The Power of a Grateful Heart: Exploring the Benefits of Gratitude
As we prepare for Thanksgiving, a holiday all about giving thanks, the PsycHope Self-Help podcast wants you to know there are some impressive psychological and other health benefits connected to feeling grateful and expressing our appreciation to others. Tune in to our latest episode to hear highlights on the science of gratitude plus gets some helpful tips on bringing more gratitude into your daily life.
Save your spot at the 2nd Annual 12 Days of Holiday Stress Relief Audio Summit by visiting: psychope.com/12days
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Hey listener, ever promised yourself a stress-free holiday season, only to…
· See your calendar overflowing?
· Feel anxious about the food landmine awaiting you?
· Experience pressure to create the perfect holiday atmosphere?
· Or, find you're bracing for unpleasant interactions at upcoming events?
Please know, you're not alone. Despite understanding what truly matters during the holidays, the relentless pursuit of perfection and countless other pressures often have a way of overshadowing the joy.
Well, the PsycHope Self-Help Podcast wants to help you change these all too familiar patterns this holiday season. We also understand that holiday stress is intertwined with your everyday challenges. Ongoing sources of stress don’t just let up because it’s the holidays. That’s why we’re sponsoring the second annual 12 Days of Holiday Stress Relief Audio Summit. We’re bringing together upwards of 12 compassionate and brilliant women, each with an illustrious professional background.
This exclusive event will run from December 1st through December 12th with a new interview dropping each day. It’s my true honor to interview each summit guest to understand how she sees holiday stress impact the women she serves. And, I’ll be sure to ask for all their tips on how to navigate the many forms that stress can take this holiday season.
We’re here to help, but we don’t want to add to your already burdened days. So, we’re bringing you quick, bite sized episodes that you can listen to while running errands or wrapping presents. We’re keeping things short and sweet, but rest assured you’re going to walk away with valuable insights and some amazing tips.
This audio summit is free, but you’ll need to sign up to get access to the private podcast. Are you ready to embrace the enchantment of the winter holiday season without the overwhelm? Then head on over to psychope.com/12days to join us for this exclusive event.
No matter what kind of stress you’re going through this holiday season, we have a compassionate expert who understands your concerns. Let us guide you through a transformative journey, helping you navigate the holiday hustle, and reclaim the peace of the season!
Again, please visit psychope.com/12days to reserve your spot or just click the link in the show notes!
Hello and welcome! You’re listening to the PsycHope Self-Help Podcast: A space for women where psychology illuminates paths to healing, hope, and personal growth. I’m Dr. Jennifer McManus, a clinical psychologist and I’ll be your host. Each episode, we’ll explore a different way to use psychology to enhance emotional wellness. Hope you enjoy the show!
Welcome! It’s episode 34. At the time this episode is going live, it’s going to be Thanksgiving week here in the US. So, we’re dedicating this episode to the topic of gratitude. And, that’s not just because it’s the season for being grateful, or thankful. It’s because we have the potential to experience some amazing psychological and other health benefits when we practice gratitude.
You’ve heard me discuss the psychological benefits of gratitude on previous episodes, most recently when we were exploring the 4 paths through work stress. Gratitude was highlighted as a stress relief tool for the Spirit Path. I also included gratitude in the podcast’s 2022 12 Days of Holiday Stress Relief series. And, if you’re listening to this episode around the time it went live, or shortly thereafter, I want to know: did you hear the announcement at the start of today’s episode? It would be the announcement that the PsycHope Self-Help podcast is sponsoring an audio summit for the 12 Days of Holiday Stress Relief this year. I’ve been interviewing thought leaders I personally know, all women with backgrounds in psychology or counseling, to hear their ideas on coping with holiday stress. I’m so grateful that the tradition we started last year with just my tips for holiday stress has expanded in this way. I love that you’ll get to hear new perspectives than just what I can provide on solo episodes. The summit is totally free, but you do have to register because it’s a private podcast. You can learn more about the summit on the PsycHope website at psychope.com/12days. It’s really easy to sign up, just enter your name and email.
