How gratitude rewires your brain | Christina Costa

**Elise Hu** (0:04)
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu.
When Christina Costa was a middle school science teacher, she had a little ritual with her students. At the end of a good stretch of work, she would ask them to kiss their brain, tap their fingers to their lips, then tap the top of their heads, a small silly gesture of gratitude. Years later, she'd left teaching to get her PhD in psychology, and that phrase would mean more to her than she could have ever imagined.

**Christina Costa** (0:34)
I have never been more scared in my life than I was that night. And with tears dripping down my face in the hospital, I kissed my brain for the first time since I had left my middle school classroom.

**Elise Hu** (0:47)
Christina, who is now a psychologist, studies resilience and well-being. And not long ago, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
In her talk from 2021, she shares that almost immediately after her diagnosis, she noticed the language everyone reached for. That she was strong, that she would be ready to fight, and the more she heard it, the less it fit.

**Christina Costa** (1:07)
Fighter.
I look at myself in the mirror. It felt okay at first, but soon it became exhausting. Too heavy to lift, too much to carry, too burdensome to bear. I took it off and left it on the floor. War was not for me.
A body is not a battlefield.

**Elise Hu** (1:26)
Instead, she offers a different way through a frightening diagnosis, one rooted not in battling, but in gratitude. She walks through what the science actually says about that choice and how a practice as small as kissing your brain might reshape the way we face the hardest things. That's coming up right after a short break.
And now our TED Talk of the day.

**Christina Costa** (1:54)
When I was a middle school science teacher, I would often ask my students to kiss their brain. I got this idea from visiting my friend's kindergarten classroom. She would ask her students to kiss their brain, and they would take their fingers, tap them to their mouth, and then to the top of their head. And it truly was as cute as you can picture it to be. So I decided to bring it back to my middle school classroom, which could have gone one of two ways. But it ended up being a really fun ritual for us too. And I would ask them to kiss their brain for all the work they did in class as a practice of gratitude. After teaching middle school, I came back to grad school to get my PhD in psychology. My research is within the area of positive psychology, which is a science that investigates the strengths and factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive. I also get to teach psychology to undergrad students and high school students. I love teaching psych and my absolute favorite unit to teach in intro psych is the brain. But while I love teaching about the brain, I thought it would be pushing it to ask my undergrads, aka adults, to kiss their brain. So three years would go by before I would remember that fun phrase.
One day after teaching last year, I had a terrible migraine that left half of my face numb and blurred my vision. The migraines kept happening. I saw multiple doctors, and then I started experiencing dizzy spells. The neurologist ordered an MRI, and I remember being so excited because then I would be able to use my own brain pictures when I taught brain imaging to my students. But as it turns out, my MRI wasn't too picture perfect. The doctor called me and asked me to go to the ER because there was a large mass in the right hemisphere of my brain. I have never been more scared in my life than I was that night, and with tears dripping down my face in the hospital, I kissed my brain for the first time since I had left my middle school classroom.
I made it my mantra, and I kissed my brain every single day, leading up to and after surgery.
Then, two weeks later, after surgery, the pathology reports came back, and I was diagnosed with an anaplastic astrocytoma. The weeks following were very difficult. I tried to figure out what I was struggling with the most by looking back on all the things I had been writing about this experience. I wrote and posted this on Instagram about a week after I received that pathology report.
I will keep fighting. I will keep loving. I will keep living. I will keep loving. I will keep living.