Att öva på tacksamhet kan ge dig en hel rad hälsofördelar enligt forskningen.
En ny studie undersökte effekten på hjärnan och nervcellerna och hur det kan ha än mer långsiktiga effekter än vad man tidigare känt till.
Deltagarna i studien var vuxna människor som just påbörjade terapi för depression eller oro/ångest. Den ena gruppen skulle spendera 20 minuter på att skriva brev som uttryckte tacksamhet. Det handlade om ett brev per vecka de första tre veckorna av terapin. Kontrollgruppen startade sin terapi som vanligt.
Tre månader senare gjorde samtliga deltagare en tacksamhetsövning medan deras hjärnor scannades. De som hade skrivit tacksamhetsbreven visade beteendemässigt signifikant mer tacksamhet, men än viktigare så visade det sig att deras hjärnor faktiskt hade förändrats! Tacksamhetsgruppen hade signifikanta förändringar i den del av hjärnan som kallas för ”the medial prefrontal cortex” (prefrontala hjärnbarken), den del av hjärnan som påverkar saker som planering, omdöme och beslutsfattande. Deras hjärnor hade omprogrammerats till att känna tacksamhet lättare – en effekt som varade länge efter interventionen.
“Gratitude is a common aspect of social interaction, yet relatively little is known about the neural bases of gratitude expression, nor how gratitude expression may lead to longer-term effects on brain activity. To address these twin issues, we recruited subjects who coincidentally were entering psychotherapy for depression and/or anxiety. One group participated in a gratitude writing intervention, which required them to write letters expressing gratitude. The therapy-as-usual control group did not perform a writing intervention. After three months, subjects performed a “Pay It Forward” task in the fMRI scanner. In the task, subjects were repeatedly endowed with a monetary gift and then asked to pass it on to a charitable cause to the extent they felt grateful for the gift. Operationalizing gratitude as monetary gifts allowed us to engage the subjects and quantify the gratitude expression for subsequent analyses. We measured brain activity and found regions where activity correlated with self-reported gratitude experience during the task, even including related constructs such as guilt motivation and desire to help as statistical controls. These were mostly distinct from brain regions activated by empathy or theory of mind. Also, our between groups cross-sectional study found that a simple gratitude writing intervention was associated with significantly greater and lasting neural sensitivity to gratitude – subjects who participated in gratitude letter writing showed both behavioral increases in gratitude and significantly greater neural modulation by gratitude in the medial prefrontal cortex three months later.”
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