Ok, so back to gratitude. Even though gratitude has been discussed on other episodes, it’s been in the context of specific problems like work stress or holiday stress. Gratitude really is deserving of a whole episode because the benefits extend far beyond stress. For example, gratitude has been shown to improve mood, can lead to feeling more optimistic, and can even help with our ability to focus on a task. And that’s just a few of the psychological benefits of gratitude. I’m going to share more of the many psychological and other health benefits for practicing gratitude with you, but first I want to give a little context to the volumes of psychological research on gratitude.
First, some historical context. The practice of gratitude is incorporated into many social traditions and is a significant teaching in all major religions of the world. We also see the emotional power of gratitude serving as the subject of beloved poems and other forms of meaningful art. Even though humankind has highly valued gratitude for as long as we’ve kept a history of it, scientific attention given to the practice of gratitude is a pretty recent event.
Quick cliff notes version of the history of psychology in the United States, for about the first hundred years, research was primarily centered on understanding mental illness and how to treat it. By the year 2000 however, social psychologists led a movement to expand psychological research beyond mental illness and towards improving well-being. This movement is now known as Positive Psychology and involves understanding the strengths and virtues that are associated with happier people and communities.
Gratitude is a key topic of investigation within Positive Psychology. Now, any concept that’s researched in the field of psychology requires an operational definition. That’s, an agreed upon working definition for a scientific study. While we all have a general idea of what gratitude means, for example, being thankful for or appreciative of something, psychological research requires a more precise definition.
We can turn to Dr. Robert Emmons, a renowned researcher in the field of Positive Psychology, for his 2-part definition of gratitude. First, gratitude is an affirmation of the good. And second, gratitude involves a recognition that this good originates outside oneself.
A bit more background here on Dr. Emmons because I’m going to be sharing a lot of his work, he’s a leader in the Positive Psychology movement and specifically in the area of gratitude research. He’s authored 8 books, written over 200 psychological research publications, and is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Journal of Positive Psychology.
Dr. Emmons and his colleagues have found that practicing gratitude is essential to the feeling of happiness and is related to many psychological benefits.
There’s volumes of scientific research on the psychological benefits of practicing gratitude. Here are some of those benefits. Gratitude is associated with:
· An increase in positive outlook about one’s future
· Feeling more optimistic
· Better likelihood of achieving personal goals
· Greater ability to focus
· Improved interpersonal relationships
· Lower rates of depression and feelings of hopelessness
· Higher levels of altruism
· Gratitude can help people heal from a trauma as the practice of gratitude assists us in reframing past traumatic experiences in a helpful way
· We also see greater resiliency against any potential future traumatic experiences
· And, gratitude is associated with higher levels of sobriety for those in recovery from a substance abuse problem
Now, scientific research on gratitude extends beyond psychological benefits to physical health benefits, too. It’s been shown that people who have a gratitude practice also have:
· Increases in amount of physical exercise
· Improved energy levels
· Better sleep
· Healthier diets
· Higher rates of following medical advice they’re given
· Lower levels of cortisol (which is commonly known as the stress hormone)
· And, reduced rates of smoking
What I think is pretty amazing here is that these impressive findings are coming from an area of scientific research that’s only just begun. Can you imagine what future researchers are going to find?
Alright, let’s breakdown this connection between having a practice of gratitude and all of these benefits. What exactly is meant by practicing gratitude or having a gratitude practice. To answer this question, we’re going to turn to one of the founders of Positive Psychology. Dr. Martin Seligman. He conducted what are considered two classic studies on the practice of gratitude.
The first classic psychological study on gratitude that I want to review with you is the “three good things” study. In this research study, Dr. Seligman instructed research participants to a keep a journal for one week and asked them to reflect on three good things from each day. The research participants also completed questionnaires related to their well-being and symptoms of depression.
