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#54 Microdose Episode: What’s the Deal with Gratitude? · College Is Fine, Everything's Fine

Microdose GratitudeI'm Dr. Sarah Olivo and I'm Dr. Liz Seidler and you're listening to College is Fine. Everything's fine. Hey, I just got to see you in person. I know we did get to see each other in person. It was a very quick 24 hours. I wish we would have like taken more selfies. Oh, we do have a selfie. We did. And we were matching and we will need to share it because it was. I don't know if it was cute or weird. I know. I think a lot of people think we planned it, Sarah. And if you knew me in college, I did love a matching outfit with friends. So maybe, maybe, maybe I did kind of throw it into the, um, mix yeah. So, so good to see you, Sarah. and it really helped. Improve my mood kind of like getting away from home because things have been a little chaotic here Yeah, I shared with you my son broke his arm, right?Yes, and not only did he break his arm But it was while you were in Vegas. Yeah, so I was you know, trying to take some time off practice some self care And within 24 hours I had to come home. Healthcare by gambling and drinking too much. No, I'm kidding. Vegas means a lot of things these days. Concerts. Um.Yeah. It's like taking time for yourself. Yes. And then I had to come home to a child who's in a lot of pain, has a lot of needs, and has really dampened my mood, um, significantly. Yeah. I remember getting the text being like, yeah, you didn't seem, Don't, don't seem great. And it's a time of year that I really don't want to be in a bad mood.And so I've been working very hard at trying to find some lemonade out of lemons and to focus on the things that I'm grateful for, you know, in terms of like comparisons, it could be worse than it is. I mean, now granted, I still have moments where I say, why me? Um, But I could use all the positive emotions I can get nowadays.Yeah, yeah. Uh, and so we thought it might be helpful to talk about gratitude. I mean, I think it's something that people hear a lot. I mean, your parents, my parents probably were like, you should be grateful, you know, for what you have, right? It's thrown out a lot. Oh my gosh, that word is everywhere. And I think that Not only is it sort of like the old school words of just, you should be grateful, you know, you have everything to be thankful for that kind of stuff.And now I think people have that idea of like, oh, you should practice gratitude. They, they heard it a thousand times. And so we wanted to give a quick microdose episode on just, first of all, creating a little disclaimer on it and making also really clear what the definition is. Because. Sometimes that has not been made very clear.So first of all, I can imagine if someone said to me, Hey, just practice gratitude. And that was that I would really feel like hurting that person maybe, or walking away or, you know, giving like a little bit of a bleep, bleep, you know, because When you're feeling like you're struggling and your mood is down, if someone said, stop being sad, practice gratitude, and it felt very flippant, I don't think that's the most validating thing.Um, and so we're not offering this tip because we think, oh, everyone should just walk around feeling grateful all the time and we don't have to feel sort of just flat. Um, we are offering this because there are times where this is something that. When used can really improve mood, right? And so that's what we really want.Not to say like, Oh, you should be grateful and those kinds of things. But to say, this is a tool that if you break it down in some practical parts can improve your mood. And that's what you want for you. Cause. Yes. Thanksgiving can often feel like a time of obviously everyone's like give thanks and so on and so forth, but it can also be stressful.You're going home to the holidays. Maybe you're excited. Maybe you're conflicted. Maybe you're not able to go home. It just is a lot of different things for a lot of different people. So the definition, right? When, when. The kind of history of gratitude, a lot of that comes from positive psychology where they were trying to say, how do people keep a positive mood who already have it?And people who naturally practice gratitude were shown to have an increased mood. So that was turned into a skill. And the actual definition is intentional, repeated actions and routines that help people Bring up and bring about a feeling, a natural feeling of thankfulness and appreciation for things that are going on in your life.Um, and so it's a habit. It's not, it is something that you can try to do every day or kind of pull up in the moment as needed. And it does bring about, I think, a sense of, it just is more of a well roundedness, right? Because sometimes when you're feeling down, everything can feel bad. You know, bad, bad emotions are sort of contagious.Positive emotions are contagious. So this is a way to flip that contagion in a way that