Breathing Gratefully: How Gratitude Supports Healthy Aging
This month, I’m honored to share a guest piece from someone who has had a profound impact on both my personal and professional journey. What began as a professor-student relationship grew into mentorship, and eventually, into a cherished friendship.
Her insight, wisdom, and generosity have shaped how I think, work, and walk through the field of aging and care.
I had heard about her impactful class long before we met, and in my final semester of graduate school, I enrolled in Mindful Aging: Spirituality, Gratitude, and Resilience. That decision changed the course of my professional life. The class left an imprint that continues to guide my perspective and purpose.
I’m thrilled to introduce Leah Marie Buturain Schneider, PhD — a voice that continues to inspire, challenge, and uplift not only me, but anyone lucky enough to know her.
The Science Behind Gratitude and Well-Being
Leah Marie Buturain Schneider, PhD
What breath is to the body, gratitude is to the soul. Neuroscientists are clear about these two connections: 1) paying attention to our breath can help us regulate our embodied emotions; 2) practicing gratitude enhances well-being. We are funny creatures though, for when we’re excited, stressed, anxious, or fearful we lose track of both! How easy in our present circumstances to get distracted from these two fundamental human gifts. Nevertheless, it’s reassuring that both practices are readily available to us, and like muscles, the more we exercise them, the stronger we become in turning to their healing benefits.
What does research on gratitude teach us? An early pioneer in gratitude research, Robert Emmons, Ph.D., UC Davis, found that people who wrote in gratitude journals fare better on sleep and a sense of well-being. They also reported experiencing more resilience—bouncing back—from life’s setbacks. An older woman who had difficulty walking and seeing wrote to Dr. Emmons that after reading his book Thanks, her new gratitude practice had changed her life. She feels joy and brings and shares joy with others. Gratitude helps us participate in sharing and receiving graces and gifts.
How Gratitude Affects the Brain and Body
Standford’s Andrew Huberman writes, “Gratitude has been linked with increased subjective well-being, resilience to trauma, heightened social relationships and an overall better quality of life.” How can we experience these gains? Listing what you’re grateful for is a good start, Huberman concedes, but it doesn’t impact neural activity as much as the practice of recalling a kindness, contemplating the goodness of that action, and wholeheartedly giving thanks to and for that person. When they remind you of what you’ve shared, Huberman states that the brain benefits from this gratitude exchange even more than a high interval training. Now that’s a superpower!
One’s intention and sincerity make a difference, when connected to the heart’s disposition, that affects the brain. Huberman referenced a study in which women with a regular gratitude practice measured less amygdala activity and lower levels of inflammatory cytokines, two aspects that hurt health when not tempered by giving of thanks.
Expressing gratitude for specific details “for the texture of my towel on my skin” yields more benefits than a general statement like, “I’m thankful for friends and family.” If you were to pause reading now, and ask yourself, what brought a smile to my face? What action or words opened my heart? Your responses could bring you joy and help you express gratitude to a source of energy greater than yourself—God or nature, yourself or someone else. Whatever we pass along in thanksgiving doubles the blessing. For the smell of jasmine in the night air, for the smile of someone who is paying attention, for the sound of birds calling outside the window, for the taste of a ripe peach—these are all graces that could easily not be savored if we were not consciously moving from automatic responses and attending to these events as gifts and graces.
Research also indicates that being aware of your meaning and purpose and practicing gratitude are two of the superpowers in aging more healthily. It makes sense that the breath, which also means the spirit, or wind, what sustains our lives helps us pay attention to our meaning and purpose. Reciprocally, reflecting on what matters, being alive and being breathed, i.e. being able to breathe “on our own” is a gift that those on oxygen do not take for granted.
When the Dalai Lama heard that the neuroscientist Richard Davidson, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Creative Minds at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, was studying why certain people were more resilient to life’s setbacks, the Dalai Lama challenged Professor Davidson to research the impact daily meditation made to the body’s health. These studies indicate that being mindful of breathing consciously and practicing gratitude are generative for a sense of meaning and purpose. When we practice giving thanks and being a witness to our storytelling as simply thoughts and feelings not necessarily “reality”, our nervous system can move from anxious alarm “red alert” to a sense of acceptance and well-being. Being grateful helps us keep perspective and “right-size” our problems and challenges.
As we age, our bodies experience new challenges. Resisting them creates more stress. We can practice gratitude for what is working which will oil the tracks for adapting to inevitable changes. Only a few things are “in our control”—for example, our attitudes and reactions, our diet and physical therapy or exercise. Most of life will unfold without our say. Welcoming reality and practicing gratitude will lower the self-induced stress that is injurious to our health.
Practicing Gratitude in Daily Life
How often do we remind ourselves or are reminded by others to find our breath, to breathe more deeply? Similarly, how often do we remember to ask ourselves not just what am I feeling gratitude for but where is that gratitude located in my body? In other words, when we register our breathing, we return to the present moment in the here and now. Similarly, when I ask myself what I am thankful for, I can pause and savor the specifics. “I am enjoying and grateful for the sunlight shining onto the honey-colored floorboards. I am enjoying the hand-woven blanket my dear friend Diarmuid sent me from Ireland that matches the coral peonies. Thank you, Creator, for imagining peonies, and thank you Trader Joe’s and Costco for carrying affordable ones.”
Perhaps you are thankful for an adult child who cares for you, or you are the adult child being the caregiver for an aging parent still engaged in life. What about the last time someone helped you by holding the door, or picking up your mail, or extending their arms to help lift the carry-on into the plane’s overhead? What if we emailed, or picked up the phone and called or texted our gratitude to someone in response, or wrote a note or posted a card? I hope that you are inspired to practice expressing some new form of gratitude. Let it be a small gesture that creates a ripple—because gratitude, when shared, has a way of multiplying.