Rarely do we think of Thanksgiving as a holiday that will help us reach our health goals. In fact, if you are like me, you might stress out around the holidays and pack on a few extra pounds. However, it has been proven that the act of gratitude has positive effects on not only physical, emotional and social well-being, but it also neurologically rewires the brain for optimal health.
According to research on the effects of gratitude, when practiced regularly, we can reap powerful benefits in our health, relationships and life satisfaction.
Your Brain Benefits from Giving Thanks
Research conducted on gratitude, and measured on Functional MRIs, demonstrates that being thankful results in strengthening neural connections in the brain, promoting self-motivation and emotional regulation. The holidays can be particularly stressful. Gratitude helps keep us calm and balanced in our emotional responses as we gather to celebrate with family members who may have a way of triggering our well patterned stress responses.
Another gratitude study suggests that the more you practice gratitude the more neural modulation occurs in the medial prefrontal cortex. This causes you to have more neural sensitivity to gratitude, and an increase in behaviors associated with practicing gratitude. It’s a self-feeding cycle. Practice gratitude, feel more gratitude, which leads to taking more actions around gratitude.
Gratitude Lifts Depression
When was the last time you stopped to give thanks for all the good going on in your life? If you said to yourself, “There isn’t much to give thanks for in my life right now,” then practicing gratitude can have a significant impact on you.
Acknowledging gratitude doesn’t mean ignoring the bad in your life. It doesn’t mean you don’t acknowledge that you have problems, symptoms and stress. Nor does it mean that you must become blindly optimistic.
Practicing gratitude allows you to find, and focus on, the good in your life. When you do this, the bad still exists, but your positive feelings grow, and consequently, so does your health.
People who practice gratitude report higher levels of positive emotions, optimism, life satisfaction and lower levels of stress and depression.
Being Thankful Increases Your Happiness
What would your life be like if you could experience a 25% increase in your happiness levels? According to a scientific study carried out by Robert Eammons and Michael McCullough in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, simply writing down five things for which we are thankful on a daily basis, over the span of two weeks, increased participants levels of reported happiness by 25%. You are just two weeks away from a 25% happier life!
Gratitude Enhances Physical Health
Wouldn’t it be great if healthcare weren’t so expensive? What if I told you there was a way to feel better that doesn’t cost you anything? People who practice gratitude report fewer physical symptoms. They are also more likely to exercise regularly. Giving thanks on a regular basis has also been shown to not only improve sleep, but also increase the amount of sleep you can get.
Being Thankful Helps You Live a Longer Life
Not only does cultivating gratitude in your life help you live a happier, healthier life, it may also help add years to your life. According to a study by the Mayo Clinic, evidence suggests that pessimists live shorter lives than optimists. Optimists were 50% less likely to die of premature death. It’s difficult to be pessimistic when you are constantly acknowledging the good things in your life.
Gratitude Promotes Social Connectedness
Practicing gratitude helps you to be a better friend, spouse and parent. The research by Dr. Eammons goes on to show that children who practice gratitude have more positive attitudes toward their school and their families. Adult participants were shown to be more likely to offer emotional support to someone and help others with personal problems. Those that practiced gratitude were rated by their social network to be more generous and helpful than those who do not practice gratitude. Individuals with a disposition toward being grateful tend to take the perspective of others and be more empathetic.
Giving Thanks Can Transform Your Marriage
Dr. John Gottman has been researching relationships at the University of Washington for over twenty years. Based on his research, he believes that he can predict with 90% accuracy whether or not a marriage will be successful, just by observing a couple for a three-minute period. He believes he has found this key – for every expression of negativity, there needs to be about five positive interactions. Dr. Gottman suggests counting blessings at a five-to-one ratio. Every time you catch yourself finding fault with your spouse, can you switch your focus to five positives to appreciate?
Faith Enhances Gratitude
Being grateful doesn’t mean you have to practice a particular faith or be “religious.” However, studies show that if you engage in spiritual practices such as regular church attendance, prayer or reading your Bible, you are more likely to be grateful. Viewing the world through the perspective of gratitude allows you to see the connectedness of life and people.
