Gratitude may help you sleep better, reduce inflammation, have a healthier heart, drop stress, and more. Use gratitude to improve your health.
Use gratitude to improve your health.
Today, I want to have a conversation with you about the health benefits of gratitude. My focus is typically on optimizing my health through lots of physical activity, a reasonable (but far from perfect) diet, getting adequate sleep, not drinking alcohol or using tobacco-containing products, and maintaining a good weight.
Given I am not so good about mindfulness, I look forward to spending more time meditating in 2021. Another focus will be on gratitude. Today we examine some of the potential benefits of gratitude in the psychological and physical domains of health.
First, a caveat: Not all studies have found gratitude to be a panacea. Still, as you will see, there are plenty of reasons to suspect that gratitude is associated with many benefits. These positive effects range from feeling better to improved sleep to better cardiovascular health.
We begin with a definition. What is gratitude? I think of it as the state of being grateful or appreciative. Let’s look at some of the reputed health benefits of gratitude, with some representative research studies for each.
Gratitude and sleep
Sleep is essential for good health. If you get short rest, you stress your body and raise your risk of developing a disease, such as:
- cancer
- cardiovascular disease
- diabetes
- memory problems
- obesity
Do you get adequate sleep of seven to nine hours each day? It can be challenging for many of us. Boosting your gratitude may be a relatively simple means to improve your zzz’s. University of College, London researchers performed a randomized clinical trial, examining whether a brief subjective well-being intervention would positively affect the cardiovascular and neuroendocrine function and sleep for 119 young women.
The scientists compared two weeks of a gratitude intervention with an active control group (reporting daily events). The management intervention led to improvements in:
- hedonic well-being
- optimism
- sleep quality
- diastolic (the bottom number) blood pressure
The researchers found no improvements in the stress hormone cortisol, however. The study authors offer that a brief gratitude intervention “may contribute towards lower morbidity and mortality through healthier biological function and restorative health behaviors.”
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