The Importance of Gratitude

Photo by Marcus Wöckel from Pexels

In my earlier post on Tips to Feel Connected, I mention feeling gratitude as a way to feel more connected with people and nature. Indeed, feeling gratitude has its health benefits: improved well-being1,2,3, life satisfaction1,3, better relationships1,4, and feeling connected to others5. It also increases happiness and optimism1 and lowers depression1,3,6. There’s also a link between feeling more gratitude and being engaged in prosocial behavior (e.g., helping someone in need7,8). There is a darker side to gratitude, however.

Feeling gratitude — especially in a short-term, mood-like state — comes with feeling indebted, and some people also felt guilt, embarrassment, and shame9. Looking at three different definitions of gratitude, it’s easy to see the link between feeling gratitude and indebtedness:

1. An emotional response based on someone doing something nice for you10,
2. Short-term, mood-like feeling associated with appreciating life10
3. A long-standing, stable trait connected to life and appreciating others3

These negative emotions are thought to push us into bettering ourselves, thus achieving all of the benefits that come with feeling gratitude. For example, feeling indebted and grateful that someone did something nice for you could drive you to reciprocate, thus strengthening the relationship9, but narcissism, cynicism, and materialism weaken gratitude’s effects11. Moreover, a review of gratitude interventions even suggests that they may be little more than a placebo effect12.

Where it shines, though, is as a long-term, stable trait. The more likely you are to go from day to day feeling gratitude (rather than trying to increase it as a fleeting short-term mood), the less likely you will feel indebted13,14. It is when experiencing the long-term, stable trait of gratitude that we are more likely to experience feeling satisfied in relationships15, being happy, engaging in prosocial behavior, and being less materialistic16.

So, how can you increase your gratitude and experience its long-term, stable trait benefits?
I recommend these simple practices that you can easily make part of your daily routine12:

1. Gratitude List: Every day, write out a list of 20 things that you are grateful for
2. Journal: Journal daily on what you’re grateful for that day
3. Express Gratitude: Tell or show the people you’re grateful to that you are grateful. If you can’t tell that person, I suggest paying it forward, but the key is to make this a daily practice.

1.Dickens (2017), 2. Emmons and McCullough (2003), 3. Wood et al. (2010), 4. Algoe et al. (2008), 5. Layous, Sweeny, Armenta, Na, Choi, Lyibomirsky (2017), 6. Wood et al. (2008), 7. Bartlett & De-Steno (2006), 8. Ma, Tunney, Ferguson (2017), 9. Layous et al. (2017), 10. Lambert, Graham, & Fincham (2009), 11. Solom, Watkins, McCurrach, Schiebe (2017), 12. Davis et al. (2016), 13. Mathers & Green (2010), 14. Mathews & Shook (2013), 15. Algoe, Gable, & Maisel (2010), 16. McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang (2002).