感恩的五种方式可以改善你的生活

Some Thanksgiving traditions are best in small doses, like pie binges, chair naps and televised parade coverage. But thanks to a group of scientists at the University of California-Berkeley, the holiday's namesake spirit of gratitude is quickly outgrowing its November context, fed by research that points to wide-ranging health benefits from a steady diet of thankfulness.

有些感恩节传统最好是小剂量的，比如馅饼大餐、在椅子上打盹和电视上报道游行。不过，加州大学伯克利分校的一群科学家表示，感恩节的感恩精神正迅速超越11月的背景，研究显示，经常感恩对健康有广泛好处。

This vintage Thanksgiving card is circa 1870, long before football games and overindulging marked the holiday celebration. (Photo: cea + [CC BY 2.0]/Flickr)

Here's a closer look at some potential benefits year-round gratitude can bring:

以下是一些全年感恩可能带来的潜在好处:

1. Less stress, better moods

压力越小，心情越好

Grateful people tend to be happier, according to research cited by the GGSC. A study published in the journal Social Behavior and Personality used a questionnaire to test "dispositional gratitude," linking it to several measures of subjective well-being and reporting that "grateful thinking improved mood." A study in Clinical Psychology Review tied gratitude to reduced anxiety and depression, stating it's "strongly related to well-being, however defined, and this link may be unique and causal." It also noted the potential for gratitude exercises in clinical psychology.

GGSC引用的研究表明，感恩的人往往更快乐。发表在《社会行为与人格》杂志上的一项研究使用了一份问卷来测试“性格上的感恩”，将其与几个主观幸福感指标联系起来，并报告称“感恩思维改善了情绪”。《临床心理学评论》上的一项研究将感恩与减轻焦虑和抑郁联系在一起，称它“无论如何定义，都与幸福感密切相关，而且这种联系可能是独特的、因果性的。”它还指出了在临床心理学中感恩练习的潜力。

2. Less pain, more gain

少一点痛苦，多一点收获

Beyond helping us exorcise anxiety, gratitude might also help us exercise. It "encourages us to exercise more and take better care of our health," the GGSC says, and research by Emmons and University of Miami psychologist Michael McCullough suggests it contributes to a wide range of physical health benefits, including a stronger immune system, reduced disease symptoms and lower blood pressure. It can even make people "less bothered by aches and pains," the GGSC adds.

除了帮助我们驱除焦虑，感恩还可以帮助我们锻炼身体。它“鼓励我们多锻炼，更好地照顾我们的健康，”GGSC说，埃蒙斯和迈阿密大学的心理学家迈克尔·麦卡洛的研究表明，它对身体健康有广泛的好处，包括增强免疫系统，减少疾病症状和降低血压。GGSC补充道，它甚至可以让人们“少受疼痛的困扰”。

3. Better sleep

更好的睡眠

Grateful people get more sleep each night. (Photo: gpointstudio/Shutterstock)

A good night's sleep can make anyone thankful, but a study published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research found the reverse is true, too. Grateful people get more hours of sleep per night, fall asleep more quickly and feel more refreshed upon waking. "This is the first study to show that a positive trait is related to good sleep quality above the effect of other personality traits," the study's authors wrote, adding it's "also the first to show ... gratitude is related to sleep and to explain why this occurs, suggesting future directions for research and novel clinical implications." As the GGSC puts it, "to sleep more soundly, count blessings, not sheep."

睡个好觉会让人心存感激，但《身心研究杂志》上发表的一项研究发现，事实正好相反。感恩的人每晚睡眠时间更长，入睡更快，醒来后更有精神。该研究的作者写道:“这是第一个表明积极的性格特征比其他性格特征更能影响睡眠质量的研究。”感恩与睡眠有关，并解释为什么会发生这种情况，为未来的研究方向和新的临床意义提供建议。”正如GGSC所说，“要想睡得更香，数一数祝福，而不是羊。”

4. Stronger relationships

更好的人际关系

Expressing gratitude to a relationship partner — whether a close friend, colleague or significant other — "enhances one's perception of the relationship's communal strength," according to a study in Psychological Science. Feeling thankful for a friend's generosity or a spouse's patience helps you appreciate the relationship's mutual give-and-take, as long as gratitude doesn't mutate into feelings of indebtedness. "Although indebtedness may maintain external signals of relationship engagement," the authors of another study wrote, "gratitude had uniquely predictive power in relationship promotion, perhaps acting as a booster shot for the relationship."

《心理科学》杂志的一项研究表明，对伴侣——无论是亲密的朋友、同事还是重要的人——表达感激“能增强一个人对这段关系的集体力量的感知”。对朋友的慷慨或配偶的耐心心存感激，有助于你欣赏这段关系中相互的给予和接受，只要感激之情不转变为负债之感。另一项研究的作者写道:“尽管负债可能会维持关系投入的外部信号，但感恩在促进关系方面具有独特的预测力，可能会成为关系的一剂强心针。”

5. Resilience

恢复力

Misfortune itself is rarely cause for thanks, but Emmons says a broader sense of gratitude — religious or not — comes from learning to take nothing for granted. "Our national holiday of gratitude, Thanksgiving, was born and grew out of hard times," he writes for the GGSC. "The first Thanksgiving took place after nearly half the pilgrims died from a rough winter and year. It became a national holiday in 1863 in the middle of the Civil War and was moved to its current date in the 1930s following the Depression." Even among war veterans with post-traumatic stress syndrome, a study published in Behaviour Research and Therapy found that dispositional gratitude predicted things like daily self-esteem, "daily intrinsically motivating activity" and percentage of pleasant days "over and above" the severity of PTSD.

不幸本身很少成为感恩的理由，但埃蒙斯说，一种更广泛的感恩之心——无论是否信教——来自于学会不把任何事视为理所当然。他在GGSC网站上写道:“我们国家感恩的节日——感恩节——诞生了，并在艰难时期成长起来。”第一个感恩节发生在将近一半的清教徒死于一个艰难的冬天和一年之后。1863年美国内战期间，感恩节成为美国的国定假日，并在20世纪30年代的大萧条后改为现在的节日。”一项发表在《行为研究与治疗》杂志上的研究发现，即使是患有创伤后应激综合症的战争老兵，性格上的感激之情也比创伤后应激障碍的严重程度更能预测诸如日常自尊、"日常内在激励活动"和快乐时光的比例等因素。