Giving thanks IS good for you

"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude." --Denis Waitley

A growing number of studies indicate that saying 'thank you' or expressing gratitude otherwise is good for your health.

Almost every foreign language class offered has a common thread beyond declension and verb forms, and that common thread is courtesy. Traveling around the world, in almost every locale basic please and thank you is nearly a second nature practice.

But for some reason this is less likely the case when we learn our own language. And even though there is a national holiday dedicated to the idea of giving thanks, it often ends up being a study in the glory of gluttony, a day of feast and football. 

Gratitude: It's good for you

As it turns out, if actually taken as the Thanksgiving Day holiday's name implies,  it can be a matter of public health. It could almost be part of a campaign, "Stop smoking, eat healthy foods, exercise and say thank you."

More and more studies are backing this up with evidence that expressing gratitude is good for your health and well being.

In an article Rx for life: Gratitude (click) Greg Easterbrook delineates:

* People who describe themselves as feeling grateful to others and either to God or to creation in general tend to have higher vitality and more optimism, suffer less stress, and experience fewer episodes of clinical depression than the population as a whole. These results hold even when researchers factor out such things as age, health, and income, equalizing for the fact that the young, the well-to-do, or the hale and hearty might have "more to be grateful for."


* Grateful people tend to be less materialistic than the population as a whole and to suffer less anxiety about status or the accumulation of possessions. Partly because of this, they are more likely to describe themselves as happy or satisfied in life.


* In an experiment with college students, those who kept a "gratitude journal," a weekly record of things they should feel grateful for, achieved better physical health, were more optimistic, exercised more regularly, and described themselves as happier than a control group of students who kept no journals but had the same overall measures of health, optimism, and exercise when the experiment began. (Researchers use frequency of exercise as a barometer for general well-being because it is an objective measure that links to subjective qualities; people who exercise three or more times per week tend to have better indicators of well-being, even when health conditions that affect the ability to exercise are factored out.)


* Grateful people are more spiritually aware and more likely to appreciate the interconnectedness of all life, regardless of whether they belong to specific religions.

It is becoming a major area of the study of psychology and the contributing factors to mental health.

In another article the at the American Communications Project, Gratitude Theory is discussed:

The results of the study indicated that daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and energy. Additionally, the gratitude group experienced less depression and stress, was more likely to help others, exercised more regularly and made more progress toward personal goals. According to the findings, people who feel grateful are also more likely to feel loved. McCollough and Emmons also noted that gratitude encouraged a positive cycle of reciprocal kindness among people since one act of gratitude encourages another.

It is interesting to note that psychology really doesn't focus on peoples' problems until it is in a clinical setting. The rest of the field is analytical and studies what is in human behavior -- that people generally are designed to know satisfaction and to be happy.

A key to happiness

Being thankful is a key to happiness, another area of expanded psychological study. A UC Davis study by Robert Emmons cites evidence that gratitude contributes to both a higher level of happiness, but also a greater sense of physical well being.

The study itemizes characteristics of people who incorporate a sense of gratitude into their lives:

* Well-Being: Grateful people report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, optimism and lower levels of depression and stress. The disposition toward gratitude appears to enhance pleasant feeling states more than it diminishes unpleasant emotions. Grateful people do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life.

* Prosociality: People with a strong disposition toward gratitude have the capacity to be empathic and to take the perspective of others. They are rated as more generous and more helpful by people in their social networks (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002).

* Spirituality: Those who regularly attend religious services and engage in religious activities such as prayer reading religious material score are more likely to be grateful. Grateful people are more likely to acknowledge a belief in the interconnectedness of all life and a commitment to and responsibility to others (McCullough et. al., 2002).

* Materialism: Grateful individuals place less importance on material goods; they are less likely to judge their own and others success in terms of possessions accumulated; they are less envious of wealthy persons; and are more likely to share their possessions with others relative to less grateful pesrons.

Many of the techniques used by researchers and psychologists include keeping a gratitude journal, which one speculates is just a way of getting people in the habit of having this frame of mind. One may be able to regain the habit of gratitude in a variety of ways.


Benefit to all

An interesting factor in expressing gratitude is that it is mutually beneficial. The idea of expressing anything implies that one is giving something away, and that can be a concept adverse to many. But in this case a commodity is given or shared where both members of the transaction benefit.

Seems like a good deal.

