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I woke up this morning at a relatively regular 1:41am and immediately two thoughts – completely intertwined – went through my head. A simple prayer of thanks I say when I wake and seeing a reminder that today is Thanksgiving in the US.
The Simple Prayer
As I’ve mentioned before, I am a person of faith and there is a prayer many Jews say on waking…a very very simple one called ‘Modeh Ani’. In English this very short prayer translates as: “I give thanks before You, living and eternal King, for You have mercifully restored my soul within me; Your faithfulness is great.”.
I know other faiths have similar concepts – it is a prayer of gratitude humility and thanksgiving. Other belief sets too and approaches of life outside of religion have similar approaches as this study shows of American Nun’s below.
The Study
The late and great Former Chief Rabbi of the UK, Lord Jonathan Sacks, a man I respected greatly and had the chance to meet, wrote in an article I just found now:
“The first words we are taught to say each morning, immediately on waking, are Modeh Ani, “I give thanks.” We thank before we think. Note that the normal word order is inverted: Modeh Ani, not Ani Modeh, so that in Hebrew the “thanks” comes before the “I.” Judaism is “gratitude with attitude.” And this, according to recent scientific research, really is a life-enhancing idea…..
Not until the early 1990s did a major piece of medical research reveal the dramatic physical effects of thanksgiving. It became known as the Nun Study. Some 700 American nuns, all members of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in the United States, agreed to allow their records to be accessed by a research team investigating the process of ageing and Alzheimer’s Disease. At the start of the study the participants were aged between 75 and 102
What gave this study its unusual longitudinal scope is that in 1930 the nuns, then in their twenties, had been asked by the Mother Superior to write a brief autobiographical account of their life and their reasons for entering the convent. These documents were analysed by the researchers using a specially devised coding system to register, among other things, positive and negative emotions. By annually assessing the nuns’ current state of health, the researchers were able to test whether their emotional state in 1930 had an effect on their health some sixty years later. Because they had all lived a very similar lifestyle during these six decades, they formed an ideal group for testing hypotheses about the relationship between emotional attitudes and health.
The results, published in 2001, were startling. The more positive emotions – contentment, gratitude, happiness, love and hope – the nuns expressed in their autobiographical notes, the more likely they were to be alive and well sixty years later. The difference was as much as seven years in life expectancy. So remarkable was this finding that it has led, since then, to a new field of gratitude research, as well as a deepening understanding of the impact of emotions on physical health….
Hence the transformative idea: giving thanks is beneficial to the body and the soul. It contributes to both happiness and health. It is also a self-fulfilling attitude: the more we celebrate the good, the more good we discover that is worthy of celebration.”
Thanksgiving:
As a non American I have never deep dived into Thanksgiving, but have always had huge respect for the fact that the country takes a day for as the expression in the UK says: The clue is in the title.
On looking further this morning I found the following insight from a recent blog on the Website of a social foundation called the “Same House” foundation.
“Known today as the “Mother of Thanksgiving,” Sarah Josepha Hale was many things: a writer, an abolitionist, an early advocate for women’s education, and the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, one of the most influential publications of the 19th century.
For 17 years, she campaigned tirelessly for a national day of gratitude. She wrote article after article, sent letters to governors and presidents, and made her case to anyone who would listen. Her conviction was simple but powerful: If the entire nation—North and South, rich and poor, rural and urban—could stop for a single day and give thanks together, Americans might remember their shared identity, shared values, and shared future.
Thanksgiving, she believed, could act as a sort of civic reset button. A reminder that despite our differences, we belong to the same national family.”
Having read this and other background pieces, I am still in awe of the idea.
PSP
PSP is terrible but as a person of faith I believe everything is ultimately for a reason. That doesn’t mean the same as I understand it or even like it.
I am however grateful for it and Thank God for it because even with the downs (and having an aweful terminal disease is a pretty big down) my life is completely blessed primarily by having a wonderful family and a life that still gives me purpose and meaning.
So as Americans pause to give thanks, and I whisper my own prayer of gratitude, I’m reminded that positivity isn’t just a mindset—it’s medicine for the soul. Research proves it, and life confirms it.
Happy Thanksgiving!
