mental superpower. Why is that? Well firstly, because it promotes positive appraisal or positive reappraisal. Essentially, why that's so powerful is because bad things are always going to happen. Terrible things, annoying things, frustrating things are always going to occur. You can't change that. You can change how your brain interprets these experiences. Instead of fixating on what went wrong, gratitude allows you to retrain your mind to notice what's still working. You might not know this, but our brains are actually wired by default to have a negativity

• 9:51Jemma Sbeg?

  bias, basically to see the worst in things, to see the worst in people, to see the worst in circumstances. This has actually been a good thing in the past. It meant that we were more attuned to threats, to danger, to the poisonous plants, the big saber-toothed tigers. But it also means that, left unchecked, our minds are naturally quite pessimistic. Gratitude, though, is the counterbalance to this that allows us to kind of really just zoom out and see the full picture, not just the negative or shadowy parts. If we take a look at how this works cognitively, there's a few processes that are involved here.

• 10:35Jemma Sbeg?

  I feel like people talk about gratitude all the time. No one talks about what it's actually doing to your brain inside the skull of ours. First, gratitude allows us to direct our attention more conveniently or positively to things that we actually want to see. You can't appreciate good things if you don't look for them, right? And if you don't direct yourself to notice them, gratitude builds that skill. The next is memory encoding. When we focus on positive experiences and we repeat them through those common exercises of gratitude. Journal or reflection or speaking openly about them. Those memories get encoded more deeply.

• 11:17Jemma Sbeg?

  The same way that when you study by writing and rehearsing and reflecting on your knowledge. This is objectively better than just like reading your notes or listening to the lecture. Research that was published in the Journal of Positive Psychology. Found that so-called grateful memories actually showed less fading over time. Even compared to other positive memories. This is actually seen a lot in dementia patients who can remember. Really beautiful memories with their family when they were kids, when they were younger. They're encoded almost in a separate way to other kinds of memories. Mainly because they are appraised as valuable.

• 12:00Jemma Sbeg?

  Because they are so significant and they carry meaning. Our brain kind of locks them in like this sneaky safe that it has at the back. Meaning that when everything else starts to fade and decay, they remain. There's also an aspect of emotional regulation going on here. Gratitude activates the prefrontal cortex. This is the part of the brain that is responsible for emotional regulation. If you're going through a really tough time and you're stressed and you're frustrated. What gratitude actually does is allow this part of your brain to, I guess, work better. By having a more rational perspective and truthfulness perspective on your circumstances.

• 12:43Jemma Sbeg?

  It allows you to hold two truths at the same time. This moment is hard, but it's not always going to be hard. There is more than this. That is an incredible ability to have. Also, we have to talk about this from a more social, less individualized standpoint. Gratitude has been proven to increase pro-social behaviour. And when practised on an individual level, to actually make a community and a society better. Kindness, empathy, generosity, they all increase when people have a higher level of personal gratitude.

• 13:22Jemma Sbeg?

  We are more likely to act in favourable ways to others and to be acting positively and strengthening relationships. When we feel like there is good in the world and that other people possess good as well. So gratitude is like incredible for society as well. It's like something that really does like mend and heal fractured systems. So what does this actually do to the brain, like neurologically? That was like cognitively, what's happening like to our neurons, to our synapses, to yeah, to this big organ? Well, I can tell you using this 2015 fMRI study from these people at Indiana University.

• 14:02Jemma Sbeg?

  So in this study, they basically asked participants to write down letters of gratitude to people in their lives. They didn't have to send the letters, they just had to write the letters that was enough to a grandmother, to an aunt, to an uncle or brother, whoever it was. Three months later, when those same participants were scanned in the fMRI machines. Their brains showed increased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex. That's the region involved in emotional regulation, in learning and decision making. Like there was physical changes to how their brain was operating. The researchers concluded that gratitude is, it has a long-lasting neural footprint.

• 14:45Jemma Sbeg?

  And they saw that footprint, I guess, entrenched deeper when people did this over and over and over again. Essentially, this practice changed the brain's baseline response to both positive and negative experiences. There was also a further 2015 study published in Frontiers in Psychology, also using fMRI scanners, which basically induced gratitude in participants and then scanned their brain at the time. Instead of just giving these people like random gratitude prompts, instead of asking them just to write letters of gratitude, they told them stories that were really precious and beautiful.

• 15:26Jemma Sbeg?

