[UPBEAT MUSIC] - What good is the gratitude? You might ask it and phrase it that way. And I think there's a number of important reasons why gratitude works, why it matters. And there's just four of these on the screen. Number one, it allows us to celebrate the present, a magnification of positive emotions. We know from research by emotion scientists that emotion-- positive emotions wear off quickly. 

There's-- our emotional systems like newness. They like novelty. They like change. And we adapt to positive life circumstances so that the new car, the new spouse, the new house, the new whatever is not so new after a short period of time. We adapt to it. 

Well, with gratitude, gratitude involves the appreciation of the value of something. And so when we appreciate the value of it, we're less likely to depreciate the value, which is to lose value. Therefore, we extract more benefits. It just-- I think it allows us to participate more in life and just notice the positives more, and that magnifies your experience, your pleasure, that you get. So it magnifies the goodness and then can delay the adaptation that can occur to positive life events. 

It allows us to participate, to celebrate. We spend a lot of time spectating, watching things, watching movies, watching speakers, looking at our computer screens, watching athletic events, and so on. With gratitude, we become more participators, as opposed to spectators. 

Number two, gratitude blocks negative emotions, toxic emotions, which can destroy our happiness, subjective well-being, optimal functioning, particularly in the domain of envy, resentment, regret, even depression. There's new evidence coming out showing that gratitude is effective in the prevention-- reduces the episodes of depression, reduces the duration, and makes future episodes less likely. 

You cannot be envious and grateful at the same time. Try it. You can't. They're incompatible feelings. You can't resent someone for having something that they have that you don't if you are grateful. Those are very different ways of being in the world. And to the degree to which one's gratitude coefficient is very high, one's resentment and envy is going to be much lower. And in fact, there's evidence for this. 

Grateful people are more stress-resilient. There's been a number of studies showing that in the face of serious life situations, trauma, adversity, suffering, if people are dispositionally grateful, they recover faster. They're less bothered by some of the negative emotional symptoms-- post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety symptoms in the aftermath of trauma-- if they are previously grateful individuals. 

So it gives people a perspective by which I think they can interpret life events. And that's why it's beneficial. And the fourth, in terms of strengthening social ties, I alluded to that earlier, a sense of self-worth that when you are grateful, that's information that someone else is looking out for you, someone else is providing for your well-being, or you notice a network of relationships, past and present, of people who are responsible for helping you get to where you are right now. 

You may not have thought about these people before. You may have taken them for granted. Once you start to recognize the contributions that they've made, either intentionally or unintentionally, you start to feel much better about your position in life. And so those are four, I think, reasonable reasons why gratitude is beneficial, why gratitude is good. 

[UPBEAT MUSIC]