What Thankfulness Does To Our Brain
Thanksgiving Benefits More Than Just Our Stomach
What if I told you that your brain is hard-wired to pursue gratitude, and that part of your stress, anxiety and uneasiness come from choices that block your brain from finding it?
In This Article:
Our brain is wired for peace and gratitude
Chronic critical, negative thoughts focus attention away from gratitude
Reflection on thankfulness helps connect your mind with what’s most important
Key Application:
A simple, profound mindset change that resets your brain for gratitude
And what if I also told you that the effects of disengaging from gratitude are spilling over into everything that you do, and impacting everyone you influence?
And what if the physical design of your brain requires gratitude to function properly?
And what if you knew that a lack of gratitude degrades your spiritual life, limits your connection with God and shunts your experience of community with others?
And finally, what if I told you that there’s a simple, powerful way to ensure that gratitude will be an ongoing experience in your life—but it requires you to consistently do a certain mental exercise for the rest of your life?
Would you believe me and buy in? Or would you dismiss this as fortune-cookie, feel-good, happy-place pop psychology?
Be careful here … because your answer to that last question has already decided your ability to experience thankfulness.
Big Picture
Gratitude/thankfulness are key components of being at peace, feeling fulfilled and content. These elements are to the brain what good nutrition is to the rest of the body: They are essential for overall health and proper functioning of our brain.
Said differently: When gratitude is missing, everything we do requires more effort, takes longer and produces sub-optimal results. We’re inefficient. Distracted. Unfulfilled. We struggle to experience flow in our work and relationships.
And a lack of gratitude feeds on itself, becoming—literally—a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our glass remains in a perpetual half-empty state, even if it’s running over.
And of course, this is the attitude and mindset that frames how we lead others. Consider your direct reports, your customers and suppliers, your family and friends—all those in your circle of influence—how are they impacted by your leadership attitude of pessimism, criticism, apathy and disbelief?
Is that the environment you want to create around you?
What’s Happening In Our Head
There’s a lot going on in our heads here. At a high level, there are two dynamics we need to be aware of:
The distinction between the “mind” and the “brain,” and
The unique activities of the left and right hemispheres.
I’ll touch on each briefly…
The Mind and the Brain
There is too much content on the “mind” and the “brain” to fully unpack here. I’ll be exploring this in a couple of upcoming paid-subscriber articles, so be on the lookout for ...
One that will post this Friday (after Thanksgiving) on the distinction between the mind and the brain.
Another that will explain how our thoughts actually change the physical structure of our brain—a process called neuroplasticity.
What’s important to know is that the mind and the brain are NOT the same thing. The mind is spiritual, the brain is physical. The mind is the part of your spirit/soul that believes, knows, feels and chooses. The brain is the physical cells (neurons), synapses, neurotransmitters, etc. that store and transfer thoughts, sensory input and memories as electrical impulses.
Here are a few key points we need to understand:
Our mind’s thoughts exist in the spiritual realm, while our brain’s thoughts exist as energy in our physical brain.
Our (spiritual) mind controls our (physical) brain, and the brain responds to the mind’s direction. (Think: Our mind is the driver, and our brain is the car.)
Our mind can give up control and instead follow our brain’s thoughts. (Think: The driver lets the car drive autonomously.)
Our brain captures and processes all our experiences and thoughts—good and bad, healthy and unhealthy—and is always working to coherently sort them out.
One reality of that last bullet is that there will always be unhealthy thoughts in our physical brain. It’s easy to assume these thoughts are valid and trustworthy—simply because they exist in our physical brain. And if these unhealthy/inaccurate thoughts aren’t intentionally processed, our mind can embrace them as truth … and then act on them.
The Right and Left Hemispheres
Complicating matters further is the unique activities of our brain’s hemispheres. I’ve already laid out the hemisphere differences in a some previous articles: Why Reflection Is the Most Under-Utilized Leadership Discipline and Left-Brained Blind Spots: The Left Hemisphere's Role in Our Spiritual Journey.
Our right hemisphere acts as part database/repository and part optimizer, defining our identity, assessing reality and determining how it all fits together. It is active 24/7/365 (mostly unconsciously)—even in sleep.
It presents its output to our left hemisphere for analysis, systematization and conclusion (much of which happens consciously). The left hemisphere reviews this output but only pays attention to what it wants to. That’s because:
It can only consciously focus on a small subset of what is being unconsciously processed in the right hemisphere.
It is biased by its current thoughts.
The biggest implication of this combination is that what and how we focus our attention shapes how we see reality and ourselves.
This is where things get interesting …
The Left Hemisphere/Brain Hijack of the Mind
As the left hemisphere analyzes, it pursues certainty. When certainty can’t be achieved, the resulting uncertainty feels problematic and threatening. The left hemisphere then responds by looking for things that create uncertainty and flagging them as negatives. This could include things we’re biased against, afraid of or anxious about, things that could go wrong, etc.—all of which are easy to find.
When it finds something, it senses reward and so continues the process. And because it’s conscious thinking, it feels more reliable than the right hemisphere’s unconscious thinking. And so this negative focus eventually becomes our default thinking approach.
Enter “the skeptic.”
If the mind doesn’t recognize what’s happening and move to control the skeptic, the physical brain’s left hemisphere (which God designed to be the caboose in the thinking train) now becomes the engine driving our mindset.1
Hijack.
The Word On Gratitude
Gratitude interrupts the hijack. Gratitude is an intentional, focused re-connection of your physical brain’s conscious, left hemisphere with what you know to be true in your unconscious, right hemisphere (which should be controlled by your mind).
All this harmonizes with the Scriptures. Consider these passages that reveal intentional left-hemisphere focus, for the purpose of connecting with and validating right-hemisphere beliefs, knowledge and truth (all passages from the NIV):
“I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word. My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises.” (Psalm 119.147-148).
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.” (Philippians 4.6-9)
“Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5.17-20)
“All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4.15-18)
“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2Corinthains 10.5)
Bottom Line
Your naturally skeptical, left-hemispherically dominated brain says:
“Give me a reason I should be thankful about life and I’ll think about it.”
Instead, you let your mind direct your brain to say:
“Being thankful gives me a reason to think about life in a reasonable way.”
Set your mind intentionally on what is true, real and good—through the lens of thanksgiving—and see what a difference it makes to your life and your leadership.
Gratitude is not “putting a positive spin on things” or “pumping sunshine.” It’s not “finding a happy place,” as if to escape reality. Gratitude is being thankful for what we know to be true—even when times are hard, life is crazy and we don’t have much to be grateful for.
There’s a VAST difference.
Peace be with you, and Happy Thanksgiving!
Any Thoughts/Questions?
Like to know more? What should I explain further? Leave a comment about anything that stands out to you in this article …
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This is the dynamics in play around the concept of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Carol Dweck).