Researching Thanksgiving

Last week as I listened to some other pastor's preach on giving thanks, I heard a statement like the following one several times, "Research shows that being thankful improves your health."  But the research was never cited or directly quoted, so I did some looking into that.  I found some studies on gratitude that came out of Harvard (Harvard Mental Health Letter, "In Praise of Gratitude"  November 2011 quoted in preachingtoday.com).

Psychologists Dr. Robert A. Emmons and Dr. Michael E McCullough asked participants in one study to write down a few sentences each week. One group was told to write down things they were grateful for in their week.  Another group wrote about what irritated them.  A third group just wrote down events of their week with no instructions on whether they were to be good or bad.

Ten weeks went by and then the groups were studied.  The ones who wrote about gratitude were more optimistic, felt better about life, had fewer doctor's visits and exercised more than either of the other two groups.

Another researcher, Dr. Martin E. Seligman tested 411 people, giving them various assignments and then studying the impact those assignments had on the individual's moods.  The most impactful assignment given to the group was to write and personally deliver a letter of gratitude to someone who had never been properly thanked.  Study group members immediately showed a huge increase in happiness scores after the assignment with benefits from the letters they wrote and delivered lasting for more than a month.

Though none of these studies show a direct cause and effect correlation, they point to the power of gratitude to change our lives for the better.  I doubt that a typical Thanksgiving dinner with all it's calories will improve your health and well being, but the act of thanksgiving surely will.  Writing things down seems to big part of that as well.  Why not write a thank you note to someone this Thanksgiving?  What have you got to lose?

for the journey...

Tim