Thanksgiving and Gratitude: New Drugs for Health and Happiness

Did you know that the scientific community has been studying the effects of gratitude and thanksgiving on the physiological health of humans? Since around the year 2000, social scientists began turning their focus solely from abnormal psychology to healthy emotional habits and their impact on the way we live.


Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, reports:


“A large body of recent work suggests that people who are more grateful have higher levels of well-being:
  • Grateful people are happier, less stressed, and more satisfied with their lives and social relationship.
  • Grateful people also have higher levels of control of their environments, personal growth, purpose in life, and self- acceptance.
  • Grateful people have more positive ways of coping with the difficulties they experience in life, being less likely to try and avoid the problem, deny there is a problem, blame themselves, or cope through substance use.
  • Grateful people sleep better, and this seems to be because they think less negative and more positive thoughts before just going to sleep.”
Yet, even with this truth, even with all the Scriptures that instruct us to give thanks, most of us fall into the ungrateful-wretch category than that of a people whose hearts are overflowing with appreciation—to God and to one another.

If headlines suddenly blasted the news that a miracle-like prescription drug had just come on the market, which had been trialed over the decades and which demonstrated no side effects, and that scientists had determined that regular usage would enable the user to reach a state of well-being, would you be interested? Then if the pharmaceutical house announced that the new drug would be free to all users, wouldn’t you rush to try it out?

“Appreciation Audit: Reserve three minutes, preferably three times each day, to think about something you appreciate. Keep your mind focused until you feel the beauty of gratefulness rising.”

If I went even further to explain that the numerous clinical trials conducted in the States and overseas had proven that the daily use of this medicine showed positive effects on mood neurotransmitters, positive effects on reproductive hormones and on social bonding hormones, showed positive effects on cognitive and pleasure-related neurotransmitters, on inflammatory and immune systems, on stress hormones, on cardiac and EEG rhythms and on blood pressure as well as healthy blood sugar levels—wouldn’t you rush out and say, “Let me have some of that stuff!”?

Now if scientific studies have proven (as they have) the positive impact of a lifestyle attitude of gratitude, then we should all be working to develop that kind of approach to living beginning today, shouldn’t we?

So, let’s begin.

Dr. Dan Baker, director of behavioral medicine at the National Center for Preventive and Stress Medicine, writes in his book What Happy People Know,

Your mind, when focused on appreciating, has an unparalleled power to trigger physical and emotional healing.

Understanding that it is difficult for people in normally busy circumstances but especially when experiencing trying events to focus the mind positively, Baker developed the “Appreciation Audit.”

Dr. Baker cites studies that show the brain cannot process both fear (one of mankind’s dominate negative emotions) and appreciation at the same time. The Appreciation Audit, when practiced, is designed to create a shield in the brain against fear, hate and anger.

He recommends that learners start with a fundamental form of the Audit: Reserve three minutes, preferably three times each day, to think about something you appreciate. Keep your mind focused until you feel the beauty of gratefulness rising.

“Thanksgiving is a hallmark in a person’s relationship with the Almighty.”

This practice does not require a lot of effort, but it does require intentionality. Thankfully, there is no better time to start than this season ahead when our minds are focused on the national Thanksgiving holiday.

I love it when the scientific community pats itself on the back for discovering something that has already existed throughout the centuries and has been an essential practice of the Christian church. Look at these ancient Scriptures:
  • 2 Chronicles 5:13: “The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang: ‘He is good; His love endures forever.’ Then the temple of the LORD was filled with the cloud. . .” (I would say that was an amazing physical evidence of the holy results of thanksgiving and praise.)
  • Jeremiah 30:19: “From them will come songs of thanksgiving and the sound of rejoicing. I will add to their numbers, and they will not be decreased; I will bring them honor, and they will not be disdained.”
  • Nehemiah 12:46–47: “For long ago, in the days of David and Asaph, there had been directors for the musicians and for the songs of praise and thanksgiving to God. So in the days of Zerubbabel and of Nehemiah, all Israel contributed the daily portion for the musicians and the gatekeepers.”
  • Psalm 95:2–3: “Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods.”
  • 2 Corinthians 4:15–16: “All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”
  • 1 Thessalonians 5:18: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
In this brief and non-inclusive survey, it appears that thanksgiving is a hallmark in a person’s relationship with the Almighty. We pride ourselves on a national thanksgiving holiday, in which we gather, eat a festive meal, watch the football game, be careful of divisive political conversation but give scant recognition to the God who is the source of all life’s gifts.

If anything, for the Christian, this holiday has become secularized if the truth be told. Let’s strive to make it a marker in which the spiritual activity—giving thanks—is the center of our intent. The practice of gratitude has earmarked spirituality through the centuries of Judeo-Christian practice. It is only now that science is beginning to groove with its potentialities.


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