Thanks to all,

Lloyd

Gratitude contributes to happiness, good health

It seems that it isn't until one has to be
away from the USA in one capacity or another that the veil, created by taking
for granted our many freedoms, is lifted. It is an especially abrupt
awakening if one travels to visit or work in a portion of the world where
people are oppressed or exploited or ignored.

One of my wife's cousins worked with an agricultural agency that helped to
re-establish private farms in Latvia. He fell in love with an agency
secretary who was a native of Latvia. They decided to get married, and
ended up having a ceremony there and one here. He, his wife and her mother
returned a couple weeks prior to the US wedding to be held at his family's church,
a country church near Concord (WI) not far from the family farm.

Shortly after they arrived, he drove his wife and her
mother into Watertown (WI)just to pick up groceries and some other sundries.
They ended up at the Pick N'Save store. He dropped them off and said he was
going to run to Shopko, across the parking lot, to pick up something, noting
that they should just pick up anything they would like to be eating or
snacking on, and he would return in 15 or 20 minutes to finish shopping, pay
and they'd all head back to the farm.

In about 20 minutes he returned, and the two Latvian women had only one
thing in their cart - something on the order of a dozen eggs, or a loaf of
bread. Up until this point, my wife's cousin, Matt, had told his new wife
that the supply system was very different in the USA. He hadn't so much
complained about the unpredictable staples at the stores in Latvia while he
was there, but did point out that it was very different, and that Latvia
could do better, and would do better some day.

At first the two women thought Pick N'Save was a propaganda front, and that
possibly only one of each item had been pushed to the front of the shelves.

When Matt returned to the store, expecting visitors for a celebration, and
having come from a moderately large family, he grabbed two shopping carts
and promptly started doing some "real" shopping. But the two women didn't
know what to think as he threw in four loaves of bread, 20 pounds of
potatoes, two cut-up broiler chickens, bunches of celery, bags of apples,
bags of onions, rice, cheese, crackers, breakfast cereals, beef roasts, pork
roasts and on...one can only imagine how either extravagant or vulgar this
appeared to people who had arrived from an Eastern Block country days
before.

But the kicker to this experience was when they checked out of the store.
Matt wrote a check for the food and said he would drive the car to the front
door of the store so it wouldn't be so far to wheel the groceries out. He
told them just to keep an eye out for him and the car. Shortly, he was in
the drive at the front of the store, yet the women didn't bring the
groceries out. He could see them from the car, so lightly tapped the horn
to get their attention, and they still remained in the store.

Matt pulled over, and got out of the car to see what was up, or to see if
they needed help (of course he planned to help transfer the packages anyway,
but was trying to multi-task). As it turned out, the two Latvian women
were afraid to leave with the groceries because he hadn't used currency to
pay for them, they had no idea what a check was and they were afraid the
police would arrive and arrest them for stealing these "mountains" of food.
He had to persuade them that he had paid, that is what the register tape
receipt proved, and that checks were used here frequently like cash.

So, within a matter of 48 hours after their arrival,they had been
exposed to this vast supply that we all take for granted, as well as the variety of payment options.

Even when my wife and I were in the Pacific, there was no sweeter sound than
that first skid of rubber from our plane touching down, ending a return trip
after two years away from the US.

It is unfortunate that people aren't or have trouble being grateful for what they have.
It is especially so during this time of year when it seems that the race is really toward
acquiring things in search of either happiness, peace or both.
Granted, not having enough for shelter, clothing, food, etc. is clearly an
unhappy state, but so many who have those basics plus the resources to
continue in the pursuit of happiness seem to be searching to no avail.

More and more, studies are finding that gratitude and forgiveness are very healthy states, and that being grateful for what one already has can lead to a consistent state of happiness.

I strive to be satisfied, and am thrilled with moments of happiness. But my satisfaction is less about things, than the state of things. At one time I would have liked to have perfect performances in music. And now, I would like my written work to always be perfect. But I now strive for that, still, and find ways to be satisfied with moments of perfection and find satisfaction with the moments of happiness that brings. It seems realistic, and yet doesn't let me veer from attempting or striving to that end.

Yet I don't find myself an unhappy person.

The latest studies indicate that the happiest people are those who can express gratitude to others, and can be grateful for what they have or their current station. In fact it is considered to be an attitutde which may help prolong life. It seems hard, though, just to get people to say thank you to a waitress for bringing a glass of water, let alone express thanks as an ongoing awareness of our good fortune.

It sounds like it could have been said today, but in 1774 Rousseau wrote:
"Many people find being deprived of material items more cruel than
possessing them is sweet, and are unhappy to lose them without being happy
to possess them."
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