Many of the benefits of gratitude are simply about directing your attention in certain wayswhat parts of your life, what parts of reality you pay attention to, Korb says. Your brain at the moment might not automatically pay attention to all the wonderful things in your life. But if you intentionally practice gratitude, you become more aware of these positive parts of your life that were always there and start to change that filter, Korb explains. We are, for lack of a better word, training our minds to notice more of what is outside of the selfwho's around us, what else we could be paying attention to, whats happening beyond our own immediate needs and self interest... [and] the potential threats and worries we tend to ruminate on," Simon-Thomas explains.

The broadening effect of positive emotions is thought to apply looking inwards, too, to the way we think (and in turn, act). Positive emotions and practices like gratitude can help you cope better by building your individual resources, Moskowitz says. The idea is that by doing practices that consistently induce positive emotions, we can widen and deepen the psychological resources available to us in times of stress, Mostkowitz explains. This cognitive broadening includes greater creativity, flexibility, novelty, and openness in the ways we think and behaveallowing us to see and engage in more possibilities.

Gratitude might simply give you a little break from stress

Right now we are all steeped in the stress of COVID and having to isolate in our homes, and the worry we have for our loved ones and the country in general. Its hard to get away from it, Moskowitz says. Its not an option to check out and not deal with [stress and trauma]. On top of that, Our reservoir of coping ability is really depleted because were constantly engaged in this negative stuff going on, Moskowitz says.

The theory here is pretty intuitive: Positive emotions like gratitude are thought to help us cope in the midst of stress and difficulty by providing a little respite. We think of it as a strategy to help you shift from unpleasant emotions to more pleasant emotion, Stern says.

What practices like gratitude that help you even momentarily increase your positive emotions do is give you a break from that [stress]. It's like a breather, Moskowitz says. When youre practicing gratitude, youre not practicing anxious or envious thoughts. In turn, those moments of positive emotion can help sustain you, can help you stay engaged through the coping process [and] bolster that inner reserve you have for continuing to cope with it, Moskowitz says.

Gratitude may help you connect with other people

According to the broaden-and-build model, positive emotions also promote another crucial kind of resource for well-being and coping: social support. People who show more positive emotions tend to draw more social support when theyre stressed, Moskowitz says

There is also reason to believe gratitude is a unique prosocial behavior. We develop a more prosocial and benevolent orientation towards others as we practice gratitude, Simon-Thomas explains. Were practicing connecting the positive aspects of our life, the benefits that we enjoy, to the actions of other people.

Studies suggest that gratitude fosters prosocial behavior, strengthening social bonds, and forging new ones. This includes the 2006 Vietnam veterans study, which found that daily gratitude impacted the degree of daily rewarding social activity vets reported, as well as that pair of 2008 longitudinal studies of college freshmen we looked at earlier that concluded that gratitude seemed to directly foster social support. A 2017 Psychological Bulletin meta-analysis of 91 studies, including 18,342 participants, found statistically significant, and moderate positive correlation between gratitude and prosociality.

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The Science Behind the Benefits Powers of Gratitude - Self