  These stories actually came from real Holocaust survivors who'd been helped by strangers during the war. People who had risked their own lives to offer food, to offer shelter, to offer protection. And the participants were asked to imagine themselves as this person being helped and being rescued, to picture that moment, to feel what it would have been like to receive that kind of of help when you were just like so desperate. And as they did that, the scans showed significant activation in a couple of areas. The ventral striatum and the nucleus accumbens, both key parts of the brain's reward system.

• 16:09Jemma Sbeg?

  Long names, all you need to know is that these are the areas that are most active when we experience pleasure, love or deep connection. And that activity increased even after the story was over. What's so beautiful about this study is that it shows that gratitude isn't just like something that's nice. It's not just surface level. It's like viscerally rewarding. Like the reward is something that we can literally see. And what's even more interesting was that they didn't even have to perform gratitude themselves to have this feeling. No one in this study actually received anything. Like it was entirely empathetic.

• 16:53Jemma Sbeg?

  Just imagining the kind of generosity was like enough to trigger the brain's reward circuits. When people say gratitude changes your brain, this is what they're talking about. This is what they are referring to. There is hard science behind why it's recommended. But, and this is equally an important thing to remember. Only under the right conditions. Gratitude isn't something that we can actually always access. And it might not actually always be helpful. Sometimes it can backfire. Sometimes it can leave us feeling worse than before.

• 17:35Jemma Sbeg?

  And that's like a part of the conversation that I don't think people really want to have all the time, but we are going to have it today. How could gratitude possibly be bad for us? We're going to answer that question after this short break.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 18:20Jemma Sbeg?

  I've been approaching my health really differently this year. I used to be really focused on maximizing and doing more. And now I'm just realizing that if I listen to what my body needs, I perform way better. And that's why I am obsessed with my Whoop. Truly, you guys, you know, I'm such a data and information driven person. And I love opening my Whoop app and seeing how my sleep, my stress, my strain is correlating with my mood, with my running performance, with how I'm just feeling day to day. I'm not an elite athlete by any means, but I do really benefit. And I also just really enjoy knowing more about my body. And Whoop also gives me these actionable personalized insights that have made me more

• 19:05Jemma Sbeg?

  intentional and meant that I make smarter decisions day to day about what I need, rather than just putting my foot on the gas and just going, going, going, going. New members can try Whoop with a 30 day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join.whoop.com/psychology for your free month of Whoop.

• 19:24Jemma Sbeg?

  Who out here shops at CVS? Most of you, right? Well, if you're not signed up for Extra Care, you need to fix that because when you are, you get extra big deals. These are limited time offers you can find in store or in the app, and it's where being an Extra Care member pays off. So sign up now. If you're already shopping there, it's a no brainer. If you're not, well, you need to do something about that as well. Signing up couldn't be easier. And once you've joined, the exclusive member discounts instantly appear. You don't have to do anything. No coupons. You'll just enjoy savings on the items you buy most. We're talking about savings on essentials like household items, snacks, health, personal care products, plus travel and seasonal stuff too. All right there in store.

• 20:09Jemma Sbeg?

  Couldn't be easier. Deals refresh every two weeks, so there's always something new, but they don't last long. Extra big deals with Extra Care. Instant savings made simple. Head to your local CVS or open the CVS app, look for extra big deals and start saving today.

• 20:27Jemma Sbeg?

  This episode is sponsored by Gymshark. Gymshark has spent over 14 years obsessing over gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good. Their everyday seamless collection is light, it's soft, it's stretchy. All of their stuff just looks good on, and it's made for people who love to exercise, whatever exercise that is. Lifting, cardio, Pilates, running around campus, maybe just doing errands. Discover Gymshark and find your new favorite gym clothing at gymshark.com.

• 21:04Jemma Sbeg?

  These days, there are more people than ever telling you how to manage your health. And we've all gone down an internet rabbit hole exploring the latest health trends. Your social media feed is packed with wellness advice telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel and YouTube, talks to health influencers, real people, and most importantly, doctors,

• 21:48Jemma Sbeg?

  to separate fact from fiction. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 22:04Jemma Sbeg?

  So here's where it gets a little bit tricky. Gratitude, when it's real and when it's self motivated, is really fantastic. When it bubbles up naturally, it's even more fantastic. You know, we all have those moments where we're just like, wow, I'm so lucky to be here. This is such a beautiful day. You go searching for that feeling. You feel incredible. You feel like, like there's a lightness to you. The moment that gratitude becomes something we're told to feel, or something that we owe because of our circumstances, it shifts from being an emotion to being a performance. And it stops being a resource that helps us and starts essentially becoming a tool for emotional suppression.

