A Scientific Justification for Taking Time to Smell the Roses
According to a new study, people are happier when they take the time to recognize the positive aspects of their lives.
While the phrase "stop and smell the roses" may be cliche, new research reveals that it is great advice for finding fulfillment in one's life. As reported in the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences, an upcoming study reveals that emphasizing our appreciation for significant objects and individuals in our life could contribute even more to our overall happiness than previously believed.
In the study, Nancy Fagley, a psychology professor at Rutgers University, had nearly 250 undergraduates complete a survey to assess their levels of appreciation, which she defines as "recognizing the value and meaning of something—an event, a behavior, an object—and feeling a positive emotional connection to it."
As opposed to gratitude, according to Fagley, which is a good emotion directed toward a benefactor in reaction to receiving a gift of some kind, appreciation is merely one of multiple characteristics of appreciation that can be expressed in various ways, according to Fagley. Indeed, in his book Thank You!, he says , Robert Emmons, who is considered to be the world's foremost scientific authority on thankfulness, says that gratitude is not only about recognising the goodness in one's life, but also about "recognizing that the source(s) of this goodness lay at least somewhat outside one's own self."
According to Fagley's examination of appreciation, there are eight facets to it, including awe (or a sense of connectedness to nature or life itself) and living in the present moment.
Besides completing surveys to assess their feelings of gratitude and overall life satisfaction, the students in Fagley's study also took part in a standard questionnaire measuring what researchers refer to as the Big 5 personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
Aiming to determine whether appreciation has distinct benefits on its own, regardless of one's personality or level of thanks, Fagley conducted a study.
Despite the fact that Fagley discovered that both appreciation and thankfulness appear to be substantially associated with pleasure, her findings imply that appreciation is twice as significant as gratitude in determining overall contentment with one's life.
In addition to age, gender, and ethnicity, students' personality traits were found to be significant predictors of life satisfaction; in fact, they appeared to be more significant than these factors. According to Fagley, several features of personality, such as being less neurotic and more outgoing, were found to be associated with higher levels of life satisfaction. Being high in appreciation, on the other hand, was found to be significantly associated with high life satisfaction regardless of one's personality.
Previous research has suggested that appreciation is a result of thankfulness as well as one's own personality. According to the findings of this study, appreciation has a major impact on one's quality of life, regardless of one's personality or amount of gratitude—a role that is even more significant than previously imagined.
As of right now, Fagley is still exploring the best ways to practice gratitude on a day-to-day basis, according to her. To begin, she recommends that people appreciate and value what they already have, spend time in nature, and think on their blessings as well as their interpersonal interactions with other people.
In her words, "the issue in nurturing appreciation is that we want to occasionally reflect on the wonderful aspects of our lives, cherish our friends and family, relish and savor the good times—without the practice of contemplation becoming a routine habit or something that we take for granted."