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Why Gratitude Might Be the Most Underrated Longevity Tool

November 17, 2025

In mere minutes a day, one short, but powerful daily practice can help you to achieve all of the following:

• Improve sleep quality.
  
  
• Break stubborn habits, including tobacco consumption.
  
  
• Reach lifestyle goals, such as eating more veggies or taking the recommended number of daily steps.
  
  
• Manage stress.
  
  
• Boost mood.
  
  
• Fortify your relationships.
  
  
• Reduce risk for heart disease, diabetes, and dementia.

It can also extend your life. 

I can personally attest to these benefits as I’ve been using this longevity tool before meals and before bed. 

Additionally, I’ve encouraged thousands of my patients to get in the habit, and I watched as their mental and physical health has transformed.

The best part? It’s simple, free, and only takes a few minutes. 

Despite all of this, few people do it regularly. Are you missing out on the healing and life-extending powers of this easy daily practice?

The Underappreciated Power of Gratitude   

Many people mistakenly think of gratitude as an optional feel-good practice they’ll eventually get around to after they nail down more pressing health practices, such as eating 12+ vegetables a day.

However, that thinking may be backwards. 

That’s because a daily gratitude practice can function as a free, natural performance-enhancing drug that unlocks the bandwidth, motivation, and know-how to achieve many other health goals.

Let’s take sleep as an example. 

As you may have experienced, a vast chasm separates wanting to sleep more restfully from actually sleeping more restfully. 

For this reason, I write in a gratitude journal before bed. 

By reflecting on what I’m grateful for, I can end my day on a positive note and drift off to sleep without any worries preying on my mind.

You don’t merely have to trust my personal experience. 

Lots of research supports gratitude’s sleep-enhancing effects. In one of the first studies on the topic, researchers Robert A. Emmons and Michael E. McCullough discovered that a simple gratitude practice not only enhanced mental well-being but also improved sleep quality and quantity.¹

Since 2003, many other studies have yielded similar findings.²^,³ Just as importantly, gratitude’s positive effects go far beyond sleep. People who practice gratitude are more likely to successfully:

• Quit smoking.⁴
  
  
• Exercise frequently.⁵
  
  
• Consume a nutritious diet.⁶
  
  
• Follow the doctor’s instructions, such as taking medications regularly.⁷

How does a simple gratitude practice unlock so many health-promoting behaviors? 

Researchers are still unraveling the answer to that question. However, it likely comes down to cognitive bandwidth. 

A daily gratitude practice shifts your focus from what’s wrong to what’s right. This shift, in turn, turns down the volume on draining emotional states like stress, negativity, envy, resentment, and regret. 

If you think of your brain as a battery, then your daily gratitude practice operates like a charger, giving you the bandwidth and energy needed to do hard things like prep your meals or take an extra walk.

Gratitude: A Longevity Optimizer

In addition to unlocking health-promoting behaviors, a daily gratitude practice functions like a full-body reset—with profound effects on your overall health and longevity. This includes improvements in:

• Endothelial function, which is essential for blood vessel health. ⁸
  
  
• Blood pressure. ⁹
  
  
• Heart rate variability, a marker of cardiovascular health. ¹⁰
  
  
• Hemoglobin A1c levels and glycemic control. ¹¹^,¹²
  
  
• Inflammatory markers. ⁸
  
  
• Cholesterol levels. ¹^,³
  
  
• Brain volume and cognitive function. ¹⁴

All of these improvements can add up to a lower risk of disease and a longer life.

People who tested highest in gratitude were 9% less likely to die over three years than those who tested lowest, according to a Harvard study involving 49,275 nurses.13

Super Glue for Relationships

Evolutionary scientists suspect that we humans developed the capacity for gratitude because it helps us to form and strengthen social bonds. 

Indeed, as my gratitude-practicing patients consistently report, a daily gratitude practice trains the mind to see and appreciate the good. 

You’re more likely to notice the coffee barista who always greets you with a smile, the coworker who makes your job easier, the stranger who holds the door, or the driver who slows down to allow you to merge onto a busy highway. 

In your close personal relationships, you might better appreciate the hot dinner a spouse always has ready for you in the evening or the trash that magically makes its way to the curb without your assistance. 

As a result, after several weeks of practicing gratitude, you’ll likely notice that you feel safer, more supported, and more fortunate—even if the general facts of your daily existence haven’t truly changed.

A wealth of research shows that this mental and emotional shift can help you to feel more connected and less lonely, experience less family strife, and have an easier time forming new friendships. ¹⁵⁻¹⁷

How to Give Thanks

The beauty of gratitude is that it’s incredibly simple to practice. 

When researchers use gratitude as an intervention, they rarely give specific instructions. Yet, consistently study participants experience improvements in their mental, emotional, social, and physical health.

