The Science of Gratitude & How to Build a Gratitude Practice
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- ~5 min
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- 22 Nov 2021
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- 1:25:57
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KEYPOINTS
- 01
A good gratitude practice has outsized, long-lasting effects
Huberman cites studies in which doing a practice once to three times a week produced lasting gains in subjective well-being, meaning and awe, resilience against both past and future trauma, and better relationships across work, family, romance and one's relationship with oneself. He argues the anti-inflammatory and neural-circuit effects are on par with interventions people consider more potent, but only if the practice is the right kind.
- 02
Gratitude is a prosocial state that competes with defensive circuitry
Prosocial circuits draw us toward people, foods and experiences; defensive circuits drive backing away, guarding vital organs and a quaking voice. The two antagonize each other. Defensive circuits are probably more robust by default, much as the retina has more and stronger neurons for detecting darkening than brightening, which is why most people need deliberate practice to tilt the seesaw toward the prosocial side.
- 03
Serotonin and two cortical areas carry the gratitude signal
Serotonin, released mainly from the raphe nucleus in the brainstem, biases the brain toward approach and staying with an experience. Antonio Damasio's imaging work found gratitude activates the anterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex, with activation scaling with how intensely gratitude was felt.
- 04
The medial prefrontal cortex sets context and meaning
The same discomfort produces different chemistry depending on framing. Entering an ice bath by choice, knowing its benefits, yields better dopamine and anti-inflammatory effects than being pushed in, even though the adrenaline and the cold are the same. Context-setting has limits, however: you cannot convince your brain that cutting your hand is good, and you cannot fake gratitude for something you actually hate.
- 05
Listing things you are grateful for is mostly ineffective
Writing or reciting three, five or 20 things you are thankful for, the most common approach online, does little to shift prosocial circuitry in most studies, which surprised Huberman because it was his own practice. Raising autonomic arousal first, for example with about 25 to 30 deep cyclic hyperventilation breaths, cold or chanting, can make such lists slightly more effective by intensifying the emotions involved.
- 06
Receiving thanks beats giving it
The most potent form is perceiving gratitude directed at you. Because you cannot wait around for others to thank you, the practical substitute is to recall a time you were genuinely thanked, or to absorb someone else's story of receiving help. The story need not resemble your own life; it only has to move you.
- 07
Story and theory of mind are the active ingredients
The brain organizes information as narrative. Theory of mind, the ability to model another person's experience, a concept developed by Simon Baron-Cohen, lets you experience gratitude second-hand. Gratitude circuits light up when an observer feels affiliation with the person receiving help.
- 08
Gratitude must be genuine on both sides
A Scientific Reports fMRI study had people receive varying sums of money from benefactors who gave wholeheartedly or reluctantly. Amount mattered, but the benefactor's wholehearted intention had the larger effect on felt gratitude. Huberman's takeaway: genuine thanks are what count, whether you give or receive.
- 09
Repeated practice rewires fear and motivation circuits
A study titled Effects of Gratitude Meditation on Neural Network Functional Connectivity and Brain-Heart Coupling, which used a resentment intervention as a control, found that regular gratitude practice changed resting-state connectivity so anxiety and fear circuits were less active while well-being and motivation circuits were more active. The interventions lasted only 5 minutes. Other work tracking practice for up to 6 weeks shows the circuits grow familiar with a narrative and activate more readily.
- 10
Serotonin-raising supplements are an optional, cautious add-on
Serotonin tilts the brain toward contentment with what is here, while dopamine and epinephrine pull attention outward toward pursuit. Huberman notes some people use 5-HTP or tryptophan, though for him they disrupt sleep architecture, with deep sleep followed by waking three hours later. Kanna (Sceletium tortuosum, sold as Zembrin), typically 25 to 50 mg, likely raises serotonin. He is not recommending either; check with your doctor and local law.
EXAMPLES
- 01
Stories synchronize heart rates across strangers
In a Cell Reports study by Perez and colleagues, people heard the same story in separate places or on different days, yet their electrocardiogram heartbeat intervals came to match almost identically. Since inhaling speeds the heart and exhaling slows it, the story's effects on breathing and heart rate are linked. Huberman uses this to argue that returning to one story reliably shifts body state.
- 02
Gratitude letter read aloud by a coworker
Researchers had coworkers secretly write a thank-you letter, then read it face to face while wearing a near-infrared spectroscopy cap. The recipient showed robust prefrontal activation, stronger than in the giver.
- 03
Damasio's genocide-survivor narratives
Subjects in an fMRI scanner watched survivors describe their ordeals and small acts of help, such as a fellow prisoner who was a doctor finding medicine for a woman who had been sick for weeks, or an ally giving someone glasses as their eyesight failed. Feeling affiliation with the storyteller activated gratitude circuitry, effectively receiving gratitude through another's narrative.
- 04
Haslett et al., 2021, in women
This randomized controlled trial in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity found that a regular gratitude practice reduced activity in the amygdala, a threat-detection hub, and markedly lowered the inflammatory cytokines TNF-alpha and IL-6, with effects appearing almost immediately after practice. The direction of cause is unknown. Huberman sees no biological reason the findings would not apply to men.
- 05
Voluntary versus forced running in mice
From the Robert Sapolsky conversation: a mouse that chooses to run on a wheel shows lower blood pressure and better neurochemistry, while a mouse whose linked wheel forces it to run the same amount shows rising blood pressure and stress hormones.
OTHER RELEVANT
- 01
Build one story and a few bullet-point cues
Choose a narrative that genuinely moves you: either a time someone sincerely thanked you, or someone else giving or receiving help. Write three or four bullet points capturing the state before the help, the state after, and whatever gives it emotional weight. Reuse the same story rather than hunting for new inspirational content each time, since repetition drives the plasticity.
- 02
Keep sessions short and do them three times a week
Once the story is set, read your cues and feel into the experience for 1 to 2 minutes, up to 5 if ambitious. Calming breaths such as physiological sighs can precede it but are optional. No study pins down frequency, so Huberman proposes about three times a week; time of day does not matter.
- 03
If you give thanks, make it real
A sincere letter, text or call of thanks is a powerful way to shift someone else's neurology, but reluctance or exaggeration undermines it, and the same rule applies to gratitude you try to manufacture for yourself.
- 04
Expect side benefits for empathy
Even brief practices engage the anterior cingulate cortex more robustly. Huberman's lab sees this region acting as a hub for primitive empathy in mice, so a narrative-based practice may also make you more attuned to others.