Thanking Your Way to Health and Happiness

Published by Associated Press
St Petersburg (Florida)

Say thanks, it might make you feel better.

Academics have long theorised that expressions of thank promote health and happiness and give optimism and energy to the downtrodden.

In recent years, researchers have tried to measure the benefits of gratitude. In a National Science Foundation funded study, Northeastern University psychologist David DeSteno has participants complete an arduous data entry task only to have it lost by a computer malfunction.
Then, a lab assistant, seemingly unconnected to the study and claiming to be in a hurry with his own experiment, restores the lost work.

The participants are dismissed. They bump into the lab assistant, who asks for help.; Dr DeSteno found those who had been helped by the assistant, and were grateful for it, were more likely to return the favour, and did so for longer than those in a group not helped.

"Gratitude leads people to act in virtues or more selfless ways," said Dr DeSteno, whose research was published earlier this year in the journal Current Directions In Psychological Science. "And it builds social support, which we know is tied to both physical and psychological well being."

Dr Robert Emmons, a psychology professor at the University of California, Davis, said those who offer gratitude are less envious and resentful. They sleep longer, exercise more and report a drop in blood pressure, said Dr Emmons, who wrote Thanks! How Practising Gratitude Can Make You Happier.

Dr Brenda Shoshanna, a New York psychologist, agreed. "You can't be depressed and grateful at the same time," said Dr Shoshanna, the author of 365 Ways To Give Thanks: One For Every Day Of The Year. "It makes a person physically, mentally, in every way healthier."