Monday, December 29, 2003
Got the holiday blues? Try counting blessings
Particularly around the holidays, people can create unrealistic expectations for themselves and their loved ones.
But counting your blessings really does help ward off the holiday blues, according to a series of experiments at the University of California at Davis.
"Because gratitude is focused on the present and the past, it aligns your expectations closer to reality," according to psychology Professor Robert Emmons. He co- edited "The Psychology of Gratitude," to be released next month, a book based on experiments in mood improvement.
In one set of observations, college students kept a diary, with some instructed to write about how they felt grateful and others told to concentrate on daily hassles or routine events.
There were fewer illnesses among the "gratitude" group, which also reported exercising more and offering more emo-tional support to others, Emmons and co-author Michael E. McCullough wrote in the February issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, at which Emmons is a consulting editor.
In an experiment with people with neuromuscular diseases, researchers found that emphasizing gratefulness improved satisfaction with their lives, as well as their amount and quality of sleep. That study involved observations from the participants and family members.
The experiments have relevance for the stressful holiday season, Emmons said in statements released by UC Davis.
"Feeling gratitude reduces unpleasant feelings like envy, resentment and regret that rob people of happiness," he said.
Outlook and perception largely determine how people respond emotionally to negative events, said Emmons, who has been studying human happiness for nearly 20 years. He also is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of the Psychology of Religion, and author of "The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns: Motivation and Spirituality in Personality."
A second set of UC Davis researchers found that people's health can be affected by their outlook on life.
Hostility, for instance, can be as big a risk factor as smoking for heart disease in people in their 40s, while anxiety has been associated with sudden cardiac arrest, wrote Carolyn Aldwin and Diane Gilmer, human development researchers at the university.
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