Practicing gratitude is known to impact our emotions and emotional health. Evidence has shown that a regular “attitude of gratitude” can…
1. Make us happier
Simply journaling for five minutes a day about what we are grateful for can enhance our long-term happiness by over 10% (Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005)! It turns out that noticing what we already have can make us feel more positive about our lives, which makes a simple sort of sense:
those who pay attention to what is good in their life instead of what is bad are more likely to feel positively about their life.
2. Increase psychological wellbeing
Researcher Chih-Che Lin (2017) found that even when controlling for personality, a high level of gratitude has a strong positive impact on psychological wellbeing, self-esteem, and depression. Basically, this means that we can reap the best benefits of gratitude by embodying gratitude and truly living a life of gratitude, a state that we can get to through regular practice and commitment.
3. Enhance our positive emotions
Feeling grateful every day keeps the envy at bay! Research has shown that gratitude reduces envy, facilitates positive emotions, and makes us more resilient (Amin, 2014). After all, if we are grateful for what we have, what room is there for envy to sneak in?
4. Increase our self-esteem
Participants who completed a four-week gratitude contemplation program reported greater life satisfaction and self-esteem than control group participants (Rash, Matsuba, & Prkachin, 2011). Gratitude can help you feel better about your circumstances, which can lead to feeling better about yourself.
5. Keep suicidal thoughts and attempts at bay
A study on the effects of gratitude on depression, coping, and suicide showed that gratitude is a protective factor when it comes to suicidal ideation in stressed and depressed individuals (Krysinska, Lester, Lyke, & Corveleyn, 2015). Enhancing our own practice of gratitude can help protect us when we are weakest.
Gratitude and Social Benefits
So we know that gratitude makes us more emotionally balanced, happier, and more positive.
It makes sense, then, that all of these positive effects result in social benefits as well. After all, happy and healthy people are fun to be around!
Regarding social benefits, regularly practicing gratitude can…
6. Make people like us
Those who are more grateful have access to a wider social network, more friends, and better relationships on average (Amin, 2014). This is likely because of the effect that being grateful has on how trustworthy, social, and appreciative we seem to others.
7. Improve our romantic relationships
A recent study found evidence that expressing gratitude to our significant others results in improved quality in the relationship (Algoe, Fredrickson, & Gable, 2013). Showing our gratitude to loved ones is a great way to make them feel good, make us feel good, and make the relationship better in general!
8. Improve our friendships
Similar to the effects of gratitude on romantic relationships, expressing gratitude to our friends can improve our friendships. Those who communicate their gratitude to their friends are more likely to work through problems and concerns with their friends and have a more positive perception of their friends (Lambert & Fincham, 2011).
9. Increases social support
Unsurprisingly, given the other social benefits of gratitude, those who are more grateful have access to more social support. The same study that confirmed this finding reported that higher gratitude also leads to lower levels of stress and depression, suggesting that gratitude not only helps you get the social support you need to get through difficult times, but it lessens the need for social support in the first place (Wood, Maltby, Gillett, Linley, & Joseph, 2008)!
10. Strengthen family relationships in times of stress
Gratitude has been found to protect children of ill parents from anxiety and depression, acting as a buffer against the internalization of symptoms (Stoeckel, Weissbrod, & Ahrens, 2015). Teenage and young adult children who are able to find the positives in their lives can more easily deal with difficult situations like serious illness in the family.
Gratitude and Personality Benefits
Aside from the social and emotional benefits gratitude can provide, the regular practice and general “attitude of gratitude” can even affect your personality.
Here are a few things gratitude has been found to impact. Gratitude can…
11. Make us more optimistic
Showing our gratitude not only helps others feel more positively, it also makes us think more positively. Regular gratitude journaling has been shown to result in 5% to 15% increases in optimism (Amin, 2014), meaning that the more we think about what we are grateful for, the more we find to be grateful for!
12. Increase our spiritualism – links to Te Whare tapa Wha watch explainer video
If you are feeling a little too “worldly” or feeling lost spiritually, practicing gratitude can help you get out of your spiritual funk. The more spiritual you are, the more likely you are to be grateful, and vice versa (Urgesi, Aglioti, Skrap, & Fabbro, 2010).
13. Make us more giving
Another benefit to both ourselves and others, gratitude can decrease our self-centeredness. Evidence has shown that promoting gratitude in participants makes them more likely to share with others, even at the expense of themselves, and even if the receiver was a stranger (DeSteno, Bartlett, Baumann, Williams, & Dickens, 2010).
14. Indicate reduced materialism
Unsurprisingly, those who are the most grateful also tend to be less materialistic, likely because people who appreciate what they already have are less likely to fixate on obtaining more. It’s probably also not a surprise to learn that those who are grateful and less materialistic enjoy greater life satisfaction (Tsang, Carpenter, Roberts, Frisch, & Carlisle, 2014).
15. Enhance optimism
A study on the effects of gratitude on positive affectivity and optimism found that a gratitude intervention resulted in greater tendencies towards positivity and an expanded capacity for happiness and optimism (Lashani, Shaeiri, Asghari-Moghadam, & Golzari, 2012).
Gratitude and Career Benefits
They have shown gratitude in the workplace to impart many benefits as well, for both employers and employees.
Of course, many of the social, emotional, and personality benefits of regularly practicing gratitude can carry over to affect work life as well, but some effects are seen primarily over the course of daily work.
In the workplace, gratitude can…
16. Make us more effective managers
Gratitude research has shown that practicing gratitude enhances your managerial skills, enhancing your praise-giving and motivating abilities as a mentor and guide to the employees you manage (Stone & Stone, 1983).
