Gratitude Shown to Extend Longevity

In spite of much around us that is difficult, undesirable, or challenging, there is also a great deal in our lives that is good that we can appreciate and celebrate. The practice of gratitude involves seeing the good in things around us. When we fix our attention on these positive aspects of life, acknowledge that they are good, and realize that, in many cases, we are not their source, we can experience gratitude. We may be grateful to someone who has helped us, who has given us something, or who has somehow brought about what is good. We may be grateful for the opportunities we have been given that allow us to act to bring about something good. We may be grateful for the intrinsic goodness of nature or of what surrounds us. We may be grateful to God for the goodness of creation. All of these various forms of gratitude involve a recognition of what is good.

Source: Natalie Board/Adobestock

Gratitude and Well-Being

Past research has indicated important effects of gratitude on enhancing well-being. And simple easy-to-use interventions have been developed to increase gratitude in life and, thereby, well-being. One might, for instance, try writing down three things one is grateful for three times a week over the course of a month or two, or even longer. Evidence from numerous randomized trials (summarized in this meta-analysis) suggests that such simple activities of focusing the mind on what is good in one’s past or present can help increase happiness, relieve symptoms of depression, and perhaps even improve sleep.

There are, of course, numerous other variations on this exercise of expressing gratitude, but study after study has suggested positive effects of gratitude on enhancing well-being, and it is for this reason that we’ve promoted such gratitude exercises previously among helpful activities for flourishing. While studies have indicated beneficial effects of gratitude on numerous outcomes, no one has previously examined the effects of gratitude on longevity. But that is effectively what we did in our most recent study.

Gratitude and Mortality

In a paper recently published in JAMA Psychiatry, we used data on more than 49,000 women in the Nurses’ Health Study and followed them up over four years after the initial gratitude assessment to examine the mortality risk of those with high versus low levels of gratitude. Certainly, objective circumstances, like baseline health, might affect both gratitude and subsequent mortality risk, and, so, we controlled for a host of baseline health measures. We also controlled for numerous other social, demographic, economic, health behavior, and psychological variables, including other aspects of psychological well-being such as depressive symptoms and optimism. Such rigorous control, with longitudinal data over time, is needed if we want to have any hope of making causal inferences.

In spite of such rigorous control, we found that those with high levels of gratitude were 9 percent less likely to die over the four years of follow-up than those with low levels of gratitude. More specifically, the high-gratitude group was 15 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease. While the mortality reduction is not huge, it is meaningful; and while the effect of gratitude may be somewhat smaller than what one finds with optimism, say, these effects of gratitude are present above and beyond the potential protective effects of optimism (for which control was made).

Implications

The effects on mortality risk, and also on well-being, are also important because anyone can practice gratitude. It can be hard to change optimism in any straightforward manner, and, indeed, some of the interventions that have tried to bring about such changes have failed. However, once again, anyone can practice gratitude. Anyone can recognize what is good around them. And, as noted above, there are interventions that we know work to increase gratitude and to increase well-being, and our study suggests that such practices could help reduce mortality risk as well.

Given the effects of gratitude interventions on well-being and health, this information and these gratitude exercises could be widely disseminated in schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, and communities. In each of these settings, it may be possible to run mini-gratitude campaigns, discussing the results of such research, providing examples of gratitude exercises, and perhaps even taking some time out of the day—in a school or at a workplace—to practice gratitude together. In my family, we take time during family dinners to express what we are grateful for, and we find it very helpful. In day-to-day life, such gratitude practices recognize the good around us, help us to be grateful for one another, contribute to our well-being, and bring life.