Every year Thanksgiving comes around and creeps up on me again. I somehow manage to get a turkey in the oven, but that doesn’t mean I’ve done the work to prepare my heart and mind for the holiday. In fact, the very concept of thankfulness tends to feel cliche and desperately unexciting. Some years I’ve made daily Facebook posts about what I’m thankful for, but most of the time it feels half-hearted and rushed. So how can we prepare our hearts to practice gratitude in a way that feels meaningful?
In the past few years, I’ve seen more headlines online from secular sources discussing the benefits of gratitude on our bodies. It’s not surprising to hear that God made our bodies to respond to what is a significant theme in Scripture. However, it’s helped me to realize that all the sermons and greeting cards that felt so trite at the time actually might have had something important to say.
Maybe gratitude is a whole lot more significant to our mental, physical, and spiritual health than we ever realized. What if implementing gratitude practices throughout our week could be as significant as taking vitamins or drinking water?
Did you know that practicing gratitude can improve your mood, lowering your chances of living with depression and stress? And what if I told you that daily expressions of thankfulness could also boost the immune function of your body? Did you know that gratitude not only strengthens your faith but also extends space to grow deeper in your beliefs as it leads to other spiritual disciplines?
If all these questions are true, I’m going to think about the Thanksgiving holiday a little differently this year. To understand why gratitude is so important, let’s look closer at how it holistically benefits our lives.
How Gratitude Impacts Our Bodies
Medical professionals and mental health advocates alike can agree that when it comes to giving thanks, improvement in overall health may follow. Here are some common ways in which gratitude practices have boosted the health and lives of people around the globe.
Physical Benefits of Gratitude
Feelings of gratitude may be felt in your heart, but that is only the start of the positive effects it has on the human body.
Gratitude has been widely accepted as being an immunity booster. As we practice thanksgiving in our daily lives, it also decreases stress within our bodies. When our stress levels are elevated, it lowers our body’s natural responses, which allows sickness and infection to wreak havoc. Consequently, when our stress levels are lowered, it enables our bodies to fight off illnesses and viruses. So giving thanks helps your physical body to ward off sicknesses and disease.
In a recent study of gratitude[1] in patients with asymptomatic heart failure, Paul Mills; Ph.D., a professor, and researcher at the University of California-San Diego, proved that those who practiced gratitude not only experienced better sleep patterns, but blood tests have shown that they also had lower levels of inflammation and better heart health. Who knows? The writer of Psalm 100 might have been a pretty healthy guy because of it.
Along with these physical health benefits, gratitude can:
- Boost immunity
- Promote better sleep
- Lower inflammation
- Lower blood pressure
- Lower blood sugar levels
- Decrease health problems, such as headaches, gastrointestinal and respiratory issues
- Decrease physical symptoms, such as headaches, runny nose, and dizziness
Psychological Benefits of Gratitude
Gratitude not only encompasses physical quality of life health benefits, but this practice has life-altering psychological benefits as well.
Practicing the art of thanksgiving holds space for positive feelings and promotes a sense of well-being when it is cultivated consistently. In a 2020 Journal of Happiness Study[2], it was proven that daily gratitude drastically lowered the symptoms of anxiety, stress, and depression. In addition to helping relieve these mental health struggles, daily gratitude in adolescents and adults was even proven to lower a lifetime risk of suicide[3]. With depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts being growing problems across our nation, this is great news! Mental health help and medication can be a big financial burden, and while gratitude cannot take the place of a trained mental health professional, it’s good to know that there are things to try that don’t cost a dime.
So why does gratitude play such an essential role in our mental and emotional well-being? According to psychological research by Robert A. Emmons, a psychology professor at the University of California, daily gratitude “blocks toxic emotions, such as envy, resentment, regret, and depression, which can destroy our happiness.[4]” God literally created our brains to block out the bad by focusing on the good. It makes all those listy verses in Paul’s epistles seem a little more tangible when you know your brain was created to rewire the thought patterns accordingly.