17. Reduce impatience and improve decision-making
Those that are more grateful than others are also less likely to be impatient during economic decision-making, leading to better decisions and less pressure from the desire for short-term gratification (DeSteno, Li, Dickens, & Lerner, 2014). As anyone who has ever worked a stressful job already knows, decisions made to satisfy short-term urges rarely provide positive work results or a boost to your career!
18. Help us find meaning in our work
Those who find meaning and purpose in their work are often more effective and more fulfilled throughout their career. Gratitude is one factor that can help people find meaning in their job, along with applying their strengths, positive emotions and flow, hope, and finding a “calling” (Dik, Duffy, Allan, O’Donnell, Shim, & Steger, 2015).
19. Contribute to reduced turnover
Research has found that gratitude and respect in the workplace can help employees feel embedded in their organization, or welcomed and valued (Ng, 2016). This is especially important in the early stages of a career when new employees are still finding their way and are less likely to be afforded respect from their older or more experienced peers.
20. Improve work-related mental health and reduce stress
Employing gratitude at work can have a significant impact on staff mental health, stress, and turnover. In a rigorous examination of the effects of gratitude on stress and depressive symptoms in hospital staff, researchers learned that the participants randomly assigned to the gratitude group reported fewer depressive symptoms and stress (Cheng, Tsui, & Lam, 2015). Finding things to be grateful for at work, even in stressful jobs, can help protect staff from the negative side effects of their job.
Gratitude and Physical Health
There is also ample evidence that practicing gratitude can improve your physical health, in addition to helping you balance your emotions, improve your relationships, and boost your career.
For example, it has been shown that gratitude can…
21. Reduce depressive symptoms
A study on gratitude visits showed that participants experienced a 35% reduction in depressive symptoms for several weeks, while those practising gratitude journaling reported a similar reduction in depressive symptoms for as long as the journaling continued (Seligman et al., 2005). This is an amazing finding and suggests that gratitude journaling can be an effective supplement to treatment for depression.
22. Reduce your blood pressure
Patients with hypertension who “count their blessings” at least once a week experienced a significant decrease in blood pressure, resulting in better overall health (Shipon, 1977). Want a healthy heart? Count your blessings!
23. Improve your sleep
A two-week gratitude intervention increased sleep quality and reduced blood pressure in participants, leading to enhanced wellbeing (Jackowska, Brown, Ronaldson, & Steptoe, 2016). If you’re having trouble sleeping or just waking up feeling fatigued, try a quick gratitude journaling exercise before bed – it could make the difference between groggy and great in the morning!
24. Increase your frequency of exercise
It’s true: being grateful can help you get fit! It may not be a very effective “fast weight loss” plan, but it has been shown that study participants who practiced gratitude regularly for 11 weeks were more likely to exercise than those in the control group (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).
25. Improve your overall physical health
Evidence shows that the more grateful a person is the more likely he or she is to enjoy better physical health, as well as psychological health (Hill, Allemand, & Roberts, 2013). Apparently, grateful people are healthy people!
Gratitude’s Role in Recovery
Beyond merely improving physical health, gratitude has also been applied to aid recovery from several conditions and diagnoses.
Whether the issue is substance abuse or a physical ailment, gratitude might be able to help those who are suffering to take control of their lives and get well again.
Gratitude may…
26. Help people recover from substance misuse
Researchers and addiction programs alike have noticed that gratitude can play a key role in recovery from substance misuse or abuse. It seems to help by enabling the development of strengths and other personal resources that individuals can call on in their journey towards a healthier life (Chen, 2017).
27. Enhance recovery from coronary health events
A study out of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital found that acute coronary syndrome patients experienced greater improvements in health-related quality of life and greater reductions in depression and anxiety when they approached recovery with gratitude and optimism (Millstein, Celano, Beale, Beach, Suarez, Belcher, … & Huffman, 2016).
28. Facilitate the recovery of people with depression
A case study of a woman with depression revealed that the adoption of Buddhist teachings and practices, with a strong emphasis on utilizing gratitude as a recovery tool, helped her to heal (Cheng, 2015). This should be taken with a grain of salt as a case study, but there is also plenty of evidence that techniques and exercises drawn from Buddhist teachings can have profound benefits for those who practice them.
Gratitude Assessment: Try this on for size!
Score yourslef on the following scale: the statements are rated on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), with two reverse-scored items. The total score is added up from each item, and indicates your “GQ-6 score.” The number will be between 6 and 42, with higher numbers indicating a more grateful outlook on life.
1 = strongly disagree
2 = disagree
3 = slightly disagree
4 = neutral
5 = slightly agree
6 = agree
7 = strongly agree
The six items are as follows:
- “I have so much in life to be thankful for.”
- “If I had to list everything that I felt grateful for, it would be a very long list.”
- “When I look at the world, I don’t see much to be grateful for.” (reverse-scored)
- “I am grateful to a wide variety of people.”
- “As I get older I find myself more able to appreciate the people, events, and situations that have been part of my life history.”
- “Long amounts of time can go by before I feel grateful to something or someone.” (reverse-scored)
As a benchmark for comparing your score to others, if you scored below a 35 out of the possible 42, your gratitude level is in the bottom 25% of participants. If you scored a 42, you are in the top 13% of participants.
Whatever your score is, don’t worry too much about it – just see what you can do to be more grateful for what you have, and watch your wellbeing expand because of it!
Depending on your score you are on the money of you may have some work to do. Reach out if you’d like support on this.
Ref: positivepsychology.com