WEBVTT

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I admire washing machine repairers

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because there is something special 
about them.

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When one comes over to my house,

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I feel for this person,

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

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an extremely important sense of recognition.

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And when I feel this,

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not only the washing machine is repaired,

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but in fact I also live longer.

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But how exactly do I live longer?

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I present to you David,
David Servan Schreiber.

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David was a psychiatrist.

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David Servan Schreiber

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was my cousin.

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

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by a type of brain cancer.

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When he was 30 years old,

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the first tumor was detected on him.

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

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statistically speaking, 
had luck on his side.

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From then on, he mobilized

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all of his knowledge,
all of his energy

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to try and find out how he could live,

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not only as long as possible 
under these circumstances,

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but also the best possible way.

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So what we know about him

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is that he changed his diet,

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practised meditation,

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and exercised every day.

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

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is the amount of attention he paid

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

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Up to his last breath, David was

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someone full of thanks and gratitude.

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Gratitude is an emotion

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of recognition that we feel

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

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

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the fragrance of a baby,

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especially when it's our own child.

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

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one evening.

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It's, for us, the absolute pleasure

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

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But why did David guide me into all of this?

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We talked a lot about psychology together.

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It's because there are

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entire labs and departments that study

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the circumstances 
and consequences of gratitude.

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There's a gentleman called 
Prof. Robert Emmons

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who works at UC Davis in California,

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he's very fortunate,

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for 12 years of diligent study 
and research in the field

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of positive psychology

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he has been trying to understand

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

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And here's what he realized.

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First of all, on a psychological level

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when we know that we appreciate

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all the small details

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that surround you in your everyday life,

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from the temperature in your room

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to being able to arrive on time,

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we feel happier,

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we feel more connected with others,

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we feel more alert and aware,

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and we feel more alive.

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And next, we have the secondary benefits

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that deal with relationships.

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Above all, being the fact that we feel

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a lot less lonely.

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This is because gratitude 
always comes from

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something or someone

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who is separate from us.

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This is an emotion that makes us humble,

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that makes us want

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to take our turn to give.

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But all of this is nothing.

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The most shocking are the effects 
that were discovered

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on the physiological level, or simply

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how our body works.

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

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in Minnesota in 1986.

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A researcher hypothesized the following,

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and asked

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whether there was a link between

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feeling grateful,

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thus knowing how to appreciate things, 
and longevity.

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So how do we study something like this?

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We have to find people
who live in the exact

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same way, who eat the same things,

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who breathe the same air,

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who have the same job,

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who have the same number of kids,

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which is especially important with women,

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with zero being an ideal number.

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

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that would be great.

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And they found these people.

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They found them in an abbey.

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More specifically in an abbey

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with 150 years old archives.

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When these young women

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arrived at the abbey,

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

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was to write a letter 
that introduced themselves

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and told their life story.

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They did the same thing
at the age of 40,

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and at the age of 70.

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We had 150 years of biographical letters.

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We also had 150 years of medical records.

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We passed these letters on to semanticists,

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those who study diction 
and the content of vocabulary,

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and asked them to quantify the nature

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of words used that expressed

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appreciation, optimism,

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or gratitude.

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And then we could correlate

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the level of gratification of these women

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with, not only their health,

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but also their lifespans.

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It was found that the more of these words

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that expressed gratitude and appreciation

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were used after the age of 20,

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the longer the women lived.

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We could quantify it to such an extent

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that we know these women 
had a life expectancy

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longer than their sisters by 7 years.

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The same data comparison was conducted

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with more current cases

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concerning the middle class,

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and the same results were yielded.

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I'm like some of you here,

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I was born and raised in Paris,

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it's probably not the most appropriate thing

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

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However, after having visited David 
so many times,

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after having read 
all of these documents and articles,

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I still wanted to try

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and see.

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I had to look at the hard evidence.

