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It is easy to feel grateful when things are going well in our lives. But what about those challenging times, when nothing is going right — do you appreciate your abundance?
Modern-day research on the complex relationship between mind and body backs up what spiritual experts have known for millennia. For example, studies show that thoughts and feelings of gratitude bring about significant health benefits, including lowered stress hormones. And other studies reveal that regular meditation reduces inflammation, improves immunity, and strengthens areas of the brain related to empathy and emotional processing, among other benefits.
Conversely, studies show that feelings of pessimism and negativity fuel inflammation, harm DNA, speed up the aging process, and increase the risks of chronic diseases.
In the spirit of the holiday season, it is important to recognize that feeling grateful — no matter what is happening in your life — offers countless health benefits. When you actively cultivate gratitude and take time for self-care practices such as meditation, you open yourself up to true healing.
A Closer Look at How Feeling Grateful Transforms Your Health
Practicing gratitude, meditation, and mind-body exercises such as yoga and Tai Chi are some of the most powerful tools for unleashing your body’s infinite healing ability and achieving optimal health — and this is true regardless of where you are on the wellness spectrum. Healing can happen on every level: physical, mental, emotional, and psycho-spiritual.
The feeling of gratitude, along with mind-body practices such as meditation, reduce stress and allow us to expand our heart, increasing our innate love and compassion for ourselves and others. This love and compassion expressed by our heart is actually our greatest healer — something I’ve experienced consistently in my personal meditation practice and in decades of clinical work treating hundreds of patients with complex conditions.
Negativity & Resentment Affect More Than Your Mood
Studies show that feelings of pessimism and negativity fuel inflammation, harm DNA, speed up the aging process, and increase the risks of chronic diseases.4
Holding on to resentments and anger may also take its toll on our health and wellness. In a new pre-print study, a team of international researchers found that forgiveness is good for our mental health. Letting go brings a sense of peace — and forgiveness can be taught, say the study authors.
Innately, we know these findings to be true. How do you feel physically when you experience negative emotions, compared to feelings of gratitude, love, and compassion? The differences are obvious. Nevertheless, many of us remain prone to cycles of anxiety and negative thought patterns, dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.
Start Observing Your Thoughts
One meditation metaphor describes the mind as “a blind rider on a wild horse.” We have no control over what thought will take over, which drives us into uncharted territory.
The journey into daily gratitude and mind-body healing begins by taking a step back and observing our thought patterns, so that we’re no longer “blind riders.” These ancient practices offer tools that can help tame that wild horse.
Finding Gratitude During Stressful Times
When life feels overwhelming, it can be easy to fall into negative thought patterns and ignore the positivity around you. But feeling grateful is more than being positive. It is about being honest and authentic, and finding joy in the little things, despite the chaos in life.
Calm Your Mental Chatter
Meditation is a truly unique activity because it allows us to shift from doing to being. It cultivates a state of deep relaxation. If you can relax into a space where you do not identify with your thoughts and emotions, then you can let them go on their way, like passing clouds.
With practice, the space between thoughts becomes wider, calmer, and clearer. Within this spaciousness, a deeper, more authentic state of consciousness can arise and expand, expressed as genuine love, compassion, and greater clarity of awareness. This also promotes a sense of connection with others.
Meditation also has a naturally calming effect on mental chatter. Like a pond after a rock is thrown in — the ripples fade over time, leaving a reflective surface.
Harnessing Your Gratitude During Good … and Not-so-Good Times
If you are battling extra stress right now, it’s essential to find time to yourself and home in on your feelings, emotions, and find peace in meditation or a walk to recenter and balance yourself.
Making space to feel grateful is important for your whole family. When we overflow our cups with unconditional love, gratitude, and compassion for all beings, we effortlessly offer this healing energy to ourselves and everyone around us.
Start with something simple such as writing down three things you are grateful for each day. This can be a daily spiritual practice that helps you review your life from a grateful heart, while helping your mind, body, and spirit heal on every level.
Create a sense of purpose in your life, if you don’t already have one. This comes more easily once you have decided to adopt a positive mindset. Doing this can help fight off loneliness, according to a study in the journal Psychology and Aging. Researchers found that people who reported living a purpose-driven life were less likely to feel lonely. Purpose can mean different things to different people, but it might include making a difference in your community, gardening, supporting your family, or feeling successful at work.
The Healing Power of Tonglen Meditation
There are many different styles of meditation. Two basic principles in developing our meditation capacity are cultivating the ability to experience openness, spaciousness, calmness, and clarity, which reduces our reactivity and has profound health benefits. The second is developing the ability to generate love and compassion in response to life’s difficulties and challenges, which is the practice of Tonglen.
Tonglen is a Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice where you visualize “taking in” the suffering of others with each inhale and “sending out” relief, happiness, or positive energy with each exhale, essentially aiming to cultivate compassion by directly engaging with the pain of others and offering them support. The word “Tonglen” itself translates to “giving and receiving” in Tibetan.
This does take practice, so please be gentle with yourself. When you open your heart and extend love, compassion, and gratitude, research shows you can experience a wealth of health benefits on all levels — physical, mental, and emotional.
Free 30-Day Tonglen Meditation with Dr. Eliaz
Discover how to turn suffering into interconnectedness, healing, and personal transformation. Tonglen meditation is a practice that involves exchanging suffering with love and compassion. Unlike meditation methods that emphasize personal tranquility, Tonglen embraces discomfort and sorrow, using it as a foundation for growth.
Here’s what you’ll get with your exclusive FREE 30-Day Meditation Trial:
- One-hour guided meditation practice
- Learn how to embrace suffering to transform it
- Foster personal healing and a profound sense of connection and altruism
Sources:
Hill, P.L., Olaru, G., and Allemand, M. Do associations between a sense of purpose, social support, and loneliness differ across the adult lifespan? 2023 Psychology and Aging 38(4) 345–355. https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fpag0000733
Lilian Jans-Beken, Nele Jacobs, Mayke Janssens, et al. Gratitude and health: An updated review. The Journal of Positive Psychology. 2020; 15:6, 743-782.
Pascoe, Michaela & Thompson, David & Ski, Chantal. Meditation and Endocrine Health and Wellbeing. Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism. 2020;31.
Scheier MF, Swanson JD, Barlow MA, et al. Optimism versus pessimism as predictors of physical health: A comprehensive reanalysis of dispositional optimism research. Am Psychol. 2021 Apr;76(3):529-548.
Man Yea Ho, Everett Worthington, Richard Cowden, et al. International REACH Forgiveness Intervention: A Multi-Site Randomized Controlled Trail. Pre-print study, Forgiveness: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (April 20–22, 2023) 10.31219/osf.io/8qzgw
Kozhevnikov M. Enhancing Human Cognition Through Vajrayana Practices. J Relig Health. 2019 Jun;58(3):737-747. doi: 10.1007/s10943-019-00776-z. PMID: 30771143.
Barnhofer T. The benefits of calm abiding: Concentrative meditation practices, inflammation, and its consequences for attentional functioning. Brain Behav Immun. 2021 Jan;91:8-9. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2020.10.018. Epub 2020 Oct 21. PMID: 33098965.