• 22:49Jemma Sbeg?

  This is where we veer into what we call toxic gratitude. This is an offshoot of toxic positivity. This is when we start to use it to bypass uncomfortable emotions. And what ends up happening is that we actually don't honour them. And we don't actually process why they happened in the first place. And why that just is like deeply impacted us. You um might have heard this yourself, you definitely have.

• 23:21Jemma Sbeg?

  It's very silent sometimes, like the use of of gratitude to kind of silence emotions that people don't wanna look at is sometimes invisible, but it sounds like, oh, could have been worse. It sounds like, at least I have a roof over my head. It sounds like, you know, there's someone out there who has it harder than me, so I'm just gonna shut up about it. And the thing is, those statements are totally true. Yeah, someone does have it worse than you. Like, people do have it harder than you. Having that kind of awareness and perspective i- is important. It also doesn't undercut the fact that if something is painful and sucky for you, it's still painful and sucky for you. Like, how I like to, I always say this to my friends, and I always say this to myself,

• 24:07Jemma Sbeg?

  someone with a broken arm, it's, it's still gonna, like, their arm still hurts whether or not someone else has a broken spine. Like, it's entirely separate. They are still feeling all that pain in themselves. Like, someone else's suffering doesn't, like, undercut it. There's not only a certain amount of suffering that can go around. We cannot have this idea that if your suffering isn't the absolute worst kind, you do not deserve to feel it. And sometimes, the use of gratitude as a solution to these feelings is a way that we actually make people believe that. This is a podcast that I love, um, called Live Happy Now.

• 24:52Jemma Sbeg?

  Big fan, big fan of that podcast. And I was listening to an episode that they did with Whitney Goodman, talking about the impact of toxic positivity. And what she said was that toxic positivity denies an emotion. It denies a feeling, which is actually like just as bad as what that feeling might be eliciting in the first place. When we use toxic positivity, we're basically telling ourselves, like, this emotion shouldn't exist, it's wrong. And so not only are we feeling the feeling, we're also feeling shame about the feeling. And it's obviously impossible to ignore it anyways, because we know it does exist. Otherwise, we wouldn't be feeling it right now. And so the whole situation becomes a lot more confusing.

• 25:36Jemma Sbeg?

  Refusing an emotion or not feeling it doesn't make you more healed. Because it actually means that the battle between you and that emotion is probably more of a vicious, daily thing than if you processed it appropriately in the first place. If you actually let yourself just not be grateful for a little while. If you just let yourself be like, this just really, really sucks. And I don't want to be grateful for my situation. I don't want to be grateful for what else I have. I don't necessarily want to be resilient right now. I don't want to be the bigger person. I just want to have some self pity.

• 26:18Jemma Sbeg?

  That's actually, and you may not think that I would say this, honestly, totally fine. Gratitude just sometimes doesn't feel accessible to you. And trying to force it to be actually creates this really weird paradox, where the more you try, the harder and more elusive it becomes. Gratitude requires a certain baseline level of safety. It requires the belief that even subconsciously, you know, you're okay to relax. Like, you're okay to take in what's around you. When your nervous system is dysregulated, when it's stuck in fight, flight, freeze or fawn,

• 26:59Jemma Sbeg?

  your brain like is all focused on living through and getting through this experience. So it's not going to be scanning your surroundings for beauty or blessings. It's scanning for threats and threats only. It is not a choice in that moment to be ungrateful. It is actually just plain inaccessible. When we don't feel safe, the part of us that connects us, that feels joy, that expresses appreciation, it just goes offline. Because from an evolutionary perspective, again, it's not immediately necessary for our survival. The body can't access gratitude if it doesn't believe the world is safe enough to let its guard down.

• 27:41Jemma Sbeg?

  And yet, that's often when, again, people double down. I saw another article from the psychologist Susan David, where she talks about this cultural obsession with like, good vibes and how that actually creates more emotional fragility. When we're not allowed to name pain, we can't process it. And unprocessed pain doesn't magically vanish the same way that energy doesn't magically vanish. It just hides behind all the gratitude bandages until like, that defense mechanism doesn't work anymore. And look, I'm not saying that gratitude is bad. It's just that like, it can't be forced from a place of fear or from a place of shame.

• 28:23Jemma Sbeg?

