You're listening to Life Kit, from NPR.

Hey everybody, it's Mariel.

At my last family Thanksgiving, we all went around the table and talked about what we were grateful for.

I'm pretty sure one of my cousins said pie.

For another, it was family.

For me, it's knowing that my life is overflowing with love from people who know how to show up and who let me show up for them too.

Gratitude can feel big and weighty, but Christina Costa, a psychology professor at Wayne State University, says you can start simple.

I always say start really, really small. I am so grateful for the sun today.

Christina studies positive psychology, focusing on resilience and well-being.

One classroom practice that she teaches her students is the idea of kissing your brain.

And so what students do is they take their two fingers,

they kiss their fingers, and then they tap their head,

they're kissing their brain.

So really they're thanking themselves

for like, oh, being so smart, let's choke around

to towards our brain. So I took that to my middle school classroom, which is very, in

hindsight, nerve-wracking. Like, it's a very infant thing to do, kiss your brain.

But they loved it, and now I've even had the courage

to bring it to my college students.

Like, oh my God, that you said something so smart, case your brain.

And this is a practice Christina ended up leaning on at a really difficult time in her life.

I was experiencing some dizzy spells and migraines, nothing too severe, went for an MRI, and they found a great fruit-sized tumor in my

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