In Case You Haven't Heard…

Abstract

Experiencing gratitude is beneficial for physical health and emotional well-being, past research has shown, CNN reported on July 12. Now, a new study has found that those who experience more gratitude also have better odds of living longer. The report is the first to examine the effects of gratefulness on longevity, experts said. The researchers used data from the Nurses' Health Study, which included nearly 50,000 older, female U.S. registered nurses between ages 69 and 96 who completed a six-item gratitude questionnaire in 2016. By asking participants to rank how strongly they agreed with statements such as “I have so much in life to be thankful for” and “I am grateful to a wide variety of people,” the research team was able to determine the percentage of women who had the highest and lowest feelings of gratitude. When the researchers reviewed the data three years later, they found that the women who had the highest levels of gratitude experienced a 9% lower risk of death of any cause, including cardiovascular disease, cancer and neurodegenerative disease, according to the study published July 3 in JAMA Psychiatry. “Gratitude is powerful: powerful for happiness, powerful for addressing at least more minor depressive symptoms, powerful for improving health, powerful for protecting against premature death — and it is something that anyone can do,” said senior study author Dr. Tyler VanderWeele, who is the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.