The Power of Gratutude: Florence Servan Schreiber at TEDxParisSalon

Florence explores the power of gratitude in our lives. Highlighting a few examples, she takes us on a beautiful journey towards connecting with others.

I admire washing machine repairers

because there is something special
about them.

When one comes over to my house,

I feel for this person,

because I have absolutely no idea
how to do the things he or she can do,

an extremely important sense of recognition.

And when I feel this,

not only the washing machine is repaired,

but in fact I also live longer.

But how exactly do I live longer?

I present to you David,
David Servan Schreiber.

David was a psychiatrist.

David Servan Schreiber

was my cousin.

And, a little over a year ago,
he was taken over

by a type of brain cancer.

When he was 30 years old,

the first tumor was detected on him.

We couldn't exactly say
that David was someone who,

statistically speaking,
had luck on his side.

From then on, he mobilized

all of his knowledge,
all of his energy

to try and find out how he could live,

not only as long as possible
under these circumstances,

but also the best possible way.

So what we know about him

is that he changed his diet,

practised meditation,

and exercised every day.

But what we don't know,
because he didn't make these things public,

is the amount of attention he paid

to all the details
and the small things in his life.

Up to his last breath, David was

someone full of thanks and gratitude.

Gratitude is an emotion

of recognition that we feel

when we realize the flavour
of the lives we're living.

It is, for example,
a ray of sunshine on the deck,

the fragrance of a baby,

especially when it's our own child.

It's the act of pushing yourself
to go out and learn new things

one evening.

It's, for us, the absolute pleasure

to have the chance to present to you
what we are passionate about.

But why did David guide me into all of this?

We talked a lot about psychology together.

It's because there are

entire labs and departments that study

the circumstances
and consequences of gratitude.

There's a gentleman called
Prof. Robert Emmons

who works at UC Davis in California,

he's very fortunate,

for 12 years of diligent study
and research in the field

of positive psychology

he has been trying to understand

how it works and the effect
it can have on us.

And here's what he realized.

First of all, on a psychological level

when we know that we appreciate

all the small details

that surround you in your everyday life,

from the temperature in your room

to being able to arrive on time,

we feel happier,

we feel more connected with others,

we feel more alert and aware,

and we feel more alive.

And next, we have the secondary benefits

that deal with relationships.

Above all, being the fact that we feel

a lot less lonely.

This is because gratitude
always comes from

something or someone

who is separate from us.

This is an emotion that makes us humble,

that makes us want

to take our turn to give.

But all of this is nothing.

The most shocking are the effects
that were discovered

on the physiological level, or simply

how our body works.

Here I'd like to talk about a study
that was conducted

in Minnesota in 1986.

A researcher hypothesized the following,

and asked

whether there was a link between

feeling grateful,

thus knowing how to appreciate things,
and longevity.

So how do we study something like this?

We have to find people
who live in the exact

same way, who eat the same things,

who breathe the same air,

who have the same job,

who have the same number of kids,

which is especially important with women,

with zero being an ideal number.

Furthermore, if everyone could be married
to the same person,

that would be great.

And they found these people.

They found them in an abbey.

More specifically in an abbey

with 150 years old archives.

When these young women

arrived at the abbey,

at the age of 20,
the first thing they were asked to do

was to write a letter
that introduced themselves

and told their life story.

They did the same thing
at the age of 40,

and at the age of 70.

We had 150 years of biographical letters.

We also had 150 years of medical records.

We passed these letters on to semanticists,

those who study diction
and the content of vocabulary,

and asked them to quantify the nature

of words used that expressed

appreciation, optimism,

or gratitude.

And then we could correlate

the level of gratification of these women

with, not only their health,

but also their lifespans.

It was found that the more of these words

that expressed gratitude and appreciation

were used after the age of 20,

the longer the women lived.

We could quantify it to such an extent

that we know these women
had a life expectancy

longer than their sisters by 7 years.

The same data comparison was conducted

with more current cases

concerning the middle class,

and the same results were yielded.

I'm like some of you here,

I was born and raised in Paris,

it's probably not the most appropriate thing

to talk about what's going well
and what makes us grateful.

However, after having visited David
so many times,

after having read
all of these documents and articles,

I still wanted to try

and see.

I had to look at the hard evidence.

