Several evenings a week, as Tyler VanderWeele gathers around the dinner table with his wife and two young kids, the family deliberately pauses during the meal to do something simple but profound. Each member shares several things for which they’re grateful — an act that VanderWeele, co-director of the Initiative on Health, Spirituality, and Religion at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, feels changes his family dynamic for the better.

“I do think it makes a difference and can be a very powerful practice,” he says. “Even on those bad days where life seems difficult, that effort is worthwhile.”

Gratitude, health, and longevity

How can the power of gratitude affect our lives? Recent research has pointed to gratitude’s myriad positive health effects, including greater emotional and social well-being, better sleep quality, lower depression risks, and favorable markers of cardiovascular health. Now, new data from the long-term Nurses’ Health Study shows that it may extend lives.