Gratitude can help you overcome difficulties

Cartoonist Ramsey's list of things for which he is grateful does not include the two works for which he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In fact, he's thankful for: his first job out of college as a janitor at a high school; a part-time job he had to take in the Great Recession; being diagnosed with melanoma; and people's distrust of him. "Every twist and turn and bump in the road was a blessing," he says. That janitor's job led him to his current wife, the janitor's daughter; being fired from his job enabled him to find a second career in the book illustration business and radio; and being diagnosed with cancer led him to devote himself to raising awareness of the dangers of melanoma, saving hundreds of lives. You could say that those setbacks and ups and downs were the wind that lifted his wings. "There's an apt analogy that if you're going downstream in a canoe and you hit a rock, maybe you'll drown or maybe you'll prop the boat up in another direction." Ramsey says, "If you can prop the boat up in the other direction, that's a blessing."

　　Be thankful for the bad things in your life because they make a difference. Studies have found that cancer patients and spinal cord injury patients who are grateful have a better chance of surviving. To overcome life's difficulties with gratitude, start by being thankful for what you've gained or lost in life.

　　1. list things to be thankful for

　　Emmons, director of the Emmons Lab at the University of California, says, "If we train ourselves to look for the gifts of life, we can easily find them when times are tough." Countless studies have found that people who list things they are grateful for are happier, have more energy, are kinder to people, and are healthier. Dr. Emmons found that people who wrote weekly lists of things they were grateful for exercised an average of 90 minutes more per week than those who held on to their worries. In addition, people who were grateful had less pain, slept an hour longer, and woke up more refreshed.

　　2. Retrain your brain

　　The idea of gratitude for stress changes neural pathways. Gratitude can counteract the damage that stress can do to your body, and can even improve your heart health. Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows that people who regularly engage in compassionate and friendly meditation have healthier hearts because it exercises the sympathetic nerves and makes the heart and breathing regular. Think of gratitude as the brain's default emotion that protects you from the damage of stress and improves your resilience to stress, says neuropsychologist Dr. Hansen, "Train gratitude regularly. Gratitude experiences for at least 20 seconds allow the feeling of gratitude to enter your brain. Don't just give thanks for a beautiful sunset, you have to sit in the sunset for 20 seconds and open your senses to feel the positive emotions associated with gratitude, to feel that being alive is a joyful thing, to be grateful for your connection to others, to be grateful that you still have surprises."

　　3. remember the things that were hard

　　If you have difficulties to overcome, try the technique Dr. Emmons recommends. "Think about your worst times, your grief, your losses, and remember who you are now. You got through the worst days of your life, you went through the trials, you resisted the temptation to come out of the darkness."

　　In Franck Capra's film "What a Wonderful Life," after the main character is helped by the angel Clarence, he learns that if he had not been born, the person he loves would have been living a terrible life. Imagining what would have happened if there hadn't been some kind of good thing turned out to be a better way to make us grateful than remembering our own good fortune. In one study, participants wrote about positive events that might not have happened and situations where they might never have recognized a loved one that made them happier than directly describing the events. "When remembering how hard life has been and what we have achieved, we create clear contrasts in our minds, and these contrasts are fertile ground for gratitude."

　　These contrasts also build muscles of tolerance, where you can not only fight against hardship, but identify the good, no matter how deeply it is hidden. Gratitude is part of the human psychological immune system, helping us to turn hardship into opportunity.

　　In 2013, a Canadian study of 15 people with spinal damage found that they were grateful to be alive. After getting over the hardships, some of them started going to college, pursuing new careers or receiving counseling from other people with spinal injuries. They told the researchers that because of their injuries, they began to be deeply grateful for things they had previously taken for granted, such as the birdsong outside their windows and the joy of playing with their children. They realized they were more grateful for having the help and support of family and friends.

　　Ramsey says, "When you lose your dream job, you have another dream. If I hadn't lost my job and worked part-time, I would have lost a lot of great opportunities. Now, with these insights, when something bad happens, I stop and think, what's the good side of it? I have found that sometimes the worst moments in life turn out to be the best. I'm grateful that I now know that."