So, as you contemplate using the following practices, resist the urge to overthink them. Don’t let “I’m not sure how to do this” stop you from actually doing it.  

▶ Practice #1: Write three things you’re grateful for each day.

▶ Practice #2: Give thanks before meals. Whether through prayer, reflection, or a quiet pause, take a moment to feel grateful for the meal in front of you.

▶ Practice #3: Write one thank-you message a week.

▶ Practice #4: Verbally thank at least one person a day.

▶ Practice #5: Use your camera to capture grateful moments that you share on social media.

At first, some people struggle to shift their mind from resentment to thankfulness. They feel stumped when considering what they’re thankful for.

If that happens to you, consider what and who makes your life comfortable, pleasant, rich, peaceful, possible, and meaningful. 

During your daily interactions, consider how your life might change if someone or something didn’t exist. 

What if utility workers didn’t maintain your power lines? 

If there were no farmers or people to stock the shelves of your grocery store, how would you eat? 

What would your daily life be like without your partner, children, friends, siblings, pets, or parents?

Eventually, by thinking in this way, you’ll start to notice the many ways the people around you make your life better—and that’s worth celebrating. 

References

1.Emmons RA, McCullough ME. Counting blessings versus burdens: an experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2003 Feb;84(2):377–89.

2. Boggiss AL, Consedine NS, Brenton-Peters JM, Hofman PL, Serlachius AS. A systematic review of gratitude interventions: Effects on physical health and health behaviors. J Psychosom Res. 2020 Aug 1;135(110165):110165.  

3.Jans-Beken L, Jacobs N, Janssens M, Peeters S, Reijnders J, Lechner L, et al. Gratitude and health: An updated review. J Posit Psychol. 2020 Nov 1;15(6):743–82.

4. Wang K, Rees VW, Dorison CA, Kawachi I, Lerner JS. The role of positive emotion in harmful health behavior: Implications for theory and public health campaigns. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Jul 9;121(28):e2320750121.    

5. Newman DB, Gordon AM, Mendes WB. Comparing daily physiological and psychological benefits of gratitude and optimism using a digital platform. Emotion. 2021 Oct 15;21(7):1357–65.    

6. Fritz MM, Armenta CN, Walsh LC, Lyubomirsky S. Gratitude facilitates healthy eating behavior in adolescents and young adults. J Exp Soc Psychol. 2019 Mar 1;81:4–14.    

7. Millstein RA, Celano CM, Beale EE, Beach SR, Suarez L, Belcher AM, et al. The effects of optimism and gratitude on adherence, functioning and mental health following an acute coronary syndrome. Gen Hosp Psychiatry. 2016 Nov;43:17–22.    

8. Cousin L, Redwine L, Bricker C, Kip K, Buck H. Effect of gratitude on cardiovascular health outcomes: a state-of-the-science review. J Posit Psychol. 2021 May 4;16(3):348–55.    

9. Jackowska M, Brown J, Ronaldson A, Steptoe A. The impact of a brief gratitude intervention on subjective well-being, biology and sleep. J Health Psychol. 2016 Oct;21(10):2207–17.    

10. Redwine LS, Henry BL, Pung MA, Wilson K, Chinh K, Knight B, et al. Pilot randomized study of a gratitude journaling intervention on heart rate variability and inflammatory biomarkers in patients with Stage B heart failure. Psychosom Med. 2016 Jul;78(6):667–76.    

11. Krause N, Emmons RA, Ironson G, Hill PC. General feelings of gratitude, gratitude to god, and hemoglobin A1c: Exploring variations by gender. J Posit Psychol. 2017 Nov 2;12(6):639–50.    

12. Makhmur S, Rath S. Effectiveness of gratitude therapy in diabetes management: A Qualitative study. Health Psychol Res. 2023 Oct 12;11(1):88400. 

13. Chen Y, Okereke OI, Kim ES, Tiemeier H, Kubzansky LD, VanderWeele TJ. Gratitude and mortality among older US female nurses. JAMA Psychiatry. 2024 Oct 1;81(10):1030–8.    

14. Tani Y, Koyama Y, Doi S, Sugihara G, Machida M, Amagasa S, et al. Association between gratitude, the brain and cognitive function in older adults: Results from the NEIGE study. Arch Gerontol Geriatr. 2022 May 1;100(104645):104645.    

15. Hittner JB, Widholm CD. Meta-analysis of the association between gratitude and loneliness. Appl Psychol Health Well Being. 2024 Nov 1;16(4):2520–35.   

16. Nelson-Coffey SK, Coffey JK. Gratitude improves parents’ well-being and family functioning. Emotion. 2024 Mar;24(2):357–69.    

17. Williams LA, Bartlett MY. Warm thanks: gratitude expression facilitates social affiliation in new relationships via perceived warmth. Emotion. 2015 Feb;15(1):1–5.