The Magical Powers of Gratitude

What if I told you there was an amazing pill that made you: feel physically healthier, less lonely, sick less often, recover faster, reduce aches and pains, increase your ability to cope with stress, and you experienced more feelings of joy, enthusiasm, happiness and connectedness?

Not to mention it can lower your blood pressure, boost your immune system and reduce your lifetime risk for depression, anxiety, substance abuse and even reduce the likelihood of suicide.

Oh, and you also experience less resentment, greed, bitterness and you sleep better at night, among dozens of other proven benefits.

How much would you be willing to pay for a bottle of these dream-come-true pills? What about just one pill?

Now, what if I told you it was actually free? And had zero negative side effects?

Okay, be honest, would you take it every single day?

Well, it’s not a pill at all, but science shows that gratitude actually produces all of these benefits and dozens more for our bodies and brains. Yep. Good ol fashioned gratitude and appreciation is the magic prescription you’ve been waiting for.

It was Roman writer Cicero, born in 106 BC who is quoted as saying, “gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”

Seriously? Yep, countless scholars have conducted hundreds of studies on gratitude and most agree that Cicero was spot on.

Think about that for a minute. In fact, take a minute to think about the happiest people you are closest to.  Why are they so darn happy? What characteristics and virtues do they possess?

Chances are gratitude is near the top of the list. In fact, some of the happiest people we know seem to be the ones who have learned to enjoy their day, enjoy what they have, and enjoy who they are and who they are with.

One of the world’s leading scientific experts and scholars on gratitude, Robert Emmons, even shared that “Gratitude is literally one of the few things that can measurably change people’s lives.”

And not only does gratitude feel good, but it’s also motivating. When we feel grateful, we want to share the goodness we’ve received with others.

And just like a life jacket protects you from drowning in deep waters, gratitude protects us because it serves as a great buffer against deep waters of negative emotions such as envy, hostility, irritation, and worry. It involves a focus on the present moment and appreciating what is, instead of dwelling endlessly on what could be.

But let’s step back a minute and break gratitude down a bit to really understand what it truly entails and why it works like a magic drug.

Emmons points out that gratitude has two components. The first is an affirmation of goodness. We affirm that there is good in the world—we are aware of gifts and benefits we have received. But this doesn’t mean that life is perfect—it doesn’t ignore hassles, stresses, and burdens, but when we take a step back and look at life as a whole, gratitude encourages us to identify some amount of good in our life.

He explains that “gratitude is more than a feeling…gratitude implies humility—a recognition that we could not be who we are or where we are in life without the contribution of others. Being grateful is an acknowledgment that there are good and enjoyable things in the world.”

The second component of gratitude, Emmons explains, is figuring out where the goodness comes from. It’s the recognition that the source of this goodness we enjoy is always outside of ourselves—either other people or higher powers.

So gratitude in this sense means we humbly recognize there is goodness around us and then gratitude is an emotional response and feeling we experience when we acknowledge receiving a valuable benefit from someone else.

Breaking it down a bit further, we can essentially be grateful in three ways—we can experience gratitude for people, experiences, and things.

Let that soak in for a few seconds—we can be grateful for people, experiences, and things. It may be helpful to pause and think about the 5 most important people, experiences, and things you have right now. What would they be? Who would they be? And why?

We know happiness and gratitude are related, but is it a chicken and egg thing? Which one comes first? Could it be that happy people are just more grateful? Findings from science shows it actually works the other way around and gratitude could indeed be the parent of all other virtues, just like Cicero said.

In his popular TED Talk, Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk argues that, “In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.”

He goes on to share that, “Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy—because we will always want to have something else or something more.”

But is gratitude something we’re just born with or is it like a muscle that grows if practiced and exercised? Thankfully, studies have been done here too.

Studies have shown that gratitude is, indeed, a significant cause of positive outcomes. When researchers pick random volunteers and train them to be more grateful over a period of a few weeks, they become happier and more optimistic, feel more socially connected, enjoy better quality sleep, and even experience fewer headaches than control groups.

Going a step further, the neuroscience side of gratitude shows that focusing on and practicing gratitude regularly can even change the brain structure in our noggins!

So, in the end, while there isn’t a magical pill we can take to bring us more health and happiness, we can take a peek inside ourselves and choose to be more grateful and express our appreciation to others more regularly. And that’s better than any pill around.

During the month of November, as many people celebrate Thanksgiving. Pay a little more attention to the people, experiences, and things you are grateful for and go a step further and let those people know how much you appreciate them!

References:

Emmons, R. A. (2007). Thanks! How the new science of gratitude can make you happier. Houghton-Mifflin, New York.

Steindl-Rast, D. (2013). Want to be happy? Be grateful. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/david_steindl_rast_want_to_be_happy_be_grateful