If you’ve been paying attention to the fitness and wellness world for the past 10 years, you’ve probably heard that you need a gratitude practice, and you’ve probably heard it 1000 times. So with that in mind, I won’t bore you with another repeat listicle about the general and overarching benefits of gratitude (although the list is long, and all those reasons are worth strongly considering!).

What I will do is give you a brief history of gratitude and the mind-body connection - and talk about the hard science and physiological changes that occur with a repeated gratitude practice. It’s true - studies have shown that gratitude can improve your sleep, your mood, your immunity, and your self-awareness, all while decreasing depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and disease risk. But how?

“Neuroplasticity”

To understand how gratitude changes our brain, we have to understand the concept of neuroplasticity - the idea that you can change the makeup of your brain with repeated activity. With a conscious, regular gratitude practice, you actually strengthen neural pathways that will create a more automatic response of gratefulness and positivity - actually changing the nature of our interactions with ourselves and with the world.

Both expressing AND receiving feelings of gratitude have been shown to increase dopamine and serotonin levels in the brain - chemicals that create and sustain the reward system. Not only does this chemical release make us feel better in the moment, but repeated release of these chemicals in response to a gratitude practice actually creates new reward pathways, which means our brains become wired to seek out the reward of gratitude. The increased level of dopamine also reduces subjective feelings of pain (according to a 2003 study), increasing our feelings of vitality. Repeated gratitude practice actually changes our brain to make us feel more alert, awake, and alive.

Physical Changes Explained

Scientists have actually looked at the physical brains of people who regularly practiced gratitude, and what they found was a startling difference in the makeup of their brains as opposed to those who did not. Feelings of gratefulness tend to activate our right sided temporal cortex (think right behind your right temple and above your right ear). This area of your brain is responsible for social concepts and relating things to one another. More gray matter (the cells in your brain that control the messages to and from your body) was found in the temporal lobes of those people who tended to express and feel more gratitude versus those who did not. In short - people who practice gratitude have higher brain function in this area of the brain than others!

Embedded deep into the temporal cortex are also the the hippocampus and the amygdala, the parts of your brain responsible for emotional memory. Along with these, the hypothalamus (another part of the limbic/emotional system in your brain) is partially in the temporal lobe as well. Acts of kindness have been shown to actually activate the hypothalamus (the part of our brain that keeps us balanced) as well as the hippocampus and the amygdala to release “toxic emotions” and promote hormonal and mood stability all at once.

Stress, Anxiety, and (of course) Cortisol

And of course, no conversation about wellness can leave our our old friend cortisol - the major stress hormone in our body and a contributor to clinical depression and anxiety (and belly fat). A gratitude practice have been shown to reduce these stress hormones and regulate the autonomic nervous system, the system that controls our fight or flight response. On top of that, brains of those who practice gratitude have shown increased modulation of the prefrontal cortex (behind our foreheads) - where we process feelings like guilt, shame, self-control, and violence.

In a 2004 study, those who expressed gratitude showed a significant reduction in cortisol AND better cardiac function — and subjectively, showed greater emotional resilience to setbacks and negative experiences.

Perception

Which leads us to perception. It’s long been known that our perception of events directly effects our experience of them - both emotionally and physically.

I read an article once (and I can’t remember it so I’m sorry for not linking it!!) that gave an amazing example of this. There was a study where they blindfolded all the subjects and told them they were going to be holding a hot poker. All of them expected, then, to wrap their hand around a hot poker when the time came for their turn. In the experiment, the researchers gave some of the subjects an ice cube instead. Some of these ice cube subjects STILL SAW HEAT BURNS AND BLISTERS - just from the expectation of holding a hot poker alone. The point here is that we need to balance our perceptions with reality to avoid a physical manifestation of negative emotions and experiences. A gratitude practice helps us create that positive perception of life to improve every experience, every day.

The Big Picture

The big picture is what you’ve been nonstop hearing for years - that you need a daily gratitude practice and it will benefit your life in a hundred great ways. You’ll have better sleep, increased energy, and a greater feeling of responsibility and productivity; you’ll avoid depression, anxiety, and all disease; you’ll be more efficient; you’ll create better and more rewarding interpersonal bonds; you’ll event feel more motivation and drive to exercise.

Like actual, physical exercise, a gratitude practice takes practice - and discipline. Consistency in a gratitude practice creates and strengthens neural pathways that have the effect of the magic happy pill we’re all out there looking for! The evidence is clear - the connection between your physical health, your mental health, and gratitude is overwhelmingly clear - and the effort will prove more than worth it.

Gratitude and the Mind-Body Connection

Pregnancy Exercise Myths - Debunked

The Power Struggle of Postpartum Hormones & Weight Loss