At the end of the research study, slight improvements to well-being and reduction in symptoms of depression were observed. The research participants were then seen for follow ups after the study, at one month, 3 months, and 6 months after the research study. They continued to show improvement with well-being and decreases in symptoms of depression at each of these follow-up points.
A key takeaway from this study is that the journaling about gratitude occurred on a daily basis. So, when developing our own gratitude practice, we can keep in mind that consistency is important. I’ll come back to bringing gratitude into your daily life a little later.
The second classic psychological study on gratitude is the “gratitude visit” study. In this research study, Dr. Seligman instructed research participants to write a letter communicating their gratitude to a specific person in their lives.
The second phase of the study involved reading the letter aloud to the person for whom they wrote it. Participants in this study also reported improvement in well-being and a decrease in symptoms related to depression. The act of verbally expressing one’s gratitude to another person appeared to have made a greater impact than just the first part, which was identifying and writing about one’s gratitude. This positive impact was still felt by participants at the one month follow up phase. Again, we’ll come back to some of these findings when exploring self-help ideas for a gratitude practice of your own.
But first, I want to share with you that psychological research has also studied gratitude as it relates to our personalities. In this area, studies focused on people who seem to be more grateful than others as part of their personality. More specifically, people who tend to be naturally more grateful than others. And by naturally, what’s meant there is without any prescribed activities meant to magnify the experience of gratitude. Returning to the work of Dr. Emmons, he and his colleagues looked at 4 different dimensions of having a grateful personality.
The first dimension was frequency, which is how often a person experiences gratefulness. They also looked at intensity, which is how strongly a person feels gratitude. Another dimension of a grateful personality is span. That is, how many different sources of gratitude a person experiences at a given moment. And, the final dimension of gratitude as a personality trait was density. This facet refers to the depth of one’s gratitude. People with a more grateful personality are able to go to great depths with their gratitude by recognizing multiple sources outside of oneself for their experience of gratitude.
Just like the research summarized earlier, these studies on grateful personalities found similar connections to improved feelings of overall well-being and lower symptoms of depression.
Before moving on to self-help ideas for bringing more gratitude into your daily life, I want to briefly mention some impressive findings from research on gratitude outside the field of Positive Psychology. For example, from neuropsychological research studies, we now know that at the neurotransmitter level, gratitude involves increases of serotonin and dopamine. Medications intended to help with depression and anxiety operate in a similar way within our bodies. So that means gratitude is associated with well-established and naturally occurring feel good chemicals in our bodies!
So, I’m curious, have these research findings, inspired you to bring more gratitude into your own life? If the answer is yes, then these psychological research studies can actually help inform us on how to get the most out of our own gratitude practices.
We know practicing gratitude involves being thankful for the good things in life. We may be grateful for the small things, more big picture matters, or both. The things for which we are grateful are quite individualized. They’re going to differ from person to person. So, for this reason, gratitude practice self-help ideas need to be flexible so they can be personalized by each individual.
If you’re wanting to incorporate the practice of gratitude into your daily life, then you could consider using either the journal method or the letter of appreciation approach from those earlier studies I reviewed. If keeping a gratitude journal appeals to you, it can be helpful to have some prompts meant to turn your attention to areas of life for which you’re grateful. So here are some ideas along those lines.
We may take for granted that we have fresh water and nutritious food to eat. So, some people find it helpful to focus on gratitude for the fact that their basic human needs are met.
We may feel grateful for the beauty of the natural world that surrounds us. Like, picturesque scenery or pleasant weather. A walk in a favorite location can remind us of all for which we have to be grateful in our natural surroundings.
Perhaps we’re grateful for the work we do in life. This area may involve reflecting on the positive impact we have on others through our work or for the income we earn.
