"When you're worried and you can't sleep, just count your blessings instead of sheep and you'll fall asleep counting your blessings."1 When Bing Crosby crooned these words written by Irving Berlin in 1954, it signaled to all that the holidays approached. Although the song never refers to holidays, it became widely known as the "holiday song." The lyrics, however, contain a deeper, more contemporary and relevant message that has been the focus of a decade-long line of research on the relationship between gratitude, health, and well-being. Emmons and McCullough2 offer a perspective of gratitude synthesized from a variety of sources. They assert that gratitude usually "stems from the perception of a positive personal outcome, not necessarily deserved or earned, that is due to the actions of others."2(p377) Let's focus on those situations with the potential to evoke gratitude.
You leave your credit card on the restaurant table and the waiter races to the parking lot to return it. Your child is stranded at school because you are stuck in traffic and the teacher texts you that she will stay with your child until you arrive. You have had a particularly trying week at work and you have a paper due in the course you are taking. You take a chance and ask the instructor for a few days grace and surprisingly she agrees. In each of these situations, your gratitude evokes feelings of relief and positive emotion and diminishes anxiety and stress.
Let's focus now on those situations in which the benefit of others' good works is not necessarily the stimulus of a "gratitude experience" but that changing your perspective might be. A coworker "tells you off" and then bursts into tears; you breathe deeply and hold back the angry retort. You wonder whether or not you acted cowardly but after some thought you are grateful for your restraint. Three difficult patients and their families have challenged you to the core; you know that tomorrow will be no different. You decide to be grateful for challenges since they are what make you a better nurse. The institution in which you work is downsizing the staff. Several of your colleagues get notices. Your position will continue. Instead of believing in the myth of your indispensability and in feeling "entitled," you are grateful for dodging the cut. A gratitude experience can be primarily emotional and easily evoked as in the first 3 vignettes; it can also be a self-induced, cognitive process such as reframing as in the second 3 vignettes. In the 3 studies comprising their research, Emmons and McCullough2 found that those who consciously focus on blessings accrue both interpersonal and emotional benefits, especially an increase in positive affect.
The holiday season is a good time to reflect on "blessings" and to identify and appreciate those responsible for our experiences of gratitude. This perspective may improve your health and well-being. Have a happy and holistic holiday season!
-Gloria F. Donnelly, PhD, RN, FAAN, FCPP
Editor in Chief
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