A Grateful Atheist

By Neece, on December 5, 2008, at 5:22 pm

I learned about a study through Scientific American yesterday. Psychologists, writing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that people keeping a weekly gratitude journal exercised an hour and a half longer per week than those who kept a complaining journal.

Basically, once a week for 10 weeks, people in the study would write down up to 5 things they were grateful for. It could be as simple as “waking up this morning”. By the end of the study, they were working out an hour and a half more per week than a group that wrote about life’s hassles, like “stupid people driving”.

Ironically, I’ve had trouble being motivated to exercise and keep a food journal since Thanksgiving, so I thought I’d give this a shot. Last night I wrote down 5 things I’m grateful for. It was pretty easy.

But that got me thinking. It smacks of “counting your blessings”, doesn’t it? I just wondered, if I’m not grateful to someone, how does that work?

Gratitude: noun – the quality or feeling of being grateful or thankful.
Origin: 1400–50; late ME < ML grātitūdin- (s. of grātitūdō) thankfulness, equiv. to grāt(us) pleasing + -i- -i- + -tūdin- -tude

Ok, so I guess I can be grateful, and it doesn’t have to be to anyone in particular. I guess I was thinking it was more like the christian idea of counting your blessings and thanking god. Blech!

Being free of god, I wasn’t sure about how gratitude worked. I guess it’s just an acknowledgment of what is good in your life.

Anyway, I thought I’d share the study with you. Aren’t you lucky, you get my thoughts that go with it as an added bonus.