The
way to get through tough times?
Start
with advanced gratitude.
When
Sunil Jain sang “kisi
ki muskurahaton pe ho nisaar”
(to sacrifice everything for a smile) at a 'Bathroom Singers' Musical
event titled 'From Mug to Mike' in Bengaluru recently, it could so
easily have been his ode to life and all things bittersweet. Singing
is a passion for Jain, who hopes to get into playback singing next
and even try scuba diving soon. So what's the big deal, really? Jain
also happens to be wheelchair-bound. His disability, he says, has
actually led him to discover his own special abilities so it is
something he has always been grateful for. “After doing my
chartered accountancy (CA), all the places I applied to rejected me,
saying the job would be too physically challenging,” he recalls. So
Jain started his own accountancy firm. Now he has seven people
working at his firm.
Jain,
you see, is one of those people who believes that we must embrace
whatever life throws at you and convert them into opportunities. And
in that, he is very like American editorial cartoonist Marshall
Ramsey. When Ramsey put together a list of things he was grateful
for, his two Pulitzer Prize nominations didn't make the cut. So what
did? His first job after college as a high school janitor; the
recession that forced him into part-time work; a melanoma diagnosis;
all the people who didn't believe in him. Every one of those terrible
twists, he explains, was responsible for a blessing. That job led him
to his future wife, the daughter of a fellow janitor; getting laid
off gave him the time to launch a second career in book illustration
and radio; and his cancer diagnosis spurred him to help save hundreds
of lives by organizing a series of runs to raise melanoma awareness.
In
Jain's case, being stricken with polio when he was a mere 18 months
old, led him to harness his ability to open up to experiences and
live joyfully. “Life and people, I accept both, imperfections
intact, whole and complete,” he stresses.
Jain
and Ramsey, are prime examples of what might be called advanced
gratitude: the ability to identify and appreciate the bad events or
circumstances in your life because of what you've gained from them.
Studies have found that gratitude is a prevailing, if
counterintuitive, emotion among people who have been through trauma
or among breast cancer survivors, people with spinal cord injuries,
even, post-9/11 Americans.
Anjali
Chhabria, psychiatrist, psychotherapist and founder of Mindtemple in
Mumbai, points out: “Being thankful and appreciating others and
our surroundings helps us cope with life situations because we don't
fall into a self-pity zone. And it also stops us from blaming others/
external factors for problems in our lives. Gratitude also reduces
greed and expectation which are two most common factors leading to
stress, disappointment and negative emotions”.
Clearly,
you don't become grateful for difficulties overnight (and rarely in
the throes), but once you do, you're privy to some amazing alchemy
that will allow you to heal what hurts and see the victory that's
often at the center of every seeming defeat. It also boosts what one
leading expert calls your psychological immune system, and it may
even physically alter your brain so that gratitude isn't just
something you feel occasionally but guides how you approach life.
And
it starts with making a habit of appreciating what you have, what
you've lost, and what your life would be like if fate hadn't nudged
you this way or that.
Here
are three steps to work your way into advanced gratitude.
1.
ESTABLISH A GRATITUDE BASELINE
Before
you achieve advanced gratitude, get in the habit of being thankful
for your good fortune. "If we train ourselves to look for the
gifts when life is going well, it will be easier to spot them during
the rough times," says Robert Emmons, PhD, director of the
Emmons Laboratory at the University of California, Davis, and
arguably, the leading gratitude researcher in the US. Dr Chhabria
explains that by learning to be grateful more, you can change the way
you approach any situation. “It is a way of removing your
emotional, mental biases, blocks, presumptions, assumptions,” she
says.
Numerous
studies have found that people who keep journals or make lists of
what they're thankful for are happier, more optimistic, more
energetic, and nicer to other people than those who don't. Their
physical health blossoms, too. That is something Prabha Chandra,
Prevention columnist, psychiatrist at NIMHANS, Bengaluru and her
colleagues at the Positive Psychology Group, Center for Well-Being,
NIMHANS, have also found. “Keeping a journal of positive
experiences, writing a letter of gratitude, etc are among methods
used in well-being therapy to enhance positivity and balance it
against unavoidable negative experiences,” says Dr Chandra.
Dr
Emmons found that people who created weekly gratitude lists exercised
90 minutes more, on average, than a control group who tracked their
hassles. And grateful people had less pain, slept an hour longer, and
woke up feeling more refreshed, according to other research. Dr
Chhabria agrees. “Meditation and yoga can definitely help you relax
and reduce stress levels. But to be thankful, you must start with
conscious awareness. Begin your day by being thankful to each and
everyone around you who will make a difference in your day.”
But
don't overdo it. Counting your blessings via journaling just three
times a week can help you build a strong, positive attitude, but
doing it any more than that can backfire, according to studies by
University of California, Riverside, researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky,
PhD. "You adapt to it so it's no longer as effective," she
says.
2.
RETRAIN
YOUR OWN BRAIN
What
matters is how you process events, emotions and experiences. In fact,
tying thoughts of gratitude to the stressful events in your life may
even change your neural pathways. A long-accepted concept in
neuropsychology is that "neurons that fire together wire
together." So when your stress neurons fire, make your gratitude
neurons
do so, too; this helps the two types connect with each other so that
when stress hits, it will be easier for you to find something to be
grateful for.
Gratitude
can counteract the many damaging effects of stress on the body, even
improving heart health, found one study published this year in the
journal Psychological Science. Research at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill found that people who regularly practiced
loving-kindness meditation, which promotes love and compassion toward
oneself and others, improved in one measure of heart health--better
tone in their vagus nerve, which extends from the brain stem to the
gut and regulates heart rate, breathing, and the relaxation response.