Gratitude Prevents Envy and Materialism
Grateful people are more likely to share their resources with others. They are less likely to place importance on the accumulation of material goods and personal possessions. If you practice gratitude, you are less likely to measure your own success, as well as the success of others, by how much and what you own.
My personal experience has proven to me how freeing it is to know that my value is not defined by the car I drive, or the size of my house. When we focus on feelings of gratitude for the safe, warm shelter shared by the ones we love, we can’t simultaneously hold feelings of lack and unease.
Gratitude Helps You Reach Your Goals
According to Dr. Eammons’ research, people who practice gratitude are more likely to reach their goals. In a two-month period, participants in the gratitude experiment were more likely to make progress toward their personal, academic and health-based goals than those not in the gratitude group.
The Science of Gratitude
The body of scientific literature around gratitude continues to grow. Pubmed has many articles about the scientifically validated, positive effects of gratitude. If you are interested in exploring more about the practice of gratitude and positivity, check out books by Robert Eammons, and Martin Seligman. If you would rather watch videos, you might find these TedTalks on Gratitude helpful.
7 Ways to Practice Gratitude
Being appreciative brings rewards into your life whether the objects of your gratitude are great or small. Just the practice itself brings the benefits. Here are some ways to start practicing gratitude today.
1 – Start a Gratitude Journal
There really isn’t a right or wrong way to do this. Some studies suggest journaling three times per week, or even every day. Others suggest making a list of five things for which we are grateful, while another suggests using a time limit of fifteen minutes. The act of journaling and writing has its own benefits such as lowering stress as well as increasing creativity and emotional healing.
2 – Make a Gratitude Tree
Start a new family tradition this year at your Thanksgiving gathering. Cut out leaves from construction paper. Have your guests write what they are thankful for and then tape them onto a drawing of a tree or attach them to a branch in your yard.
3 – Start Your Meals with a Prayer
Incorporate the practice of giving thanks over each meal you eat, being mindful of all the hands that went into preparing what you are about to eat. Maybe you cooked the meal yourself, but who picked the vegetables, packaged the food, slaughtered the meat, drove it to the store, stocked the shelves and rang you up at the register. Give thanks for the food and the people that brought it to your table.
4 – Send a Thank You Card
When is the last time someone sent you a handwritten thank you note? How did you feel when you received it? Make a goal to send out a handwritten thank you note to someone once a week or even once a month. Take the time to think deeply about the reasons you appreciate the recipient. Go beneath the superficial reasons of what they may have done for you and acknowledge who they are as a person and what characteristics make them special to you.
5 – Be Mindful of Your Blessings
As you go through your day, be in the moment. Instead of being distracted by all the things that are concerning you, the things that might happen, need to happen or have already happened, be present and identify what you are thankful for right now in the current moment. Savor the coffee you are drinking, the sunrise you see, the smile someone gives you. Go on a walk and count the blessings around you. Notice everything.
6 – Create A To-Be-Thankful-For List
Keep a list where you can see it – on your refrigerator, bathroom mirror, or bulletin board. Challenge yourself to add to it on a regular basis. Can you get to a hundred, five hundred, or a thousand blessings in your life? Invite your family to add to the list, make it a group project.
7 – Simply Say Thank You
Every day say thank you for the blessings you encounter. Say prayers to thank God for all the blessings that flow from Him. Say thank you to people around you. Saying words of appreciation out loud is good for us to hear, as well as others.
I challenge you to say thank you for the adverse events in your life, as well. When things go wrong, are you able to find something to be thankful for that wouldn’t have occurred without this negative aspect in your life? This might be a stretch goal, but by being thankful we minimize the negative and invite more of the goodness into our lives.
Science is validating gratitude as a key component for neurologically rewiring your brain for better health, enhancing your social connections, balancing your emotions and increasing motivation to take action toward goals that are important to you. Best of all, you don’t need a doctor’s prescription, you don’t have to pay out of pocket and there are no special supplements or tools. It’s always available and you can practice it anywhere. What is the first step in implementing your gratitude practice?
“In everything give thanks…” I Thessalonians 5:18
