Ologies with Alie Ward - Minisode: Grateful-ology is not a real word...

Episode Date: November 22, 2017

As a friend of a friend's hairdresser once said: "it's hard to be hateful with a plateful of grateful." Is it? In this pre-holidays quickie episode, Alie is grumpy as hell and decides to research the neuroscience of gratitude. Does it work? Who's studying it? Does she need to buy a journal? Find out how jotting down things you don't hate on the back of a receipt or opening a secret Twitter account may be worth more than whatever you get in your office Secret Santa exchange.Support the show on Patreon

Okay, hi. First off, it's a long weekend here in America and y'all might be on trains or buying butter or talking to your aunt. So I made you a short episode so you can listen while hiding in the bathroom in case you need some alone time. And also one fun offshoot of this podcast is making and selling Cool Merch. Boy, howdy. Is there a sale you're going to want to get up in starting on Black Friday, which is Day

After Tricky Day, all weekend until 11.59 p.m. on Cyber Monday. You ready for this? 30% off sale, 30% off, oligiesmerch.com. There's enamel pins, totes, shirts, mugs, some insane, sciency holiday sweater pattern shirts, leggings, all of it, 30% off. I can't even deal. This is my first year ever doing a Black Friday sale and I'm going deep. You'll need a discount code.

I'll say it at the end of this mini-sode so that you have time right now to find a crusty pen in your parents' junk drawer. You can write it on the back of a receipt for potatoes. So stand by. You're going to want the code. I'm just going to give it to you now also. It's Black Fridology, B-L-A-C-K-F-R-I-D-O-L-O-G-Y. Got it?

Great. I'll say it again at the end of the episode. First, the mini-sode. Okay, hi. Hello. Hi. Welcome to Allergies. I'm Allie Ward.

I realize I never tell you guys who I am at the beginning of these, but I'm the host of a podcast called Allergies. You're listening to it. Let's do some free association. I'm going to say the word Thanksgiving. What do you think of first? Thanksgiving. You got it?

Okay. I, myself, I think of gravy. You say Thanksgiving. I immediately conjure an image of a hot gravy dish that's kind of growing skin by the moment. Maybe you thought about layovers in a crowded airport or an itchy turtleneck. I can tell you that one of the last things I think about, to be honest, is gratitude because I felt like a garbage this week. And I don't know.

It's, I don't know, maybe I had the flu. There's also this weird apocalyptic nationwide shortage of a thyroid medication I'm supposed to be taking. Maybe it's because every time I see anything in the news, I'm reminded that things are terrible and the world seems like a farce right now. And I've just been feeling like, like if you took a burlap sack and you sighed heavily into it, but it had eyes and hair, that would be me. So I was going to make a mini episode this week, just a quickie about how cells recognize

each other, but I was in such a bad mood. I googled, is there a science of gratitude? And an article written by a husband and wife team of clinical psychologists, doctors Blair and Rita Justice popped up. It was called Gratefulology, and I rolled my eyes so hard, I think I sprained one. And then I read on because clearly I was being a little bitch. So this episode is a quickie about what dumb holidays are supposed to be about, Thanksgiving and gratitude and why it's not just a thing that Oprah uses to sell blank journals, but

why neuroscientists say it's a good way to be less annoyed, less unhappy, and overall live longer if you're into that kind of thing. Just buckle up. I promise you it's worth it. Just me and you chit-shadding privately about this. You don't even have to tell anyone that you listen to this, okay? So Gratefulology, heavy airports. First off, the players.

The main players in the science of does being thankful for the life you have actually make you happier are Dr. Blair Justice, professor of psychology at the University of Texas School of Public Health and Rita Justice, who is a psychologist in Houston. So they wrote this article called Gratefulology. It's like 10 years old. So I googled to make sure that they haven't been arrested or divorced or appointed a cabinet position in the White House. And sadly, Dr. Blair Justice has since passed away.

But he and Rita were married over 40 years, and that's amazing and adorable, so they were doing some right. And together, they were huge advocates for gratitude in general, and they also studied the effects of mood and emotional well-being on physical well-being. They wrote books on it. Now other players in the scientific field of appreciating your shit are Dr. Robert Emmons, he goes by Bob, of the University of California, Davis. He wrote a book called Thanks, How Practicing Gratitude Can Make You Happier.

And Dr. Michael McCullough of the University of Miami, and together, these two doctors just did a dumb truck with the research, and I mean that in a good way, about how taking stock of the good stuff can help you be less miserable. Dr. McCullough and Dr. Emmons did one study that had three sets of participants. Those who were asked to write down weekly the things they were grateful for, or compose a letter of thanks to a person, they didn't have to send it, they could eat it, didn't matter. Another group wrote down their hassles of the week, and then another just jotted down

neutral events. They found that those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, which is super weird. They reported fewer physical ailments, they felt better about their lives as a whole, like 25% happier, which is, you know, and they were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events. Now, participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important goals over a two-month period compared to the other subjects.

So how does it do this? How does saying, I'm really, I really like mustard, or this flower smells good, like how does this, how does this help keep you healthy? How does it help you reach your goals? What's the deal? Well, according to UCLA neuroscience researcher Dr. Alex Korb, the benefits of gratitude start with the dopamine system. And he says, feeling grateful activates the brain stem region that produces dopamine.

He also says that gratitude can boost serotonin and trying to think of things you're grateful for makes you focus on positive aspects of your life. And that increases serotonin production in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is something that is bobbing around in your skull. He also said that it's not finding gratitude that matters most, it's remembering to look. So it's just remembering to look that's important. So even if you're like, what's something I'm grateful for? And then there's just like a long pause.