While
these studies are generating intense interest in the West now, it has
been intrinsic knowledge in India with its strong tradition of yoga
and meditation. A 2008 study at the Integral Health Clinic of the All
India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) New Delhi, underlined
that fact. The study published in the Indian Journal of Physiology
and Pharmacology, showed that the daily practice of 'asanas',
'pranayama', other breathing techniques, relaxation techniques
('shavasana' and meditation), along with a healthy lifestyle, left
the study participants (77 men and women ranging in age from 19 to 76
years), experiencing increased subjective wellbeing. They felt “more
interest in their lives, perceived it as functioning smoothly and
joyfully”, they reported better crisis-handling skills, their
physical health improved. They were happier and felt a sense of
oneness with their surroundings. Consequently, they were more
grateful for the happiness and good things in their lives, the study
notes.
Of
course, to create any lasting changes in the brain--the kinds that
will make thankfulness your default emotion, protect you from the
ravages of stress, and increase your resilience--you need to hammer
it home by practicing gratitude not only frequently but with
considerable emotional intensity. “Don't just be thankful for that
beautiful sunset,” says neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, PhD, the
author of Hardwiring Happiness and Buddha's Brain. "Sit with it
for 20 seconds straight, be open to the feelings in your body when
you see it. Feel the positive emotions related to gratitude that come
up--the feeling of being glad that you're alive, grateful for your
connection with other people, your sense of awe. To build up neural
encoding, it really helps to feel the emotion in your body--and even
allow it to become intense." Dr Chhabria adds: “Only when you
consciously think about things you should be thankful about, will you
slowly start appreciating everything and feel content with your
life.”
3:
REMEMBER THE HARD STUFF
On
the other hand, if you have trouble coming up with reasons to be
grateful or even appreciate, what you have now, look at how Mariam
Gonsalves (*name changed), a Mumbaiite, lives her life. On holiday in
Goa, she saw her father and younger sister drown in a freak accident.
She was a teenager then. Gonsalves had to break the news to her
mother (who had not accompanied them on that trip). “I grew up that
day, learnt to drive a car, got a job...my carefree college life was
over.” Gonsalves is today deputy head of a travel agency and,
ironically enough, in the business of arranging happy experiences and
holidays for other people.
But
she is not bitter or filled with sorrow. She grieves but remembers
her father and sister with love, every day. “I was always a daddy's
girl. Losing him has brought me closer to my mom. Dad was the
breadwinner, now I go out to work. But thanks to him, we have our own
house, there are no loans to pay off,” says Gonsalves.
Imagining
the absence of something good, it turns out, is even more effective
at making us thankful than remembering our own good fortune. It
builds up your resilience muscles, too, so you not only cope well,
but you're also able to find the good no matter how hidden it seems
to be. "Gratitude is an element of resilience in that it helps
us recover from adversity," Dr. Emmons says. It's part of a
person's psychological immune system that helps convert tragedy into
opportunity: "The ability to see the elements of one's life and
even life itself as gifts is essential for this. Suffering can be a
reason for gratefulness in that it shatters our illusions of
self-sufficiency. . .and teaches us what's truly important."
Gonsalves
and people like her bounce back after trauma, an ability
psychologists call post-traumatic growth, a positive transformation
that can occur when people go through serious stress, such as a
chronic illness, an injury, or disaster. At the same time, Dr Chandra
and her colleagues at the NIMHANS Positive Psychology Group believe
there is no easy formula to change tragedy into opportunity. “Any
effort to bring about a positive outcome from tragic experiences
should begin by facilitating acknowledgement and acceptance of the
tragic event as well as the ensuing distress. Resilience is not a
capsule that can be applied at the time of tragedy. But it can be
gradually cultivated,” Dr Prabha Chandra emphasizes.
There
are lessons learned and lives remade better than before.
Marshall
Ramsey admits that after his ordeals, he usually threw himself a
"pity party." But over time, he began to notice the
pattern: Whatever he thought of as the worst thing that had ever
happened to him usually turned into something positive.
"After
getting a cancer diagnosis, I came to appreciate life a lot more.
I've given my mortality a big old kiss," he jokes. "Now,
with this gift of hindsight, when something bad happens and I stop
and say, 'What's the good in this?' I've found that sometimes, the
worst moment of your life turns out to be the best. I'm thankful that
I now know that."
Gonsalves
has periods when she is terribly low, when she wants to rail against
the world for what happened to her family. Then something occurs to
make her see things differently. “Recently, my mother was ill and I
was frantic. I could not focus on work. She is well again and now,
more than ever, I am grateful for our continued good health and
happiness,” adds Gonsalves.
In
Sunil Jain's case, there is everyday learning. He was married once,
to a fellow CA, who was wheelchair-bound like him. But she passed
away of a massive heart attack. He cherishes their short time
together. “My unique challenges mean that every day, when I venture
outside, I need to think practically--is that building accessible, is
there a lift? If there isn't, I ask for help. Simple. And always
someone is ready to help,” he stresses. The recent amateur
musicians' night in Bengaluru is an example--his fellow participants
lifted him onto the stage so he could sing.
In
his spare time, Jain works as a transformational speaker and mentor.
And he runs a non governmental organization called Astha in Bengaluru
to help the differently abled explore their full potential. Right
now, he is running a campaign to enable the differently abled to vote
in the coming General Elections. “Never think that a bodily
disability or a bad experience, a bad time, is a constraint,” is
his mantra.
Truly,
anything is possible when you embrace all experiences--Jain, Ramsey
and Gonsalves are living proof of that.
(This is an article I co-authored for the April 2014 issue of Prevention India magazine. I wrote the Indian portions)
Comments