Why you should be grateful for gratitude

by Tim Razza, PsyD

2 minute read

As we head into another chaotic holiday season, perhaps we should take the opportunity to be grateful for gratitude…

… and all the ways it’s good for us.

This is the time of year when people tend to reflect on or are asked to share what they are grateful for over the past year or just in general. Many are asked to engage in this activity while they are sitting around the table with family and friends, prior to diving into a full plate of delicious food. Some will take the time to deeply consider what they are grateful for, while others will go with the quick and easy (family, friends, job, etc.) just to get through this forced task that is keeping them from eating.

Does this practice of expressing gratitude have any benefits? Have you ever thought what science has to say about being grateful? Gratitude is not an easy thing to define. Most definitions focus on gratitude as the experience, generally emotional, that comes with the perception or acknowledgement that one has been the recipient of something beneficial or good. Some propose that gratitude is foundational to human nature and is felt and experienced throughout the world by all cultures. Some studies have found that pre-school age children recognize expressions of gratitude and that humans express and understand gratitude more as they age.

Are some people more grateful than others? Maybe. Some people might have “grateful personalities” and be better able to recognize, experience, and express gratitude. These people are believed to possess other positive traits including helpfulness, forgiveness, and sociability. Demographic factors tend to be poor predictors of gratitude with one exception: women report higher levels of gratitude than men.

What do our brains have to do with gratitude? Some research suggests that our brains contain specific networks that are efficient at detecting and displaying signs of gratitude and that experiences of gratitude are related to specific areas of the brain.

So how does this all work? The experience of gratitude is believed to amplify our awareness and enjoyment of positive events which enhances emotional well-being and makes us more likely to recognize the good in people and life (meaning more gratitude).

Research has shown that gratitude is correlated with well-being (physical, emotional, and social), positive relationships, decreased stress, better mood, and overall life satisfaction. Gratitude might even help you sleep better, including the quality and length of sleep, and even improving positive thoughts before sleep. In older adults, expressing gratitude has been found to be related to personal growth, finding a purpose in life, and might even protect us from those memory problems and cloudy thinking when we get older.

So maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the required display of gratitude at the dinner table during the holidays. But here’s a suggestion, the benefits were only seen with consistent expressions of gratitude so, if you are going to give it a try, make it an everyday thing for a little while (preferably before going to sleep).

Who knows? It might work! It might not. But at least, just maybe, you will sleep a little better.