Pretty much everyone appreciates what’s good in their lives during Thanksgiving. But if you know what’s good for you, you’ll make it a daily activity!

Benefits of Gratitude

Practicing gratitude can have many benefits. From sources across the web, these benefits include:

Mentally Grateful

—Improved mood: Gratitude can make people feel happier and more content. Writing a gratitude letter and counting blessings “were associated with substantial improvements in optimism” (Huffman, Dubois, Healy, Boehm, Kashdan, Celano, Denninger, & Lyubomirsky, 2014).

—Improved relationships: Expressing gratitude can help build and maintain social bonds.

—Reduced anxiety and depression: Gratitude buffers people from stress and depression (Wood, Maltby, Gillett, Linley, & Joseph, 2008). Writing gratitude letters leads to better mental health in adult populations seeking psychotherapy (Wong, Owen, Brown, Mcinnis, Toth, & Gilman, 2016).

—Gratitude may enhance peace of mind, reduce rumination, and have a negative effect on depressive symptoms (Liang, Chen, Li, Wu, Wang, Zheng, & Zeng, 2018).

—Increased productivity: Gratitude can increase productivity by activating the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for critical thinking and rational thought processes.

—Strengthened self-worth.

—Optimism: Positive reframing underlies the relationship between trait gratitude and a sense of coherence. A sense of coherence is how confident a person feels about potential life outcomes. It is the degree to which a person feels optimistic and in control of future events (Lambert, Graham, Fincham, & Stillman, 2009).

—Reduced stress: Gratitude can help calm the nervous system and reduce stress. (UCLA HealthMar 22, 2023)

Physically Grateful

— Every time a person expresses or receives gratitude, dopamine releases in the brain, thus making a connection between the behavior and feeling good. The more a person practices gratitude, the more often dopamine releases.

—Better sleep: People who practice gratitude tend to sleep better and longer.

—Better physical health: People who practice gratitude report better physical health and are more likely to seek help for physical concerns. Patients who expressed optimism/gratitude two weeks after an acute coronary event had healthier hearts (Huffman, Beale, Beach, Celano, Belcher, Moore, Suarez, Gandhi, Motiwala, Gaggin, & Januzzi 2015).

—Reduced risk of disease by reducing inflammation at the cellular level.

—Reduced difficulties with chronic pain.

—Increased blood flow to the hypothalamus, which controls stress and sleep.

— Gratitude and spiritual wellbeing are related to positive affect, sleep quality, energy, self-efficacy, and lower cellular inflammation (Mills, Redwine, Wilson, Pung, Chinh, Greenberg, Lunde, Maisel, & Raisinghani, 2015).

The Science of Being Grateful

The Greater Good Science Center offers a plethora of information on this subject. In a paper titled, “The Science of Gratitude” (2018), they outline several benefits to gratitude practice.

Individual Gratitude

• More satisfaction with life
• Increased happiness and positive mood
• Less materialistic
• Less likely to experience burnout
• Better physical health
• Better sleep
• Less fatigue
• Lower levels of cellular inflammation
• Greater resiliency
• Encourages the development of patience, humility, and wisdom

Group Gratitude

• Strengthens relationships
• Increases prosocial behaviors
• May help employees’ effectiveness
• May increase job satisfaction

Research Into Gratitude

Emmons & Mishra (2011) concluded that there is “considerable evidence that gratitude builds social resources by strengthening relationships and promoting prosocial actions.”

Wong and Brown (2017) determined that gratitude does four things:

• Gratitude disconnects us from toxic, negative emotions and the ruminating that often accompanies them. Writing a letter “shifts our attention” so that our focus is on positive emotions.
• Expressing gratitude helps us even if we don’t explicitly share it with someone. We’re happier and more satisfied with life because we “said it to ourselves.”
• The positive effects of gratitude writing compound like interest. You might not notice the benefit of a daily or weekly practice, but after several weeks and months, you will.
• A gratitude practice trains the brain to be more in tune with experiencing gratitude — a positive plus a positive, equaling more positives.

Bartlett & DeSteno (2006) published research about gratefulness and helping behavior:

• Gratitude facilitates helping behavior,
• Grateful people help the people who helped them (benefactors) and strangers similarly, and
• Reminding people who helped them (a benefactor) still increased helping behavior exhibited toward strangers. The reciprocity norm wasn’t a factor.

Dickens and DeSteno (2018) found an association between self-control (patience) and gratitude. Grateful people delay future rewards to a higher degree than ungrateful people, positively affecting one’s finances. Increasing levels of gratitude could also help people positively affect health-related behaviors.

Robert Emmons (2010), a preeminent scholar in this field, makes the argument that gratitude allows a person to do several things:

• Celebrate the present
• Block toxic emotions (envy, resentment, regret, depression)
• Be more stress-resilient
• Strengthen social ties and self-worth

Practice Being Grateful

These suggestions at Positive Psychology were adapted from Sansone & Sansone (2010) and Emmons (2010) and are easy to do daily or weekly.

1. Journal about things, people, or situations for which you are grateful. Consider including negative situations like avoiding an accident, for instance.
2. Think about someone for whom you are grateful.
3. Write a gratitude letter to someone for whom you are thankful. Consider sending it or giving it to them in person.
4. Meditate on gratitude (present moment awareness).
5. Do the “Count Your Blessings” exercise (at the end of the day, write down three things for which you were grateful).
6. Practice saying “thank you” in a real and meaningful way. Be specific. For example, “Thank you for taking the time to read this article and leave a comment. I enjoy reading your contributions because they broaden my understanding of this subject.”
7. Write thank you notes. Some might say this is a lost art. Challenge yourself to write one hand-written note every week for one month.
8. If religious, pray about your gratitude or use specific prayers of gratitude. Interfaith Worker Justice offers Muslim, Jewish, and Christian examples. Secular Seasons has several graces and invocations. You also can find a collection of secular gratitude approaches on BE. Orlando Humanist Fellowship.
9. Recall a negative event. Doing this helps you appreciate your current situation.
10. Be mindful of your five senses. How does each enhance your life?
11. Create visual reminders to practice gratitude. Sticky notes, notifications, and people are great for this.
12. Focus on the good that others have done on your behalf.
13. Actions lead to gratitude. Smile, say thank you, and write gratitude letters.
14. Be a grateful gazer. Be on the lookout for opportunities to feel grateful.
15. Give something up. We tend to adapt to newness; sometimes it’s a good idea to give something up so that we can increase our appreciation of it.
16. Think about what your life would be like if a specific positive event [hadn’t] happened. Write all the decisions and events that would have been different in your life. For instance, what if you didn’t meet your spouse? What if you didn’t get the dream job you have now? What if you hadn’t stopped a particular bad habit?

Lack of Gratitude

Unfortunately, not everyone eagerly jumps onto the gratitude bandwagon. Emmons (2013) offers the following characteristics of ingratitude:

• Excessive sense of self-importance
• Arrogance
• Vanity
• Unquenchable need for admiration and approval
• Sense of entitlement

Thomas Gilovich (2017) describes ingratitude as the result of “adaptation, dwelling on negatives, and skewed perceptions of hardships.” In Enemies of Gratitude, Gilovich explains how and why these three experiences interfere with one’s ability to express gratitude.

Appreciating the positives in one’s life making life better seems a little woo-woo, not to mention circular. But there’s a ton of research indicating that it works. And it’s a small, no-cost investment with potentially great rewards.

Bottom Line: Go for grateful!