And, second, the genes discussed above are only two out of the possibly hundreds or thousands of genes that could be involved in how we experience a complex emotion like gratitude—besides all the other social factors like religion and culture that are also at play. Emotions are complicated things! So, for example, some parts of the brain might be anatomically different in more grateful people. Read a special white paper on the science of gratitude —explaining where it comes from, what its benefits are, and how to cultivate it.
Learn what stops gratitude. Discover the six habits of highly grateful people. Find out how gratitude can help you through hard times.
How grateful are you? Take our gratitude quiz. Brains of more and less grateful people also show activity differences. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging study by Glenn Fox and colleagues, participants were asked to imagine they were Holocaust survivors who had received shelter or food from strangers.
The participants who imagined that they would feel more grateful in these scenarios had more activity in brain regions associated with moral cognition, perspective taking, and reward.
And, in another study by Joel Wong, Joshua Brown , and colleagues, people who expressed more gratitude in a lab setting—as measured by their willingness to give to charity more of the money that they had received from doing an experiment—had more active areas of the brain associated with making mental calculations.
Indeed, it may even be the case that more grateful people have more altruistic brains as well—a recent study by Christina Karns and colleagues found that more grateful people had more activity in brain areas associated with feelings of reward when they were told that a charity would receive money. In fact, consistently making an effort to be grateful can physically change our brains over the long run.
Some people say grace before a meal. Pausing in gratitude before eating doesn't have to be religious. It's a simple habit that helps us notice and appreciate the blessing of food on the table. Once you're aware of the blessings of everyday life, the next step is to savor them. Savor the Feeling of Gratitude There are moments when you naturally, right then and there, feel filled with gratitude. Express Gratitude Expressing gratitude is more than courtesy, manners, or being polite.
Try this: Show your appreciation to someone who did something nice. Say: "It was really kind of you to…," "It really helped me out when you…," "You did me a big favor when…," "Thank you for listening when…," "I really appreciated it when you taught me…," or "Thank you for being there when….
Express gratitude by doing a kindness. Gratitude might inspire you to return a favor, or act with kindness or thoughtfulness. Studies have shown that when you thank someone for their help, this person is more likely to help you and other people again in the future.
So if you thank your friends for helping you with something, they will probably feel happy and may be more likely to help you again in the future. Grateful people are also more likely to help others. One study showed that when people felt more grateful after they received help with something, these people spent more time helping someone else, even though what they had to do to help out was really boring!
We do not know exactly why people who feel grateful are more likely to help others. Maybe it is because feeling grateful often means that you received something that you needed or wanted from someone else. As soon as you realize that you feel happy and grateful because someone else was kind enough to help you, you might want to pass this on to someone else. It makes sense that this would increase the quality of your friendships, because people like to be friends with other people that they can rely on for help.
Did you know that having good friends can also keep you healthy? People who report better social support have better immune system function, so their bodies can fight off illnesses better, and they can heal faster after getting sick [ 5 ]. When you have good friends and family, you will probably feel happier and less stressed.
We talked earlier about how this can help your immune system to function better. Studies have also shown that social stress when we experience stress in our relationships and friendships causes problems for the immune system. For example, a study showed that when a married couple had an argument with each other, their cuts healed a lot slower than if they had a friendly conversation with each other.
This is a sign that the immune system is not functioning well when we experience social stress. We all have arguments with our friends and family members from time to time, but if this happens a lot, it can cause stress, which results in problems for the immune system.
In Figure 2 , we show one example of how the psychosocial pathway may explain why grateful individuals are happier and healthier after receiving help from someone on a school project. So far, there have only been two studies that investigated if the brains of more grateful people look different than those of less grateful people.
One study found that one brain area, which is involved in thinking about the thoughts of others, was larger in people who were more grateful.
The second study showed that people who said they were feeling more grateful after reading a story had more activity in brain areas that are important for many emotional and cognitive processes.
So it seems like the brains of more grateful people do look different from those of less grateful people, but we need to do more research to find out exactly what this means.
Gratitude can be practiced in a lot of different ways. One way is to write a list every day before you go to sleep, to remind yourself of three to five things that happened that you are grateful for.
Another way to practice gratitude is to write an email or a text message to a good friend, thanking them for something they have done for you. You can also get more creative and take a photo of something you are grateful for every day for a month. It is important to remember that this practice does not mean that we have to ignore bad things that happen to us.
But sometimes we think that we need to be happy to be grateful, but that is not really true. So how do you turn on the tap to get more of this feel-good energy in your life? Here are a few ideas to get you going: Gratitude Checklist If you are struggling to find something to feel grateful for, consider the following: What has improved about your life over the past year? What is one kind or thoughtful thing someone did for you recently?
Were most of your basic needs met today? Can you recall a recent experience of feeling cared for? What simple pleasures did you enjoy—or can you enjoy—today? Have you noticed something beautiful in nature lately?
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