Martin Seligman, very influential

in the field of positive psychology
and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania,

we definitely speak about him
quite a bit today,

recognized the following:

In a day, it's enough to

identify 3 events,

moments, interactions,

tastes, sensations

that made us feel good

and that made us want to say,

"Thank you." --

to improve one's level
of happiness permanently

after only 3 weeks.

I read this, I went home

relatively excited by this information,

sat down at the table
with my husband and 3 kids,

who are between 8 and 14 years old,

and I told them
that I read something crazy today

that says that if you can spot in a day

a moment, "here's a great moment"

in brief,

what I told them, was that

if you can spot 3 good things in your day,

you'll live longer,

you'll be in better health,
and you'll be happier.

And we started to do so.

It's not easy for everyone.

It's not obvious.

Our immediate level of access
to gratitude is a bit

different from person to person.

It was especially difficult for Léon,

the youngest of my kids.

He was under pressure,

he didn't even want to play.

One of my proudest achievements as a mom

is that today Léon is 14

and he can come down these stairs

and stand right in front of you
to tell you all,

"Here, my 3 good things are
this, this, and this."

My children have learnt this.

It's a way of doing things.

When we do this with people we know,

people we live with,

people we work with,

people who we don't know,

people who we've just met,

something very special happens,

because it's not a common

conversation topic.

If it moves you, it moves me.

When we listen to others talk about
what made them happy today,

there's a rule we need to follow;

that is not to comment or criticize it.

When someone chooses to share
their spot of happiness, we listen,

we absorb and generally,

we realize that we also
have this event to appreciate

and we add it to our own lists.

This is one way to do it,

level zero.

And then we have level one.

If you don't necessarily want
to talk about it,

in fact you can

start to keep a little notebook

on your night stand.

I like to call it a "book of happy things",

and in laboratories they call it
a "journal of gratitude".

It lets you write down
your sources of gratitude

before you go to sleep,
and it's the last thing

you do before sleeping.

When you turn off your iPad,

you can pick up your little diary.

Dr Emmons has discovered

that when doing this is the last thing

we do in our day,

we sleep deeper,

for a longer time,

and if we suffer from a chronic pain

the pain weakens and wears off.

And the next level

is the letter of appreciation.

And here's what happens in our brains

when we associate ourselves

with feelings and emotions of appreciation.

It is impossible for our brains to,

at the same time,

feel resentment or anger.

And hence the moment when you sit down

and say, "I'm going to write to someone",

we can recollect our thoughts

to realize the wonder

that we have around us.

For one year I made no presents;

the only gifts I made

were letters that I'd written
for my friends' birthdays.

I wrote them letters of appreciation.

I examined and re-examined

my friendships, my relationships,

and I suddenly became aware

of how fortunate I was.

This was a letter, in fact,

that let me say, "If you weren't in my life,

here's what I wouldn't become,

and here's what I wouldn't know."

It lets us get a grasp of the scope

and depth of the relationships

we have with others.

And so now what Martin Seligman did,

was that he sent these messages of gratitude

by visiting the receiver.
You'd write the letter,

and instead of sending it,
you'd take it to a meeting

with the recipient,
wouldn't tell them anything,

why you came,

and you'd go and read him your letter.

I've done this once, I confess, not more.

It's hard,

and I needed quite a bit Kleenex
during the experience,

quite a bit of Kleenex
when I was getting feedback.

I wrote a letter of appreciation
to my husband,

who's sitting here tonight,

and I've never said this in front of him,
but I'll say this

even if he's here.

We've been together for 25 years.

In 25 years together,
a list of complaints

would be very, very easy to write.

But that's not the point.

The point is in telling him,
"If you' were not in my life,

if I had not met you,
if I hadn't fallen for you that day,

here are all the things
that I wouldn't have become."

And I did just that.

And I'll tell you a secret, sorry, Alex,

Alex reads on the toilet.

And when I sat down to write this letter

I realized that

without his pile of magazines

I would've never learnt so many things.

I owe it all to him.

I heard myself telling that to him.

I told him.

And here is exactly what gratitude does.

It's simply living the exact same life,

but better.

I haven't changed any characters,

I haven't changed any details.

And where it truly gets extraordinarily useful

is when things aren't going so well.

It's when life doesn't give us

what we want,

and when life gives us the opposite

of what we want.

When the time that we've spent
and have yet to spend

with someone we love, is limited --

we realize,

in looking at things through this lens,

despite everything that's happening,

how fortunate we are.

For me, luck is to be there

with all of you today,

sitting patiently.

I sincerely thank you all.

(Applause)