  It can't be forced from a place of, I should, of shoulds. Maybe that's the best way to say it. Sometimes like, the kindest thing you can do to yourself is, and do for yourself, is just be like, yeah, this just really sucks. So I want to talk about some alternatives. I feel like I've been blabbing on about that for a while. When gratitude is inaccessible, what else is there? Because we do actually need some kind of thing to hold on to. What might that be? If gratitude feels too heavy, one of these recommendations that I heard from someone was to just look for niceness instead. Looking for something nice feels a lot more neutral,

• 29:08Jemma Sbeg?

  feels way less intimidating than being like, you have to find something that you are grateful for. 100% absolutely. Just look for one small thing each day that's like, you just think is cool or you just think is beautiful. You're not necessarily grateful for it. But you know, it was really nice that the pavement smelled really beautiful after it rained today. It was really nice that like, you saw that child holding that flower on the bus. I'm not necessarily grateful for it, but it was enjoyable. It was nice to see that. When we lessen the pressure to feel this like huge expansive feeling and this expansive

• 29:50Jemma Sbeg?

  like impact of some outside force on our lives, we can start to just welcome in a few more moments of just like joy and pleasure and contentment throughout our day. The next thing to do if you're finding it hard to be grateful for what you have and for your life is just to do something completely new. Sometimes, and especially when life feels hard, we find it difficult to access gratitude because everything feels the same. Then like you add a layer of like this, just I'm just feeling crap onto that, like it just gets even worse. So pursue novelty over gratitude. Go to a new part of your city for the day. Make like a bucket list for where you live. Just wander around. Study at the public library instead of studying at home.

• 30:35Jemma Sbeg?

  Maybe change up your weekly routine if you can, like start cooking new meals in the evening. Choose like an elaborate dessert recipe and commit to making it. Do something on Friday night that's not drinking. Go and like explore or go to your local bouldering gym. Go to like, I don't know, a painting class, just like do something else. You know what me and my friends did the other day? We were having this conversation of like, I'm so sick of like going out drinking on like a Saturday or Friday night and like everything in the city feels the same. So we went to a trampoline park, like the one you used to go to when you were 12 years old. And like someone would always end up like breaking something or like ripping their jeans. And it was the best night ever.

• 31:21Jemma Sbeg?

  Having novel experiences has been evidenced time and time again to be essential for adaptability and for your overall wellbeing. Like people actually cannot thrive in situations that are completely and constantly the same. They need new stimulus.

• 31:39Jemma Sbeg?

  So if you're not feeling grateful, that might be a solution. Another way to experience like newness is to put yourself in someone else's shoes and to, you know, create gratitude for somebody else if you can't experience it for yourself. Volunteering, acts of kindness, those kinds of things are deeply powerful. Try and do like one kind thing a day for the next two weeks. Not only does this like give you a sense of purpose, like I'm changing somebody else's life, even if they don't notice it, it also allows others to be grateful for you. And that can create feedback for modeling gratitude in general. When you're finding it really hard to access it, maybe you just need to create more of it for other people.

• 32:23Jemma Sbeg?

  And it will come back to you in time. Similar to like both of these, like is just being curious. Novelty, curiosity, somewhat similar, but it just keeps the mind open when you can't necessarily access these absolute positive emotions. Just try and explore, just try and be interested in life. Try and find new things that you can learn about and then see if gratitude comes. Some questions you might also want to ask yourself to prompt this in your own life is like, when I'm looking at an experience, I might see it as only good or only bad. What is the gray area?

• 33:06Jemma Sbeg?

  What actually might this experience be teaching me that I don't have to be grateful for, but I don't have to be terrified of either? What might this be preparing me for? Or, you know, if this was like a chapter of my life in a movie or a book, and I was someone watching from the outside, looking in, what's the purpose of this moment? Can I see where this is guiding me to in the future? What should my character do next? Instead of seeing things in like absolutes, this is only good, this is only bad. Yeah, like there's zones, zones I sit on, like what's in the middle? What's like the meat of the situation? What am I meant to be learning? And this like, isn't supposed to be invalidating, or it's not supposed to romanticize your pain.

• 33:51Jemma Sbeg?

  It just encourages you just to like, stay engaged with like, the nuances of life. And accept that like, just because something doesn't make sense yet, doesn't mean that it won't down the line. Like, it's an acknowledgement that, especially if you're in your twenties, like, you're still learning, you're still growing, and adapting through life. This might be the worst thing that's ever happened to you now, but life will get bigger and like, be able to hold more space for new and better things. I think the biggest takeaway from today is that gratitude is like fabulous. It's like, I honestly think it's like, a human gift. It's a miracle in many ways that we can like, appreciate things so deeply that

• 34:34Jemma Sbeg?

  the only thing we can do is, is say that some other worldly thing must be responsible for it. It's so beautiful that we can see beauty and just, like, it's honestly an indescribable emotion. Like, I imagine trying to just describe like gratitude to an, an alien and I just like, feel like they probably wouldn't understand it. That doesn't mean that it's a moral test. You don't have to be relentlessly positive. You don't have to be grateful all the time, just because it's a beautiful feeling. You don't have to pretend everything's fine. I think it's just important to know that like, you're allowed to have a diversity of emotions. But if you can access gratitude, it's not gonna be a quick fix.

