Over the past three decades, studies have consistently identified strong benefits of gratitude for our minds, bodies, and relationships.
In the study, Improving mental health in health care practitioners: randomized controlled trial of a gratitude intervention, researchers found that “Significant Treatment × Time interaction effects were found for the gratitude intervention, whether it was compared with control or hassle.”
A few resources which may help you develop your own gratitude practice.
The Gratitude Practice for Nurses, put together in a collaborative effort by the American Nurses Association and the Greater Good Science Center, is designed to support nurses’ social and emotional well-being. It is based on decades of scientific research revealing the many benefits of gratitude, as well as best practices from practitioners to support the cultivation of gratitude.
Happiness Break: Feel More Gratitude, a podcast with Eve Ekman. “Between the stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, burnout — we all could use a break to feel better. That’s where Happiness Break comes in. In each biweekly podcast episode, instructors guide you through research-backed practices and meditations that you can do in real-time.” Listen to more podcasts about gratitude.
Start a gratitude journal. “It’s easy to take the good things and people in our lives for granted, but research suggests that consciously giving thanks for them can have profound effects on our well-being and relationships. This exercise helps you develop a greater appreciation for the good in your life.”
Kiss your brain: The science of gratitude, a TEDx Talk with Christina Costa. “In this talk, Christina connects her experience of living with brain cancer to her field of study and explains why tools of gratitude can increase our well-being and what is happening in our brains when we experience and express gratitude.”
Nature. Beauty. Gratitude. This TEDx Talk featuring Louie Schwartberg’s stunning time-lapse photography, “serves as a medication on being grateful every day.”
Remember to say thank you, a TED Talk with Laura Trice. “In this deceptively simple 3-minute talk, Dr. Laura Trice muses on the power of the magic words “thank you” — to deepen a friendship, to repair a bond, to make sure another person knows what they mean to you.
Want to be happy? Be grateful, a TED Talk with Brother David Steindl-Rast. “The one thing all humans have in common is that each of us wants to be happy, says Brother David Steindl-Rast, a monk and interfaith scholar. And happiness, he suggests, is born from gratitude.”
Studies and articles on gratitude you may find interesting.
- Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life
- Your Brain on Gratitude: How a Neuroscientist Used his Research to Heal from Grief
- Social Support and Hope Mediate the Relationship Between Gratitude and Depression Among Front-Line Medical Staff During the Pandemic of COVID-19
- Neural correlates of gratitude
- How gratitude changes you and your brain