Essentials: The Science of Gratitude & How to Build a Gratitude Practice

This Huberman Lab Essentials episode revisits earlier material on the science of gratitude. Andrew Huberman introduces himself as a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. He opens with two claims. First, he says there is "a wealth of data" showing that an effective gratitude practice can positively affect many mental and physical health variables. Second, he says that while researching the episode he was "completely surprised" by what actually makes a gratitude practice effective.

Huberman names the approach he expected to work, and assumes many listeners share that expectation. In that approach, a person writes down or thinks about a few or many things they are grateful for, and may try to physically feel elements of gratitude while doing so. He rejects that model directly.

It turns out that an effective gratitude practice doesn't resemble that at all.

He says this conclusion comes from several kinds of evidence: neuroimaging data, physiological data such as inflammatory markers, purely psychological studies, and work on both the long-term and short-term effects of gratitude practices. Together, he says, they "point to a completely different approach." This part of the episode does not yet say what that alternative approach is. It also does not name the individual studies behind these evidence categories.

The first benefit Huberman describes is subjective well-being. He cites studies showing that doing a gratitude practice two or three times a week, or "even just once a week," can lead to a pervasive, long-lasting effect. According to his summary, participants report feeling happier and report more meaning, joy and even awe about their life experience.

The second benefit is resilience to trauma, which he says studies show works in two ways. Looking backward, a regular practice can help people reframe earlier traumatic experiences and can buffer them against those experiences' negative physiological and psychological effects. Looking forward, it can inoculate people "in many ways" against traumas that may come later in life.

The third benefit concerns social relationships. Huberman distinguishes the obvious effect from a broader one. The obvious effect is that repeatedly expressing gratitude toward a specific person makes you feel better about that person; he calls this a "prosocial" or "intersocial" gratitude practice. The broader claim, which he attributes to "several studies, recent studies in good journals," is that a regular practice can improve relationships across the board: at work, at school, with family, in romantic relationships, and even in a person's relationship with themselves. He equates that last relationship with subjective feelings of well-being. The studies themselves are not identified in this excerpt.

Huberman expects some listeners to be skeptical and responds in advance. He says the practice he will describe does not involve "putting your hand on your heart" and forcing positive feelings when things are really terrible. To listeners who think gratitude practice is "kind of weak sauce," he says the data show it is a very potent way to steer mental and physical health in positive directions, with very long-lasting effects.

Before getting to tools, Huberman sets out a framework. He classifies gratitude as a "prosocial behavior" or "prosocial mindset." He defines prosocial behaviors as any behavior or way of thinking that makes us more effective in interactions with other people, including ourselves. He says the term is more than a label, because there are neural circuits in the brain specifically wired for prosocial thoughts and behaviors.

He calls these circuits "appetitive." They bring us closer to things and into closer relation with the details of a sensory experience. His examples include eating a delicious food, interacting with a loved one or friend or anyone you like, and relating to yourself. Elsewhere he adds pets, food, and anything else we want to be closer to and want more of.

The opposite side is made up of circuits for aversive or defensive behavior. These include brain areas involved in fear, and also areas of the brain and body that are associated with freezing or backing up. Huberman says the two systems antagonize each other: when prosocial circuits are more active, defensive circuits are less active. He uses the image of a seesaw to describe this.