by Dr. Akil Palanisamy, MD
Most people know that practicing gratitude is beneficial for health, but few people truly appreciate how profound an impact this practice can have on multiple different domains of health.
Science suggests that gratitude can measurably improve your mood, heart health, sleep, relationships, and cognitive health as you age — and thus be an indispensable tool to help keep your body and mind in optimal health.
In fact, if gratitude were a drug, I always tell my patients that it would be a billion-dollar blockbuster.
There is hardly any other nonpharmacologic practice that has as wide-ranging a variety of positive effects, as I will review below. In addition, I would like to teach you exactly how to utilize it to leverage its benefits for maximum gain.
Gratitude Supports Your Heart
A review of adults with heart disease found that gratitude interventions enhanced markers tied to heart health, leading to lower inflammation, healthier autonomic nervous system activity, and reduced heart rate and diastolic blood pressure. The likely mechanism? Gratitude increases parasympathetic activity and reduces the chronic stress responses that can strain the heart. A simple gratitude practice can thereby improve blood pressure, eating behaviors, and inflammation markers, all of which have a huge impact on the risk of heart disease, which is still the number one killer of people worldwide.
Gratitude Strengthens Your Mental Health
A large meta-analysis of 64 randomized clinical trials found that gratitude interventions consistently improved mental health in a wide variety of groups — kids, adults, older adults, patients, and healthcare workers. On average, people who practiced gratitude had lower anxiety, lower depression, higher life satisfaction, and better overall mental health compared to controls. Researchers noted the benefits across the board and the message is clear — there is no group that would not see their mental health improve with this practice.
Gratitude Helps You Sleep Better
Gratitude may be one of the most powerful but least appreciated ways to improve your sleep. People who felt more grateful had better sleep quality, longer sleep duration, shorter time to fall asleep, and less daytime fatigue (thanks to fewer negative thoughts before sleep and more positive ones). Multiple research trials confirm that gratitude exercises before bed improved sleep through multiple mechanisms, and this is one of the strongest and most consistent effects in the research on gratitude.
Gratitude Protects Your Brain
Everyone needs to think about keeping their brain functioning optimally, especially as they age. In a study of older adults, those who scored higher in gratitude also showed better cognitive function and larger brain regions involved in emotional processing and memory. It is thought that gratitude may help preserve cognitive health by strengthening brain circuits involved in emotional regulation and having other beneficial effects on brain pathways through neuroplasticity, which is the ability of the brain to rewire and create new connections due to specific activities.
How to Practice Gratitude
If you want to practice gratitude, keep it simple. And don’t just do it on Thanksgiving or special occasions. Here are five tips to maximize the health benefits:
1. Write daily — but be specific
Spend at least five minutes a day writing down 1 to 3 specific things you’re grateful for. Granular recollections are more potent than generalities. Just thinking that you are grateful for good health and your family may not be very impactful. On the other hand, if you remember a moment during your day in which your son smiled at you and you realized how much you loved him and how grateful you are for that connection, that is much more compelling. As that example illustrates, the key is to be as specific and detailed as possible.
2. Send a weekly thank you
Once per week, send a message (text, email, or handwritten note) telling someone what you appreciate about them. This could be to someone who you are grateful for but have not expressed your feelings to. Drop them a quick note and be detailed and explicit about what exactly you appreciate about them. Research shows that there is something very powerful about expressing your gratitude to someone in a meaningful and substantive way, and that the mental and emotional upliftment from that could last potentially for up to a month! Gratitude, when communicated with the person you feel it for, is multiplied and enriches both giver and receiver.
3. Improve your sleep
Before bed, note one thing that went right today to shift pre-sleep thoughts. Keeping a gratitude journal, or focusing on particular moments that you are grateful for as outlined above, can leverage the positive effects of gratitude on improving sleep quality.
4. Apply gratitude to deepen your relationships
In a series of studies, couples who expressed more gratitude toward each other felt closer, were more responsive to each other’s needs, and were more likely to stay together nine months later. Gratitude creates a positive cycle: feeling appreciated helps you become more appreciative, which strengthens the bond. Relationships can be challenging yet also deeply rewarding, and gratitude can be of great value here.
5. Make it a habit, not an occasion
The most important tip? Consistency. Tiny actions create a big ripple effect, and the science says they add up. Don’t wait for special occasions or holidays. Make gratitude a daily practice, even if it’s just for five minutes.
Gratitude can be a valuable tool that can transform your physical and mental health and even your daily experience of life. By positively impacting your heart, brain, sleep, mood, and relationships, it can be a game changer to significantly boost your vitality, well-being, and longevity
Dr. Akil explores the gut-longevity connection in his exclusive online event with The Shift Network. Learn more here.
Akil Palanisamy, MD, is a Harvard-trained physician practicing integrative medicine, blending his conventional medical expertise with holistic approaches including functional medicine and Ayurveda. He graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in biochemical sciences. earned an MD from the University of California, San Francisco, and completed family medicine residency training at Stanford University. He then graduated from a fellowship in integrative medicine with Dr. Andrew Weil at the University of Arizona, and received certification in mind-body medicine from the Georgetown University Center. He is Department Chair for Integrative Medicine at the Sutter Health Institute for Health and Healing, serves as IHH Physician Director for Community Education, and leads their educational initiatives and programs. He’s the author of The Tiger Protocol and The Paleovedic Diet: A Complete Program to Burn Fat, Increase Energy, and Reverse Disease.