Suffering a “Post-Thanksgiving Slump?” Showing Gratitude Can Help
Published in worklife by author Tony Case:
With bellies full, Black Friday shopping in the bag and the joy of a long weekend suddenly a distant memory, employees can be a bit slow to roll into the office after the holiday, even as they push to meet end-of-year deadlines.
Call it the “post-Thanksgiving slump.”…
Of all the emotional intelligence traits we can build, scientists believe that gratitude is the easiest, offered Jennifer Moss, an international speaker and the author of “The Burnout Epidemic.”
For one, Moss noted, our brains love the “chemical feedback loop.” In one study, researchers used fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to measure the brain activity of participants experiencing different emotions and found that gratitude lit up parts of the brain’s reward pathways and the hypothalamus, boosting serotonin and activating the brain stem to produce dopamine — “all the feel-good chemicals our bodies and brains love,” Moss said.
And yet, in our consistently disconnected workforce, we’re not showing our appreciation at the same pre-pandemic levels — despite the fact that expressing gratitude can have a profound impact on our work performance, she added.
Moss recommended several tactics for showing gratitude in the workplace.
First, suggest that in the spirit of the holidays, since most of the workforce is now hybrid or remote, that it might be nice to get together for lunch in person. “I keep hearing about people on the same video conference calls all day long, but sitting side by side,” Moss noted. “Research finds that having lunch together increases relational energy, which makes us more enthusiastic towards our work and increases our overall energy.”
To add a component that focuses on gratitude building, she proposed that employees might go around the table and ask each other one of the following questions:
What made you smile this week?
What was something nice that you noticed someone doing for you or for someone else?
What nice thing did you do for someone else this week?
Why don’t we all make a plan? What nice thing could we do for a co-worker this week? Employees can report back the following week, when they have lunch again, to make another plan of action.
Expressions of gratitude might include writing down three compliments on a sticky note about someone on one’s team and posting it in a place where everyone can see. Doing so once a week, on a specific day, then becomes part of the workplace routine, Moss noted — like “Thank You Thursdays” or “Mindful Mondays.” Instituting a gratitude board is another solution.
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