• 35:16Jemma Sbeg?

  It's not gonna be some vitamin, but it is something that you can like, come back to that might make life just feel a little bit better. That might be able to like, hold your hand through grief and through exhaustion and through hard times. And just give you like, it's like a nice place to like, go and, and lay your head down when like, everything else in the world feels really terrible. Doesn't mean you like, are morally obligated to feel it all the time. It's just like, a superpower and it's this brilliant thing that we're very lucky to have when we really need it. So, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you have made it this far. What's something you're grateful for? Please leave a comment below. Share why that makes you feel grateful.

• 36:01Jemma Sbeg?

  Share, yeah, whether it's a person, whether it's a pet, whether it's like a movie, a TV show, like the best chocolate cake you've ever had. I want to hear it. I want to know. Something I'm grateful for right now is um air conditioner. It's like genuinely like forty degrees in Sydney right now. If you're like, I don't know if you do Fahrenheit, it's like over a hundred degrees. And yeah, so grateful for air conditioner. I'm so grateful for the people who discovered how to make air cold. So that's my little, that's my little touchstone for the day. I'm going to go to bed thinking, God, that's nice. But yeah, I appreciate you listening. Thank you again to our research assistant, Libby Colbert, for her contributions to this episode. She's amazing.

• 36:44Jemma Sbeg?

  We love her and we appreciate all of her work. If you want more from the psychology of your twenties, you can follow us on Substack. If you want the transcript of this episode, you can also follow us on YouTube. If you want to watch this episode or watch any of the other episodes that we have recorded for you guys in the recent months, make sure as well that you are following us on Instagram at that psychology podcast. If you want to see what's coming up, I think we have a few meetups planned soon. So if you live in Europe, I'll be coming your way very, very soon. So stay tuned for that. But until next time, be safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself, be grateful when you need to be or when you want to be, and we will talk very, very soon.

• 37:38Jemma Sbeg?

  I've been approaching my health really differently this year. I used to be really focused on maximizing and doing more. And now I'm just realizing that if I listen to what my body needs, I perform way better. And that's why I am obsessed with my whoop. Truly, you guys, you know I'm such a data and information-driven person. And I love opening my Whoop app and seeing how my sleep, my stress, my strain is correlating with my mood, with my running performance, with how I'm just feeling day to day. I'm not an elite athlete by any means, but I do really benefit. And I also just really enjoy knowing more about my body. And Whoop also gives me these actionable, personalised insights that have made me more

• 38:22Jemma Sbeg?

  intentional and meant that I make smarter decisions day to day about what I need, rather than just putting my foot on the gas and just going, going, going, going. New members can try Whoop with a 30-day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join.whoop.com/psychology for your free month of Whoop. This episode is sponsored by Gymshark. Gymshark has spent over 14 years obsessing over gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good. Their everyday seamless collection is light, it's soft, it's stretchy. All of their stuff just looks good on and it's made for people who love to exercise, whatever exercise that is.

• 39:07Jemma Sbeg?

  Lifting, cardio, Pilates, running around campus, maybe just doing errands. Discover Gymshark and find your new favourite gym clothing at gymshark.com.

• 39:19Jemma Sbeg?

  Hi, this is Jemma Sbeg. Taking care of yourself doesn't have to mean completely changing your routine. Naturewise Vitamin D3 is an easy way to support immune, bone and muscle health every single day. And because quality matters, Naturewise has one of the first NSF-certified Vitamin D3 currently on the market. Plus, it's non-GMO, gluten-free and third-party tested. Visit naturewise.com to explore their Vitamin D3 options and find the one that's right for you. Naturewise.com.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. Whether you're leading a big project, planning an elaborate trip, or trying to balance work and life, ChatGPT can help. Give it a goal, plus things like files, notes, or project plans, develop a trip itinerary with daily updates, or create a prioritized schedule, so you can spend less energy sorting out the details and more on bringing your biggest ideas to life. Get started at ChatGPT.com.

• 40:23Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.