can work for you. All right. So you said you had an easy time practicing gratitude when you were coming back from Vegas? I think I've noticed, no, I've not had an easy time because I think the intentionality part.Is and the habit part that there's been periods of time in my life, and they usually for me, at least, and we'll kind of unpack this a little bit more about the what and how and when to kind of practice, I tend to use it more in moments of adversity so that I can kind of. You know, while I'm going for a run or able to be physically able and I see my son kind of struggling, I'm really appreciative of my body and its ability to kind of do things that I normally don't appreciate or when he's home from school for long periods of time, and I'm not working, I appreciate.That, you know, like we get to hang out together and play board games that I haven't played since the 1990s. So, um, so I think, I think that's where I, I've tried to do it the most, where I'm trying to use, like, my to be present and in the moment and kind of feel what emotions kind of come up for me. And it's a way to kind of reframe things that I have a choice.I could either kind of focus on what's been taken away from me because of this. Negative life event, or I could focus on what's actually been given to me and the two areas I've really focused on just happened to be like my own mobility and the extra time and attention that I get to give him that I probably haven't given in to him since he was a baby.So yeah. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, life is life. It is sort of like that life is short. Let's kind of stop maybe and, and slow down. And to your point, zoom out a little bit more to say, we say this things all the time, what are the things we always say we want to zoom out and get a bigger perspective and also practice increases the chances that you can pull up on these skills as needed. So yes, if you're able to do something daily, then you're going to be more likely to access that kind of natural gratitude when things happen.And so it's going to be a little quicker and it is sort of nice to have as in the back of your head, if you're really struggling with mood to say, can I do something practical to just, you know, get me kind of unkinked a little bit. So there are a few practical tips. And now some of these things, some people do, and they're great at it.Having a gratitude journal. There are a thousand on Amazon. Go into your little, you know, your bookstore at school. I'm sure there are hundreds. Wonderful. If that is you, fantastic. I'm a little jealous. I don't have the discipline. But hey, it works. And so for the people who do that, but you're probably not listening to this episode because you got this.Um, I think that part of it is trying to find ways that feel personally more like you in terms of practicing gratitude. So since I'm not going to do a journal, sometimes it's just a matter of, I will need to separate myself from the things stressing me out. Like, I'm not going to sit here at my desk when I'm getting like thousands of emails.You know, if you're sitting at your desk and you're trying to study and you have a thousand projects that you're trying to figure out, probably harder to pull up gratitude really naturally. So separating yourself from that environment and taking just a quick break from it and to say, okay, like, let me think about the things that, yes, this is hard right now.And there are all these things that I do really feel thankful for if I just stopped and took a second. And so typically I'm taking like a quick walk. Around the block or even just going and getting a cup of coffee and having a drink just just something very quick to get me away from those stressors because otherwise it's a little hard.Do you have any other like kind of practical ways that you've done it? I, I, I really love, um, And this kind of mixes another skill that I think we've talked about another episode, but, um, the skill of contributing. So when we, and again, I'm using things that are related to being in distress, it does not need to be, uh, used in these moments.And I think this is something that you could really put in your calendar that you potentially do regularly. Something that I started a long time ago when I was in grad school was having blank note cards in my desk that I would Write a note. It was usually it's one of my nieces or a nephew sometimes to a friend And I would write something like in terms of that I'm grateful for their friendship or maybe a memory that we had together now Some of those notes never made it into the mail and mail mailed.I never mailed them. Some I did, but even not mailing them and the act of kind of reflecting, um, on some way that someone's positively impacted my life, um, generated positive emotions for me. Yeah. And I think that's a simple thing a lot of us could do, whether it's a text or going through like an old photo and like reflecting on a memory, um, I think that's an easy way that