Beyond Thanksgiving: Gratitude Can Rewire Your Brain

Gratitude can boost both serotonin and dopamine.

Tim Mossholder

Today millions of Americans celebrated Thanksgiving.

Families and friends are sitting around the table, making time to be thankful and enjoy each other's company.

It’s a powerful opportunity to give thanks.

But there’s no need to wait for a particular day to be thankful.

Especially given that science is showing gratitude can dramatically improve our well-being.

Gratitude is powerful and it’s powerfully underrated too.

Giving thanks for greater optimism

Many studies have found that people who are thankful tend to be happier and less depressed than those who don’t.

One study, completed by two psychologists, asked participants to write a few sentences per week.

The participants were split into three groups:

• Group one: wrote about things they were grateful for
• Group two: wrote about their frustrations and irritations
  Group three: wrote about things that had affected them (neither good nor bad).