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Martin Seligman, very influential

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

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we definitely speak about him 
quite a bit today,

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recognized the following:

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In a day, it's enough to

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identify 3 events,

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moments, interactions,

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tastes, sensations

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that made us feel good

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and that made us want to say,

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"Thank you." --

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to improve one's level 
of happiness permanently

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after only 3 weeks.

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I read this, I went home

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relatively excited by this information,

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

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who are between 8 and 14 years old,

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and I told them 
that I read something crazy today

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that says that if you can spot in a day

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a moment, "here's a great moment"

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in brief,

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what I told them, was that

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if you can spot 3 good things in your day,

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you'll live longer,

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

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And we started to do so.

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It's not easy for everyone.

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It's not obvious.

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Our immediate level of access 
to gratitude is a bit

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different from person to person.

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It was especially difficult for Léon,

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the youngest of my kids.

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He was under pressure,

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he didn't even want to play.

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One of my proudest achievements as a mom

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is that today Léon is 14

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and he can come down these stairs

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

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

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My children have learnt this.

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It's a way of doing things.

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When we do this with people we know,

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people we live with,

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people we work with,

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people who we don't know,

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people who we've just met,

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something very special happens,

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because it's not a common

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conversation topic.

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If it moves you, it moves me.

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

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there's a rule we need to follow;

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that is not to comment or criticize it.

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

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we absorb and generally,

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we realize that we also 
have this event to appreciate

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and we add it to our own lists.

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This is one way to do it,

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level zero.

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And then we have level one.

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

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in fact you can

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start to keep a little notebook

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on your night stand.

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

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

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It lets you write down 
your sources of gratitude

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

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you do before sleeping.

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When you turn off your iPad,

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you can pick up your little diary.

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Dr Emmons has discovered

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that when doing this is the last thing

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we do in our day,

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we sleep deeper,

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for a longer time,

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and if we suffer from a chronic pain

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the pain weakens and wears off.

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And the next level

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is the letter of appreciation.

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And here's what happens in our brains

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when we associate ourselves

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with feelings and emotions of appreciation.

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It is impossible for our brains to,

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at the same time,

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feel resentment or anger.

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And hence the moment when you sit down

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

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we can recollect our thoughts

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to realize the wonder

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that we have around us.

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For one year I made no presents;

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the only gifts I made

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

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I wrote them letters of appreciation.

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I examined and re-examined

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my friendships, my relationships,

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and I suddenly became aware

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of how fortunate I was.

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This was a letter, in fact,

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

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here's what I wouldn't become,

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

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It lets us get a grasp of the scope

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and depth of the relationships

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we have with others.

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And so now what Martin Seligman did,

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was that he sent these messages of gratitude

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

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

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with the recipient, 
wouldn't tell them anything,

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why you came,

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and you'd go and read him your letter.

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

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It's hard,

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and I needed quite a bit Kleenex 
during the experience,

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quite a bit of Kleenex 
when I was getting feedback.

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I wrote a letter of appreciation 
to my husband,

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who's sitting here tonight,

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

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even if he's here.

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We've been together for 25 years.

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In 25 years together,
a list of complaints

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would be very, very easy to write.

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But that's not the point.

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

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

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

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And I did just that.

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

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Alex reads on the toilet.

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And when I sat down to write this letter

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I realized that

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without his pile of magazines

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I would've never learnt so many things.

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I owe it all to him.

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I heard myself telling that to him.

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I told him.

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And here is exactly what gratitude does.

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It's simply living the exact same life,

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but better.

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I haven't changed any characters,

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I haven't changed any details.

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And where it truly gets extraordinarily useful

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is when things aren't going so well.

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It's when life doesn't give us

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what we want,

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and when life gives us the opposite

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of what we want.

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

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with someone we love, is limited --

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we realize,

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in looking at things through this lens,

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despite everything that's happening,

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how fortunate we are.

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For me, luck is to be there

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with all of you today,

00:12:06.797 --> 00:12:08.664
sitting patiently.

00:12:08.664 --> 00:12:10.397
I sincerely thank you all.

00:12:10.397 --> 00:12:14.397
(Applause)