An Attitude of Gratitude Keeps You Healthy

Why this resource is helpful:

"Gratitude is a tricky thing to study. People are thankful for VERY different things often depending on background, upbringing, and personal taste. (Chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin, anyone?) Researching it over the yearsand in a wide variety of settingshas shown fascinating results with sometimes unexpected findings.

A recent Harvard study focused on two groups of willing volunteers. Half were assigned to journal daily about something they were thankful for, the others told to document daily irritations. At the end of the study "those who wrote about gratitude were more optimistic and felt better about their lives. Surprisingly, they also exercised more and had fewer visits to physicians than those who focused on sources of aggravation."

Work from the University of California Berkeley echoes those results. "After 15 years of research, we know that gratitude is a key to psychological well-being. Gratitude can make people happier, improve their relationships, and potentially even counteract depression and suicidal thoughtsthere"s good reason to suspect that gratitude has positive ramifications for your body."

While it"s admittedly difficult to test a concept which can mean different things to different people, Berkeley"s work still shows that "Gratitude"s stress-buffering ability and known power to increase happiness and positive emotions may have downstream positive influences on health. And gratitude"s role in fostering and strengthening social connections may be just as important. A growing body of research strongly suggests that our relationships with others can have tangible health benefits.""

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