{"id":65833,"date":"2026-03-20T14:30:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?post_type=sermon-illustrations&#038;p=65833"},"modified":"2026-03-20T14:30:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:30:41","slug":"research-shows-how-to-learn-gratitude","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/research-shows-how-to-learn-gratitude\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Shows How to Learn Gratitude"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Researcher Arthur C. Brooks gave a summary based on numerous studies on the benefits of gratitude: Thankfulness raises human beings\u2019 happiness. It stimulates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, part of the brain\u2019s reward circuit. Gratitude can make us more resilient, and enhance relationships by strengthening romantic ties, bolstering friendships, and creating family bonds that endure during times of crisis. It may improve many health indicators, such as blood pressure and diet. Gratitude can make us more generous with others, more patient, and less materialistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gratitude also appears to be something that you can improve through practice. For example, in a 2018 study, four psychologists randomly split a sample of 153 human subjects into groups that were assigned to either remember something they were grateful for or think about something unrelated. The grateful remembering group experienced more than five times as much positive emotion as the control group. Regularly practicing gratitude and praise to God really will make us more thankful people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[4092,5144,5145,5147],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-65833","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-gratitude","tax_ctp_tags-thankfulness","tax_ctp_tags-thanks","tax_ctp_tags-thanksgiving-day"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Research Shows How to Learn Gratitude - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/research-shows-how-to-learn-gratitude\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Research Shows How to Learn Gratitude - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Researcher Arthur C. Brooks gave a summary based on numerous studies on the benefits of gratitude: Thankfulness raises human beings\u2019 happiness. It stimulates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, part of the brain\u2019s reward circuit. Gratitude can make us more resilient, and enhance relationships by strengthening romantic ties, bolstering friendships, and creating family bonds that endure during Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/research-shows-how-to-learn-gratitude\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-20T14:30:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/research-shows-how-to-learn-gratitude\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/research-shows-how-to-learn-gratitude\/\",\"name\":\"Research Shows How to Learn Gratitude - CT Pastors\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-03-20T14:30:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-20T14:30:41+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/research-shows-how-to-learn-gratitude\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/research-shows-how-to-learn-gratitude\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/research-shows-how-to-learn-gratitude\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Research Shows How to Learn Gratitude\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"name\":\"CT Pastors\",\"description\":\"Timeless wisdom for pastors with forward-thinking solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Christianity Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"caption\":\"Christianity Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/CTpastors\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Research Shows How to Learn Gratitude - CT Pastors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/research-shows-how-to-learn-gratitude\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Research Shows How to Learn Gratitude - CT Pastors","og_description":"Researcher Arthur C. 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