And then you say, horseshit, nothing. That's still better than not thinking, isn't that great? They say just looking for things to be grateful for found that it actually affected neuron density in certain parts of the brain. And it suggests that as emotional intelligence increases, the neurons become more efficient. So with higher emotional intelligence, it takes less effort to be grateful and it has some lasting effects. How much of all of this is weird fringe research?

It's actually not like UC Berkeley has a whole arm dedicated to positive psychology. It's called the Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley. And they have also found that people who practice gratitude consistently have stronger immune systems, less depression, more joy, optimism, happiness. They have better relationships and they have less feelings of isolation or loneliness. So they gave out $3 million in research grants a few years ago on the topic. And there were 14 winners and they went on to use that money to study here are some of the papers that they published, Cultivating Gratitude in a Consumerist Society.

The impact of gratitude on biology and behavior in persons with heart disease. A model of bullying based on gratitude and its effects on social bonds. And even Fran DeWall, noted primatologist, used some research money and studied gratitude and partner preference in chimpanzee cooperation. So people are working on it. People are like, yeah, there's something to this. And you got to force yourself to look on the bright side. Now Dr. Emmons, we talked about him before, says that the choice of gratitude doesn't

come without effort. You got to put some effort. But each time we make the effort, it does get easier because remember, we're making those neural highways more efficient. He also says there's two types of gratitude. There's relational and conditional and relational is focused on the giver and conditional on the gift and relational is more potent. So hey, thanks for being so thoughtful for the thing you did is more important than thank

you for this bag of bees that you gave me, assuming that you liked bees. I myself, if you gave me a bag of bees, I'd be like, whoa, that might not be you. Anyway, but you know what I'm saying. So I was researching this episode and writing today and I wish I thought of the topic sooner and I wish I had an interview for you, but I did the next best thing and I gently stalked Dr. Emmons on Twitter and I lobbed a question at him. He doesn't know who I am. So what?

And I said, hey, this must be the busiest time of year for you, but how can people stay grateful with the deluge of tough news lately? And he, he tweeted me back. I felt it was so exciting. I felt like Bette Midler saying hello or something. He said, gratitude is undentable joy. Times good, celebrate. Times tough, find the opportunity.

It's an attitude, it's not based on circumstances. So snap. Okay. So he's like, even though things are, are garbage-y, it's very important to look for things to be appreciative of. Stay aware as you need to be, be as active in the communities you need to be, resist what you need to, but make time to appreciate the good. This is like doctor's orders.

It'll make you a better fighter of wrong. So how do you do this? All right. In his book, Thanks, Dr. Emmons suggests keeping a gratitude journal daily and you can record in writing what you're grateful for. Come to your senses. So count bodily related things like being able to see, hear, walk, eat, breathe, listen to podcasts, use visual reminders like pictures of loved ones or scenes of nature and think

outside the box. Think of the non-obvious things to be grateful for, like the fact that aliens haven't come down on our planet yet or maybe they have and you're thankful for them. I don't know. There's also this site called thanksfor.org and it's thnxfor.org. It's the opposite of Twitter. You can just sign up and have a 20 day challenge and just post and write things that you're thankful for.

You open it up and just see what everyone's thankful for and it's, it honestly is, it's like a weird Seinfeld. It's like the intro to the opposite sketches. So you can do another thing which I did and then I neglected it and I need to get back to it. You can open your own secret private Twitter account and have it be locked and not tell anyone that you have it and then whenever you want to scroll on depressing stuff, you just hop over to your secret private Twitter and just toss out a bunch of tweets listing

what you're grateful for. No one has to know about it. You look like you're scrolling but really you're just tweeting things that you're like, pretzels are pretty good. And then later you can scroll through them for like an instant mood boost but apparently try and find a couple things a day that you're like thumbs up and about. So happy start of the holidays. If you're having a tough time, no you're not alone.

It's kind of a weird time of year for a lot of people. It's a weird year for a lot of people. It's weird. And just know that a list of what's good might bring you almost as much joy as a latte. It might change your life even more than a nose hair trimmer in your stocking. Oh, speaking of gifts, if you're looking to do any shopping again, black friedology on ologismers.com, that's the code. I told you I'd tell you at the end.

B-L-A-C-K-F-R-I-D-O-L-O-G-Y, all one word, 30% off your order. Okay. I'll tell you. I hope you got a pen. Hit it. Go for it. Get some stuff. And as long as we're being grateful, I just want to say I'm very thankful for everyone

who listens. If you're listening right now, it means a lot to me. Thank you to every person who spread the word about ologies on social media or told friends. Thank you to everyone who's rated or reviewed or subscribed. It helps so much in keeping this up in the charts. Thank you to all the patrons on Patreon. I love you for the cool-ass vibe in the ologies podcast Facebook group. Thanks to Shannon Feltis, aka Urban Farm Foods on Facebook.

And Bonnie Dutch, B-O-N-I, Dutch on Etsy, an amazing artist for helping me with merch. Thanks to Hannah Lippo and Erin Talbert for being awesome friends and running the Facebook group. And to my parents and sisters for listening and pretending that the swear words don't bother them. So go ask smart people dumb questions, maybe even via Twitter, because it's the only way to learn. I'm on Instagram and Twitter as Allie Ward and ologies on Instagram, ologies pod on Twitter.

So go, I don't know, grab a journal, make a secret Twitter, jot some stuff down on a gravy-stained paper napkin. Just look for things that are good. It will change your brain. All right, you got this. Okay. Bye. Okay.

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