Extensively proven psychological benefits of gratitude include:
- Promoted feelings of positivity
- Lowered symptoms of anxiety
- Decreased stress response
- Decreased feelings of depression
- Lowered risk of suicide
- Blocked toxic emotions
- Reduced risk of substance use
Spiritual Benefits of Gratitude
When we think of gratitude, most of us may automatically consider the spiritual benefits. It can even be a theme we pull out flippantly for Thanksgiving to overuse and over-spiritualize. But when we look at all it was meant to be, we can see real tangible benefits in our spiritual walks.
As Christians, gratitude allows us to walk in humility, as we consider the goodness of God’s provision, both in our physical needs and in our hearts. When we relinquish control over our lives and allow God to lead us, we are able to remain grateful in all things.
Gratitude also strengthens our faith, not only through reading God’s Word but also in our prayer lives. Psalms 22:3 (NLT) says, “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.” God inhabits the praises of His people, and as we lift our prayers of praise to Him, He will meet us there.
Time and time again, thanksgiving leads us into a deeper relationship with the Father. As we continue to pursue a life of gratitude, the Holy Spirit will give us deeper and clearer revelation into who the Father is and His heart for the world. As you lift up an offering of praise to heaven, He will transform your vision to see the world through a Kingdom lens.
Spiritual Benefits of gratitude include:
- Increased humility
- An increased sense of God’s presence
- Clearer revelation, in His Word and the world around us
- Deeper faith
- An extension of generosity to others
- Boldness in sharing our testimony
God’s Design For Gratitude
As beings created in God’s image, we were made with gratitude lovingly knit into our DNA. It is no wonder, yet full of wonder that gratitude in one area of our lives is connected to the others. While the psychological benefits of thankfulness can be significantly life-altering on their own, they naturally affect the physical and spiritual well-being in people as well, and vice versa. Because we are beings of mind, body, and spirit, gratitude affects us wholly and holistically.
As Christians, gratitude strengthens our faith and trust in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When we express gratitude, we operate from a mindset and heart space of remembering the faithfulness of God. As we consider His goodness in our lives, we are assured that He is Sovereign in all things, and with that comes the peace that alleviates the stressors of this world.
With so many apparent benefits of gratitude for our mental, physical, and spiritual health, might I encourage you to consider the practice of thankfulness in your own life? Let us prepare to welcome the Thanksgiving season while also ushering in an improved quality of life overall.
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After reading all these benefits, I was pretty surprised. I feel like I’ve been overlooking something so important without giving it a second thought. And after seeing the value and importance of gratitude practices, I want to implement some into my life for the Thanksgiving season. Are you with me? If you want to jump right in, but need some tangible ideas – I’ve got your back. I created a free downloadable PDF resource just for this purpose. It includes a gratitude calendar with prayer topics, scripture readings, acts of gratefulness, and practices of presence to help you engage with the Thanksgiving season with your mind, body, and spirit. This resource also includes printable door hangers you can cut out and put around your house to remind you to engage with gratitude throughout your day or say thanks to your loved ones. If you’re interested in using this resource, make sure you’re subscribed to my email list where I’ll be sending it out. You can also access it HERE.
Footnotes:
[1] Study: Gratitude is a Healthy Attitude
[2] Journal of Happiness Study
[3] Measuring Gratitude in Youth: Assessing the Psychometric Properties of Adult Gratitude Scales in Children and Adolescents; Jeffery J. Froh
[4] Gratitude and Reduced Costs in Materialism in Adolescents, Robert A. Emmons
Additional Resources:
- Thankfulness: How Gratitude Can Help Your Health, American Heart Association
- How Gratitude Shapes Your Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Health, Mind & Spirit
- Personality and Individual Differences: The Relationship Between Dispositional Gratitude and Quality of Life
- Is Gratitude Good for Your Health; Greater Good Magazine
