‘Tis the Time of Year for Gratitude- The Science Behind How Being Thankful Benefits Your Physical, Brain, and Mental Health & Tips to Ignite Appreciation

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity … it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

– Melody Beatie

Once again, the celebration of Thanksgiving Day is upon us. As a result, we are being inundated with messages of the importance of being grateful. Although it can be a moment of great joy for some people, for others this “time of togetherness” can trigger feelings of isolation, anxiety, and stress.

For those who struggle with finding reasons to be thankful or feel hopeless due to the heaviness of the world’s tribulations, being prodded to express gratitude may seem like an inauthentic affirmation.

While it is true that we don’t want to spread “toxic positivity,” there are valid reasons for acknowledging the good in our lives and clearing away “negative” emotions. In fact, gratitude isn’t just a statement that makes us appear more virtuous, it’s a science-based practice that enhances our physical, emotional, and brain health!

In this video post, I define gratitude, discuss why it’s significant, explore the physical and mental health benefits of feeling appreciation, and provide tips for igniting this state of being.

Topics covered include:

• The definition of gratitude
• Some of the physical health benefits of gratitude
• The neuroscience of gratitude
• The impact of gratitude on mental health and emotional well-being
• Practical tips to develop more gratitude in our lives
• A blend of essential oils to shift our mindset to enhance a feeling of appreciation

All of the references, links to previous blogs, and resources will be within this accompanying blog to the video.

On a side note, during the holiday season I will be updating and re-posting some of my past popular content, including episodes of the Essential Oil Revolution. This will allow you to revisit some of the most interesting content on pertinent wellness topics that can aid you in staying healthy for the seasonal events ahead.

So, that being said, let’s get started.

 

The Definition of Gratitude

Gratitude’s meaning can change with context. It has been defined as “a moral virtue, an attitude, an emotion, a habit, a personality trait, and a coping response.” For example, gratitude has been portrayed in the research in various ways. These include:

• as a positive emotional response to receiving a gift or benefit from someone.
• as a state of being (an emotional reaction to an experience).
• as a dispositional characteristic.
• as an “appreciation of what is valuable and meaningful to oneself and represents a general state of thankfulness and/or appreciation.” (a state and trait phenomenon)
• as a “recognition that something good happened to you, accompanied by an appraisal that someone, whether another individual or an impersonal source, such as nature or a divine entity, was responsible for it.”
• as an “important aspect of human sociability and is valued by religions and moral philosophies.”

Merriam Webster defines gratitude more simply, as the state of being grateful. It defines grateful to mean:

1 a: appreciative of benefits received

b: expressing gratitude – grateful thanks

2 a: affording pleasure or contentment: pleasing

b: pleasing by reason of comfort supplied or discomfort alleviated

Regardless of how it is described, as a feeling or state of being, gratitude has been well studied in research, and the impact on overall health is impressive.

Now, let’s take a glimpse at what science says about the benefits of gratitude.

 

The Many Benefits of Gratitude

 

Physical Health

The effects of gratitude on physical health can be thought to be interconnected with its impact on our emotions. Therefore, it is not surprising that researchers have reported various positive associations.

Sleeping Well with Gratitude’s Multiple Benefits

A 2-week gratitude intervention elicited many benefits according to a randomized trial with 119 women. It increased hedonic well-being, optimism, and sleep quality and decreased diastolic blood pressure. This improvement in well-being was directly related to the improved sleep and blood pressure effects from feeling grateful.

A positive association for gratitude on sleep quality was further supported in five of the eight studies assessing slumber in a systematic review of 19 studies. The authors noted that gratitude also had additional benefits in the other trials that they assessed. These included aiding blood pressure, blood sugar, asthma symptoms, and eating behavior.

 

Gratitude and Healthy Behaviors

One study with over 900 Swiss adults examined whether psychological health, age, healthy activities, and willingness to seek help for health concerns mediated the link between gratitude and self-reported physical health. The researchers reported that this was indeed the case. Furthermore, they found that older adults were more influenced toward healthy behaviors that improved their health when they felt more grateful.

 

More Gratitude for the Heart

An interesting older trial provided evidence for the link between the heart-brain. It explored if a 10-week gratitude intervention via telephone (“gratitude hotline”) would impact high blood pressure more than a control condition. The 82 subjects were mostly low-income, inner-city, African American patients, a population that often is more resistant to hypertension treatment. The researchers assessed blood pressure, hostility, gratitude scores, and demographic data.

The results indicated statistically significant decreases in the gratitude groups’ systolic blood pressure. They also noted that an increase in gratitude scores was associated with less hostility and positive changes in health behavior.

