Practise gratitude to reduce stress: Study

Researchers from Irish institutions discovered that gratitude has a unique stress-buffering effect on reactions to and recovery from acute psychological stress, which can contribute to better cardiovascular health.
Authors Brian Leavy, Brenda H. O’Connell and Deirdre O’Shea propose that, although previous research suggests that gratitude and affect-balance play key stress-buffering roles, little has been known to date about the impact of these variables on cardiovascular recovery from acute psychological stress. The argument was made in an article, ‘Gratitude, affect balance, and stress-buffering: A growth curve examination of cardiovascular responses to a laboratory stress task’, published in January in the Journal of Psychophysiology.
The research carried out at the Irish University of Maynooth involved 68 undergraduate students (24 male and 44 female), aged between 18 and 57 years. This study used a within-subjects experimental design with lab tasks in which stress was induced to participants, and then cardiovascular reactivity and recovery in response to this were measured.
The results showed that state gratitude predicted lower systolic blood pressure responses throughout the stress-testing period, which means that the state of gratitude has a unique stress-buffering effect on both reactions to and recovery from acute psychological stress. It was also found that affect balance amplifies the effects of state gratitude.