we can kind of express directly our gratitude to others.I love that idea. Cause I have found that if I'm feeling. Frustrated from like, why I, you know, I hate to say it, like FOMO doesn't just stop when you're young. There are times where you experience that sometimes I feel Jomo. Sometimes I'm like, I cannot wait to be missing out on things, you know, cause I just want some space, but.The joy of missing out. But I, I like the idea of saying like, okay, when I'm feeling like, oh, okay. I'm sort of frustrated with this, you know, with people at work, I'm frustrated with. Um, my neighbors right now, right? If I send a text, just a quick text or like found an old picture with some friends of mine who just makes me feel silly, right?That's automatically bringing that for me. Oh, right. Those memories too. I love the idea of mailing something because who gets mailed these days that shows real love. I mean, I, when I share this with some of my young adults, they're like, What is a stamp? Well, one, they've asked to see some that I haven't sent and I write in script.So guys, I like, I really am a dinosaur because my children don't even know how to write in cursive. And I don't think it's taught in many schools anymore. Um, so even that they're like, can your nieces even like read what you're writing? Is this in a foreign language? I know, I know. But I like the idea that you said, Even just writing it for myself brings about that positive emotion and some get mailed and some don't.Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I also, the, and maybe this will be the last one, unless you have some amazing ones. Cause you know, again, you can probably find all sorts of ways to think about this yourself, but the fact is if we're down, our mind is almost like a magnet only drawing naturally pulling and having other things pulled that are downers.It can be contagious. And so one of the things I realized is. If I'm in a bad mood, it just turns out I'm going to start noticing other things that don't go my way. Right. And I am just going to be really paying attention to that. It's almost like a laser beam being like, look over there. That's annoying.Look over there. That's annoying. And so starting to actively look for and collect good things, noticing small things that even can happen really can help. And so if I'm, you know, running around running errands, but someone does something. Kind of says, Hey, at the grocery store, if I actually pay attention to that, that probably did give me a little lift.If, if I'm driving and somebody gives me the right of way. Right. And I noticed that on purpose and like, Oh, that was really kind that I'm actually pulling in that. Evidence to and I'm not just pulling in the like everybody in the road is like ridiculous, you know, so what are the things that you can notice that that tendency to pull in things that maybe you really shouldn't be grateful for their frustrating or, you know, have every right to be upset or, you know, stressed out.If you say, okay, hold on, but I also need to make sure that I'm opening up my eyes to some of the smaller things and, and, and kind of noticing those things. Yeah. Okay. Pulling that. I love that. Sorry. I think, I think there's probably opportunities like a simple way. I was just talking to a patient about this, um, it's just use your senses almost as a way that there's probably some one thing in, in your current experience, or we've talked a lot.You know, we're talking about some present moment, but you can do gratitude for the future or for the past or, but in the present, there's probably something related to your senses that you could appreciate, whether, whether it's, you know, your surroundings and nature, right? Or, um, the smell of your coffee, like there could be something that you could practice gratitude that is really bite size.Or I can do to your point, I can do something that like starts a chain of gratitude for me and someone else that giving back helps people.So I, um, yeah, I think that it is certainly something you and I have both really needed at times. It's really easy to have some sort of Me. Moments and, and that's okay, you know, but again, if you're feeling like that's really overwhelming you, then this might be something to say, all right, is there a way for me to make this work?And it could be that kind of snack size, bite sized versions that we're saying, or more of the meal approach where you're actually intentionally practicing it. So start wherever you want, like whenever you're hungry for, if it's a bite or a meal. That's all wonderful. Um, either way, we want you to have wonderful Thanksgiving's however that looks for you, um, and feel nourished, however that looks for you.And we will see you on the other side of that turkey infused holiday. Happy napping. Happy eating. Happy eating and napping. See you in December. Yes., Thank you to our guests for sharing their stories and their advice. 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