Does Gratitude Promote Well-Being?

Attitude of Gratitude May Benefit Your Health and Well-Being

Study: Researcher R.A. Emmons divided 201 undergraduate college students into three groups, and gave them one of three assignments. The first group wrote down things they were grateful for, small or large, one time a week for nine weeks. The second group wrote down hassles – events which irritated them - once a week for nine weeks. The third group simply listed events that had happened, with no good or bad qualifiers.

Results: Compared to the other two groups, the gratitude group experienced heightened well being across several outcome measures, including 1. feeling generally better about their lives, 2. higher levels of optimism, and 3. fewer physical complaints than the other two groups. The gratitude group was also more likely to exercise, and spend more time exercising.  J Pers Soc Psychol. 2003 Feb;84(2):377-89.

Commentary: First of all, this is a very short, limited intervention, as the participants only wrote down their lists once a week for nine weeks. Usually when we keep a gratitude journal, we try to pen our thankfulness entries daily. I think there is a strong likelihood of seeing even stronger results if a person writes a gratitude list daily for more than nine weeks. See writer Nancy Schatz Alton’s blog [http://www.withinthewords.com/?p=281]about her daily gratitude list experience. For health purposes, I generally recommend writing down what you are thankful for as close to every day as you can. 

The fact that people who wrote a gratitude list once a week exercised more often is really excellent news. We know exercise is so important for good health. The list of exercise benefits goes on and on, from lowering blood pressure, and decreasing mortality for heart attacks, to less stress and feeling better about your life.  I am also impressed that practicing thankfulness is linked to participants reporting fewer physical complaints. Interestingly, meditation has also been shown to improve the response to pain.