The Surprising Physical and Emotional Benefits of Gratitude

Gratitude is a popular buzzword, especially this time of year. Wherever you turn, it seems that someone is talking about it. Whether in advertisements, online, or popular media, you just can’t escape it. Gratitude is everywhere right now.

However, in just a few weeks, that will all change. Gratitude, like our holiday pumpkin pie, will fade quickly into the background, only to reemerge and take centerstage once again at the same time next year.

For many people, that’s fine since they may view gratitude as something fluffy, like icing on the cake. Nice and sweet but superfluous and of inconsequential value in the long run.

However, research strongly suggests that gratitude is the cake. In fact, it has a profound impact on our health and happiness.

The Science of Gratitude

Positive psychologists have identified gratitude as one of the top five character strengths associated with greater well-being. And when it comes to relationships, eminent emotion scientist Barbara Fredrickson suggests it may be the most important strength.

That’s because it makes us feel cared for, understood, and validated. As human beings, these are qualities we all tend to value and naturally want in life.

Fredrickson found that couples who expressed gratitude to one another had a 50 percent decrease in breaking up six months later.

In the workplace, gratitude leads to better engagement, enhanced productivity, decreased burnout, and greater well-being.

Psychologist Robert Emmons, a pioneer in the field of gratitude and its relationship to flourishing, defines gratitude as “an affirmation of the good and a recognition that the good originates outside the self.”

And Cicero, the great Roman orator, said, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”

Gratitude is like compound interest: The more we invest in it, the more it grows. A grateful heart and mind help us notice and appreciate additional things for which to be thankful. In turn, we experience an upward spiral of positivity and enhanced emotional well-being.

Grateful people tend to achieve more, have stronger social connections, be more resilient and less depressed, and have healthier relationships, says Emmons, founding editor of The Journal of Positive Psychology, who has been at the helm of gratitude research for decades.

Additionally, gratitude has been associated with a myriad of physical benefits, including better sleep, lower levels of cortisol, decreased inflammation, and reduced mortality, he reports.

However, as we discussed on NPR’s WHYY Studio 2 show today, we can’t reap its rich benefits if we don’t practice gratitude regularly.

Imagine if we had a national exercise day and focused on exercising on that one day and maybe a few days leading up to it. Then, for the rest of the year, we went back to our usual schedule, forgetting about exercising.

That wouldn’t be that beneficial, would it? It likely wouldn’t provide a long-lasting boost to our health.

Similarly, with gratitude. If we save all our gratitude for just one special day or a season and then let many tender moments slip by month after month without acknowledging the special people in our lives, we won’t experience the powerful and cumulative effects of gratitude.

Instead, we must remember to practice gratitude regularly in order to reap all the nutrient-rich benefits to our psychological and physical health.

Exercise Your Gratitude Muscle Every Day for Greater Physical and Emotional Health

While some of us are naturally more grateful than others, the good news is that gratitude is a skill. And like all skills, the more we practice it, the better we become.

We dedicate an entire chapter to gratitude in our book Happy Together and created an “Interaction Model” that can help you practice expressing and receiving gratitude on a regular basis.

In brief, here’s what you can do to start exercising your gratitude muscle today:

• Notice the Moments. Slow down and focus on the daily moments and special people in your life for which you are grateful.
• Feel Grateful. Pause and reflect on specific moments and interactions with others throughout the day. How do they make you feel? Take in the gratitude and let the feeling permeate throughout your body and soul.
• Express Appreciation to Others. Don’t assume others know how you feel. Our friends, colleagues, spouses, and others are not mind readers. We must express our gratitude to them.

While gratitude may not come naturally to many of us and at times might seem downright impossible to find something for which we are grateful, like physical exercise, it will get easier the more we do it. Regardless of our situation or circumstance, it is always possible to find something positive in our lives, no matter how small, for which to be grateful. We just might have to look a bit harder and closer.

Gratitude calls for a willing spirit and a shift in our attention. With time and practice, we may be surprised to find ourselves naturally focusing on what is going well in our lives rather than wrong. And that, in itself, is something for which we can be grateful.