The Science of Being Thankful: How gratitude wires your brain
This week’s Better You, Backed by Science is about gratitude – and the science of how being thankful impacts the brain and body in incredibly powerful ways.
The root of the word gratitude is the Latin word gratia. It literally means gratefulness or thankfulness.
And science shows that it has powerful effects on mental and physical health.
In one study, some people were instructed to focus on what they’re grateful for and some others to focus on what annoys them.
They either did this daily for three weeks or weekly for ten weeks.
The results were the same both times. Those who focused on what they were grateful for became happier. Those who focused on what annoyed them felt worse.
The direction of their mood followed the direction of their focus.
Thankfulness, it turns out, is a very healthy direction to focus in.
Why?
One theory goes that we’re wired for connection – and gratitude connects us. And since connection boosts brain health, heart health, and overall physical health and longevity, gratitude is a doorway to all those benefits.
And the science supports this.
The Thankful Brain
Brain scans show increased activity in regions associated with connection, positive emotion, and even emotional regulation. It also boosts dopamine and serotonin, feel-good neurotransmitters.
Researchers at Indiana University even found that people who wrote gratitude letters showed long-lasting changes in brain activity weeks later. Gratitude literally shaped and strengthened brain circuits for feeling good and connected.
Some incredible fairly recent research even found that gratitude turns down the brain’s threat response (in the amygdala). The result was reduced cellular inflammation – and this then has a knock-on effect on a lot of health conditions that are inflammatory related.
This may be the underlying reason why people find that gratitude practices help reduce headaches, muscle pain, nausea, and many other ailments.
Thanks for the care
There was also a study that looked at thank you letters written by young people to their nurses.
It showed that the gratitude was less expressed for the medicine given, but more for the compassionate care of the nurses.
It wasn’t what the nurses did that lifted them, but how the nurses did it.
Our family can relate to this. When my dad was receiving treatment for a brain tumour, he got more of a lift from the kindness and compassion of the doctors and nurses than from the treatment itself.
I was so personally grateful to those doctors and nurses for the way they treated Dad that it gave me a lift and helped me cope with the worry and stress at that time.
So I’d like to leave you with one thought. Think of life as a gift, not a given. And then maybe we’ll expend less effort in life seeking ‘more’, and more time noticing what’s right here, right now, and really seeing the people around us.
And maybe, just maybe, we’ll find that we really do have everything we need to feel whole.
Try This
A gratitude habit: Before you get out of bed, spend a few minutes listing some things you’re grateful for. It could be people, for what they’ve said or done, or things that have happened, circumstances, God, the weather. Whatever. Up to you. Whatever you’re grateful for.
Or if you have trouble sleeping, do it last thing at night before you go to sleep. Studies have shown that late-night gratitude practices can help us get to sleep easier and sleep better.
Whether morning or evening, the key is to build a habit. That’s where the long-lasting brain and body changes come from.
Try it for a week. Notice how you feel.
Want to explore more?
🎥 Watch my new YouTube video where I further explore the power of thankfulness and share a few helpful practices.
References (if you’re curious)
How gratitude makes us happier
The impact of gratitude on the brain
How gratitude reduces threat response and inflammation
Young people who wrote thank you letters to their nurses
More
Want to read more like this? Subscribe to my free Better You, Backed by Science weekly email (sends every Wednesday).
That’s a very powerful thought, “Think of life as a gift, not a given.”
Does the gratitude practice needs to be written down, like the letters in your examples, or focussing alone is equally beneficial? I do think there’s something nice about the sensory experience of writing in a notebook, but I wonder if scientifically it matters?