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Feeling Gratitude is Heart Healthy

Feeling Gratitude is Heart Healthy

Gratitude, the mental outlook of recognizing and cherishing  positive aspects of one’s life, may contribute to overall better physical as well as mental health, and according to a new study benefits the heart. In patients with mild heart failure, lower inflammatory markers were found in those who feel gratitude, according to newly published research.Regarding his study which appears in the journal Spirituality in Clinical Practice,  lead researcher Paul J. Mills, PhD, Professor of Family Medicine at the University of California San Diego says,”We found that more gratitude in these patients was associated with better mood, better sleep, less fatigue and lower levels of inflammatory biomarkers related to cardiac health”.

The  study subjects were 186 men and women who had been diagnosed with asymptomatic (Stage B) heart failure. In Stage B heart failure patients do not manifest the  shortness of breath and worsening fatigue, that occurs in stage C heart failure, which carries an increasing rate of death. Therefore it is a crucial period of time, when the patient is still in the asymptomatic (stage B) phase of the disease, that any lifestyle change that can improve the condition needs to be implemented.

Using recognized  psychological testing, the study obtained scores for gratitude and spiritual well-being. They then compared those scores with the patients’ scores for depression,  sleep quality, fatigue, and inflammatory markers. They found specifically that a higher store for gratitude was associated with better mood, higher quality sleep and  less inflammation. Dr Mills explained, “We found that spiritual well-being was associated with better mood and sleep, but it was the gratitude aspect of spirituality that accounted for those effects, not spirituality per se” .

The study required  some of the patients in the study to write down three things for which they were thankful most of the days of the week for eight weeks.”We found that those patients who kept gratitude journals for those eight weeks showed reductions in circulating levels of several important inflammatory biomarkers, as well as an increase in heart rate variability while they wrote. Improved heart rate variability is considered a measure of reduced cardiac risk,” said Dr.Mills.

As a practical matter,  health care practitioners can ask patients to keep a gratitude journal, writing down things that they are grateful for, just as was done in the study. Seeing the results his study produced Dr. Mills said, “It seems that a more grateful heart is indeed a more healthy heart, and that gratitude journaling is an easy way to support cardiac health.”

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For the best care in Integrative Medicine call Henry C. Sobo, M.D., at 203-348-8805 or write us at [email protected]