🦃 Sure, we all know that Thanksgiving is a time set aside every year to give thanks for the blessings of the year. When you gather around the table with your loved ones, enjoying whatever dishes are the tradition for your family and reflecting on the season, it just feels right to offer up gratitude. When you make that a custom with your family, you’re setting a beautiful legacy for this year and the years to come.
And you’re also engaging in some of the latest health science.
Gratitude is now being studied for its wellness and health boosts. While you might think of counting your blessings as just a Thanksgiving exercise, it’s a practice that is being studied because of how good it is for both the soul and body. Research over the past couple of decades is unlocking just how gratitude impacts our sleep, cardiac health, mood, and more.
“Gratitude is an affirmation of goodness,” says Robert Emmons. 1 As a leading researcher in the field of gratitude, his work has discovered that gratitude lessens stress by lowering cortisol, one of the stress hormones in the body. The connection between giving thanks and health is seen in scripture. “Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits,” writes King David in the Old Testament, “who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion” (Psalm 103:2-4, NIV).
Gratitude Interventions
A study recently published in the National Library of Medicine looked across multiple avenues of research and testing and found that using what is called “gratitude interventions” can have a positive impact on mood and health. “The results demonstrate that acts of gratitude can be used as a therapeutic complement for treating anxiety and depression and can increase positive feelings and emotions in the general population,” reported the study authors. 2 Gratitude interventions are a technique used to help people focus on and cultivate appreciation for their life and for the people in their life. Gratitude interventions can be part of a journaling practice, a time of sharing with others, keeping a list of things you’re grateful for, or writing letters of appreciation to people in your life.
These types of gratitude interventions were further studied by cardiovascular researchers, in what was called the FEEL trial. What they discovered through having participants engage with a gratitude intervention, a twelve-week course of smartphone messages about gratitude sent to each of the participants, was astounding. People experienced lower blood pressure (about 7.6 mm Hg) and improved their endothelial function, the network of cells that cover the heart. This means that they reduced their long-term heart risk, all by finding a way to say thanks. 3 Maria Emília Teixeira, MD, PhD, the study’s lead author, said “This 7 mm Hg drop [in systolic BP] is a larger reduction than has been seen with other nonpharmacological interventions and may even outperform some drugs. With this significant level of reduction in [BP], you would potentially be able to live longer with a lower chance of heart attack, kidney diseases, stroke or disability later in life.”
Your immune system loves gratitude as well. A study from UCLA showed that gratitude helped calm neural stress, which in turn helps lower inflammatory responses. Lower inflammation in the body leads to a healthier immune system. 4
And then there’s what gratitude does for your sleep. When you make gratitude journaling part of your evening routine before hitting the pillow, you’ll likely find that your anxious thinking and worry are decreased. A study from 2020 showed that sleep duration and quality are better when someone uses gratitude practice before dropping off to sleep. 5
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:6-7
As people of faith, gratitude is both our worship and medicine. The words “thanks” or “give thanks” or “thanksgiving” are in the Bible over 150 times. Robert Emmons, the researcher mentioned at the beginning of this article, found through his work with gratitude that people who express thanks often have a better connection with God. He writes, “Our research has led us to conclude that experiencing gratitude leads to increased feelings of connectedness, improved relationships and even altruism. We have also found that when people experience gratitude, they feel more loving, more forgiving, and closer to God.” 6 If you’re part of the Altrua HealthShare family, you have a community around you that can help you in your spiritual life. Be sure and check out the Altrua HealthShare Facebook page to connect with other Members. Altrua Ministries is also here for you, when you need prayer or encouragement. (If you’re not yet a Member of Altrua HealthShare and would like to learn more, contact a Member Services Representative at 1-888-244-3839.)
How You Can Make Gratitude Part of This Thanksgiving and Beyond
This year, even if you’re scrambling to get all the Thanksgiving dishes to the table while they’re still hot, take a moment with your family and friends to express gratitude for the day, for the food, for the relationships around your table. Simple, small moments of thanks are all that are needed for big impacts on your health and your outlook. And don’t just let gratitude end at the dusk of Thanksgiving. You can make some of these simple adjustments to your routine in the rest of the year to bring more gratitude into your life:
- The Blessing List 📋
Anne Voskamp’s book 1000 Gifts prompted the idea of jotting down a couple of things each day that you’re grateful for. Make this your practice before going to sleep at night. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated. You can be grateful for hot coffee in the morning and cool sheets on your bed in the evening. - Gratitude and Health Check-ins ✅
After your daily walk, send a quick text message of gratitude to someone in your life. Combining something you already regularly do to a new habit of daily expressions of gratitude will build that new habit even faster. Tie something you do for your daily health (brushing your teeth, taking your vitamins) to giving thanks. - Little Notes 💌
There’s just something about a written note or an actual phone call that means so much today. Make it a practice once a week to write a quick thank you note to your pastor, your child’s teacher, your assistant at work. Or, make that phone call and give them a quick word of thanks. - Pray, Then Pause 🙏
Prayer a short prayer of thanksgiving. Spend a couple of minutes looking around you and thanking God for what you see, what you hear, what you feel. When we notice the good things God has placed around us, we build that gratitude muscle to start noticing even more ways He’s blessed us.
The focus you have on giving thanks this Thanksgiving is a great launch for making gratitude your practice all year long. Your emotional and physical health will thank you for it. And your spiritual life can grow even more, as your posture of thanks takes you closer to God.
1 https://www.tntechoracle.com/2022/11/08/is-gratitude-the-answer-to-anxiety/
2 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10393216/?
3 https://www.acc.org/Latest-in-Cardiology/Articles/2024/04/02/17/02/sun-430pm-feel-acc-2024?
4 https://sanlab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/31/2022/07/Hazlett-Gratitude-2021.pdf?
5 https://www.scirp.org/reference/referencespapers?referenceid=2786599&utm_
6 https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/quotes/quotations/view/33329/spiritual-quotation?