More Thankful, Less Stressed? - Neuroscience News

Researchers from Irish universities carried out a study with 68 adults and found that gratitude has a unique stress-buffering effect on both reactions to and recovery from acute psychological stress, which can contribute to the improvement of cardiovascular health.

That was the focus of the study by the researchers from the Universities of Maynooth and Limerick in Ireland, who also sought to find out whether affect balance moderates the relationship between gratitude and cardiovascular reactions to acute psychological stress.

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 was measured.

Combined with the results of this study and previous work, gratitude may thus constitute a useful point of intervention for the improvement of our cardiovascular health.

Mixed-effects growth curve models were fit and the results indicated that state gratitude predicted lower systolic blood pressure responses throughout the stress-testing period.