Health Benefits of Gratitude Practice

What is the meaning of gratitude, anyhow?

Why is the concept of gratitude really irritating to some of us (at least initially)?

Unless you have had your head in a bucket of sand all of your life, chances are good that you have heard of at least some of the health benefits of gratitude before.  However, let’s look at your life.  Maybe it’s awesome.  Maybe, it is, as the Jack Nicholson character, Melvin Udall, in “As Good As it Gets,” says, full of “great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad… a lot of people, that’s their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you’re that pissed that so many others had it good.” (By the way, if you haven’t seen this movie, I recommend that you stop reading this article, clear your schedule for the next couple of hours, and watch it now.  You’ll thank me later.)

Here’s the clip I am referring to:

But, I digress.  My point is that if yours wasn’t the “good times, noodle salad” sort of life, you probably are annoyed that some people had it so easy while you didn’t.  Maybe you grew up poor, sick, abused, or “different” from your peers in any way.  Maybe you still are.  And that is what makes the whole concept of gratitude irritating, grating, trite, and upsetting.

An acknowledgement of goodness in the universe at all, let alone from people in your life, might seem like a cruel joke, depending on who you are and what you have been through.  That is what I find irritating about gratitude at first glance, and, if I am honest, at second glance also.  However…

The scientific research on gratitude converted me and helped me realize the health benefits of gratitude

The Catch-22 of someone who is AEE: “I want to express my feelings, but if I do, bad things might happen.”

The longer you avoid expressing your feelings, the harder it is to get along with people and the less resilient you get.

Gratitude to the rescue – the many health benefits of gratitude!

You can get the health benefits of gratitude from something as simple as writing a letter.

• another individual,
• society in general, or
• for people who are more spiritual, to a higher power.

Gratitude really changes your brain.  Inside.  Scientists took before and after photos.

Science says, “Gratitude good.  Write a letter, say thank you, and feel better.”

9 Unexpected Health Benefits of Gratitude

1. Reduction in Depression – I already went through this one in detail.
2. Overall improvement in mental health
3. Improved quality and duration of sleep
4. Lower blood pressure
5. An increased desire to exercise (and all the health benefits that come from exercise)
6. Increased energy level
7. Decrease in physical aches and pains
8. Increased resilience 
9. Increased ability to relax (decreased stress)

Books about Gratitude

Gratitude Works! A 21 Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity by Robert Emmons – Gratitude Works is a must read! It is written by Robert Emmons, who is the world’s leading gratitude researcher.  He offers a science-based perspective for how we can use the power of gratitude to transform our personal and professional lives.

The Gratitude Revolution: How To Love Your Life and Be Inspired By The World Around You by Laura Moreno
Each chapter ends with a simple gratitude exercise so that you can put theory into practice while the messages are still fresh in your mind. “By the end of The Gratitude Revolution, you will understand why you are how you are, how to love what you can’t change, how to change what you don’t love, and how to start living the kind of life you deserve.”

Gratitude by Oliver Sacks. Oliver Sacks is a prominent neuropsychologist who has written many interesting and compassionate books about psychological conditions including “The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat”.  In this short (64 page) volume of essays, he describes his experience of dying and his gratitude for the gift of life.

“My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”
—Oliver Sacks

A Simple Act of Gratitude: How Learning to Say Thank You Changed My Life by John Krawlik – The memoir of a man who changed his life by writing a thank you note every day for a year. He describes the many ways in which this literally changed his life.  This sounds fascinating.

Conclusion

I didn’t go into very much detail about each of the health benefits of gratitude.  There have been papers written to support each one.  In some cases many papers were written.  However, the point is that gratitude is significantly helpful in improving your mental health, physical health, and also your social wellbeing although I only touched on that briefly.

Furthermore, the form of the gratitude can be very simple.  You could, for example, just keep a gratitude journal in which you write three things you are grateful for each day.  Alternately, as was suggested earlier, you could write letters, which you can send or not (as you choose) that express your gratitude to other people, society, or a higher power.

What was surprising to me, and what I think is significant, is that an exercise that takes so little time and relatively little energy can have such far-reaching consequences on the brain and on the body.  It made me realize that gratitude is a powerful force, and that all of us should probably be using gratitude in our daily lives.  However, especially people who are having mental and physical health concerns should try out this practice.

It seems counterintuitive because if you are suffering, you might think, “Hey, why the hell should I be grateful?”  But the answer is that the gratitude itself will help ease your suffering.  Will it work for you?  There’s only one way to find out.  However, isn’t it worth putting in the effort on the off chance that it might work, given all the research that has shown how helpful it can be?  Ironically, I was not convinced prior to writing this article, but now I am, and I am going to give it a solid try and find out what changes happen in my own health.  And then I will get back to you.  I will be your guinea pig.

Meanwhile, you can be our guinea pig too.  Let us know in the comments if you have tried this and how it has worked out for you, good or bad.

You might also be interested in:

• The Guest House Poem by Rumi – a poem about mindfulness
• 151 Self Care Ideas to Prevent Stress and Burnout
• What is mindfulness in plain English?

References