We may be particularly grateful for our mobility or other things we can do with our bodies. This may also involve gratitude for our health or the resources available to us when we do not feel well. It may be the use of our senses that we truly appreciate.
We may wish to journal about a particular item we possess. Meaningful and treasured objects can be the source of much gratitude.
Our gratitude may focus on a pet and all the joy or comfort they bring.
Gratitude for a particular kindness we’ve experienced is another possible topic for a gratitude journal. Here we consider something someone else has done for us. Perhaps it was a small gesture that made a bad day a bit easier. Or maybe you’re grateful for someone who changed the trajectory of your life for the better.
You could take that last journal prompt idea and turn it into a gratitude letter. This might involve writing a letter expressing gratitude to an important person in your life and then reading your letter aloud to that special person. If you don’t have access to that person, imagining you’re reading it to them can also be helpful.
With any gratitude practice, it’s important that we genuinely feel grateful about that particular area of focus. While there are some aspects of life where we can fake it until we make it, a gratitude practice that brings desired results is not one of those areas. To set yourself up for a better likelihood of experiencing the psychological and health benefits of practicing gratitude we’ve been exploring today, you can’t just go through the motions.
Be careful too of shaming yourself or getting guilt tripped into feeling gratitude. The helpful experience of gratitude comes from authentically feeling grateful for something. Thinking we should or being told we should feel grateful for something doesn’t start out as genuine or authentic gratitude. Also, should statements, whether from our own thoughts or in a message received from someone else, can often be associated with feelings of guilt and shame. And, that’s not what we’re going for here.
I also want to remind you that the studies we reviewed today pointed to immediate and long-term benefits of practicing gratitude. The long-term benefits were what they were was measuring at the follow ups in these studies. What this means is, you might feel an emotional boost while writing in a gratitude journal, composing a letter to someone for whom you are grateful, verbally expressing your gratitude to another person, or your own totally unique gratitude practice. Plus, you may benefit long after engaging in the gratitude practice. The experience of long-term benefits are supported by staying consistent with your gratitude practice.
So, as we start winding down here, it’s my hope for all listeners of the PsycHope Self-Help podcast that having an understanding of the many psychological and other health benefits of practicing gratitude will bring greater meaning to moments of gratitude in your own lives. Like, savoring the good things in life, practicing random acts of kindness, or telling loved ones how much they mean to us. And, perhaps our cultural tradition of expressing our thankfulness over the upcoming feast on the fourth Thursday in November will also take on enhanced meaning.
On that note, I want to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you’re all able to get in some self-care over the holiday.
That being said, I know the holidays are a time of year that can be stressful, sometimes even triggering, for a lot of us. So, on the next episode, I’ll be reviewing some of the themes from the 12 Days of Holiday Stress Relief Audio summit interviews I’ve been conducting. And don’t forget, you’re welcome to attend this upcoming virtual event the podcast is sponsoring. It starts November 25th, that’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving. So, sign up now for free at psychope.com/12days
Much Peace Till Next Time!
The information shared on the PsycHope Self-Help podcast is done so with the understanding that it does not constitute professional help nor is it a substitute for professional help. If you think you might benefit from more than self-help, there are resources listed in the show notes.
Show Notes
Episode 34, originally published on November 20, 2023.
2nd Annual 12 Days of Holiday Stress Relief Audio Summit
Ready to save your spot? You can do that right here: PsycHope.com/12Days
Your Path Through Work Stress Quiz
Ready to find your best path through work stress? You can find the quiz right here: psychope.com/yourpath
Disclaimer
The information shared on the PsycHope Self-Help podcast does not constitute professional help nor is it a substitute for professional help. If you think you might benefit from more than self-help, here are some helpful resources:
Find a therapist:
Psychology Today, directory for locating a psychotherapist. More details here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/
Mental health crisis resources:
Suicide Prevention Hotline: call or text 988
Crisis text line: text HOME to 741741 to connect with a Crisis Counselor for any emotional crisis
