The Berlin psychotherapist Dr. Wolfgang Krüger explains why this feeling is the key to happiness, especially in times of crisis.
Oh man. Another stupid day. The colleague extremely annoying, the cashier in the supermarket totally unfriendly, the children grumpy and then the reminder from the tax office. With all this, how can you still be in a good mood, let alone happy?
“We tend to feel negative things more strongly,” explains the Berlin psychotherapist and author Dr. Wolfgang Krüger (73, “Power and passion in love”, BoD, 14.99 euros). “The canceled S-Bahn, the canceled appointment, the fact that our partner treated us somehow strangely today – such things push themselves loudly into our lives, we perceive them as determining.”
We often forget that we are doing quite well overall: “We don’t notice the positive things in the background as much because we’ve gotten used to it, we take it for granted.” But that’s exactly where the great danger lies, because: ” If we only perceive life as a sequence of negative events, a pessimistic attitude forces itself into our minds.” We are constantly annoyed by the little things and no longer see the beautiful things in life – and yet we should be thankful for them!
And it’s important to be aware of that right now: “We’re being drawn into fears of war by Ukraine and are realizing that the world is changing fundamentally. Hopes are shattered under the tracks of tanks, and we don’t yet know where it will all end. The basic feeling is insecurity and fear. It is important that we stand up against it!”
And gratitude is exactly the right tool for this, because this feeling is crucial for our well-being – physically and emotionally. The US psychologist Robert Emmons has shown in a study that gratitude helps to strengthen our health, our well-being and our mental defenses: study participants who kept a gratitude diary over a period of time felt more vital and had more joie de vivre than those who only wrote down negative events in their diary or told them neutrally what they had experienced.
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Gratitude also helps prevent anxiety and panic disorders and can act as a protective factor against depression and addiction. The reason: “Feelings like fear, envy, anger can hardly coexist with gratitude. It’s almost impossible to be grateful and frustrated at the same time,” explains Krüger.
Of course there are situations in which we rightly curse life: “A serious illness, an unfaithful partner, losing a job – in such situations we can allow ourselves to not think positively. It is part of a lively life to be upset and angry and to get upset,” emphasizes the psychotherapist. “But those who train themselves in gratitude give themselves the chance to experience life positively.”
The good news is that gratitude can be trained like a muscle. “Every morning before you get up, take five minutes to think about what you can be thankful for. Draw attention to a nice little thing – it will automatically lift your spirits!”
After some time, this training even leads to neurobiological changes, which researchers at the University of Indiana were able to demonstrate in a brain scan. But it certainly leads to us becoming aware of what we have – and this feeling makes us happy and satisfied. Especially when the world around us is shaking.