Brain Changes with Gratitude

Gratitude has a literal impact on the brain which results in shifts in emotional well-being and mental health. (R, R, R, R)

According to the Positive Psychology website, the neuroscience of gratitude can be summed up as follows (bold emphasis mine):

From a neuroscientific perspective, gratitude activates key regions of the brain such as the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, the ventral striatum (a key brain region involved in processing rewards), and the insula (a region of the brain involved in emotional awareness; Fox et al., 2015).

Understanding the neuroscience of gratitude and how these areas of the brain regulate emotion, decision-making, and reward processing is an ongoing process. The neuroscience of gratitude is showing that it can impact relationships, resilience, and mental and physical health (Fox et al., 2015).

Essentially, when we experience gratitude, it changes physiological aspects of the brain that reside at the neurotransmitter level (Fox et al., 2015). These changes create feelings of happiness and contentment.

Researchers also hypothesize that gratitude is correlated with brain activity associated with moral cognition. When people are grateful, it activates reward circuits associated with social interaction and social cognitive processes (Fox et al., 2015).

Changes in the posteromedial and insular cortices, medial prefrontal cortex, and nucleus accumbens (a brain region central to the reward system) occur with these moral and social aspects of gratitude (Fox et al., 2015).

Gratitude’s Impact on Well-being and Mental Health

Gratitude has also been shown to influence the nervous system and limbic region of the brain (the hub of emotional well-being), change brain structure related to emotional cues, and provide other psychological benefits.

Various studies have supported that gratitude has been linked to positive changes in the following areas of emotional and mental health: (R, R, R, R, R, R, R, R, R, R)

• Overall well-being
• Positive affect
• Subjective happiness and life satisfaction
• Anxiety and depression
• PTSD symptoms
• Stress resiliency
• Less envious feelings
• Job-related well-being
• Self-esteem
• Body image
• Social connection and relationships
• Spirituality
• Management skills
• Workers’ satisfaction

 

How to Enhance a Feeling of Gratefulness

As you can see, gratitude provides a myriad of physical, emotional, social, and relational benefits.

It should be noted that not every trial reports positive effects from gratitude, though the vast majority of them seem to find a net benefit. A review article noted that this inconsistency in outlier studies could relate to the conditions and circumstances in clinical testing, as well as subject characteristics (i.e., some people are more apt to feel more grateful in certain situations than others).

This brings me to the point that there is no one right way to increase gratitude in your life. What may generate gratefulness for you may be related to your personality, morals, and the context you are in. Therefore, you may have to play around with different methods to see what works for you (i.e., what makes changes to your neural connectivity).

Practical Tips to Increase Gratitude

Below are some tips from the AANMC website that may boost gratitude:

• Start each day thinking about three things for which you are grateful. It doesn’t have to be big. It could be your warm cup of coffee, soft fuzzy slippers on your feet, or the view from your kitchen window.
• Give thanks before meals, even if you’re not religious. Be grateful for the farmer who grew the food, the grocery store that sold it, and the person who prepared the meal.
• Keep a gratitude journal. Each night before bed, write down anything that occurred during the day for which you are thankful.
• Write thank you notes to others.
• Think about anyone in your life who has touched or inspired you.

Essential Oils for Emotional Shifts: Gratitude in a Bottle

Another way to impact your mood and enhance your well-being is through smell. This is because this sense is linked directly to our emotional brain.

Essential oils can shift our perspective based on a combination of their aromatic and biochemical properties that aid emotional healing, stress, brain functioning, and enhancing mind-heart coherence. They also can support brain and physiological health and our neurophysiology in ways that beneficially alter our mood, physiology, and nervous system.

Specific essential oils can be combined to calm our mind and body, enhance our health, and awaken our sense of appreciation. My favorite gratitude blend is a mixture of conifer tree blends, ylang ylang, coriander, bergamot, geranium, frankincense, and myrrh oils. This synergy of scents permeates our spirit and uplifts our mood so we can experience more gratitude.

A Thanksgiving Wish for More Gratitude

Now that we know the benefits of gratitude, wouldn’t it be great if we could keep it as a focal point the whole year through?

What I love about the holiday season is that it provides an opportunity to shine some light into the darkness. We can’t escape that life will bring with it trauma and tragedies. With the proper tools and support; however, we can take moments of pause to help to transform them from pain into purpose.

If we allow for this time to be a space for growth, rebirth, and more resiliency, maybe we can enhance tolerance and kindness on this day and carry it to every day moving forward.

I hope you can find ways to enhance your own gratitude, enjoy the scents of the season, and find some stillness within the warm embrace of these sacred times.

Sending you many blessings for a Happy Thanksgiving.