Essentials: The Science of Gratitude & How to Build a Gratitude Practice

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, I explore the science of gratitude and how to develop an effective, research-supported gratitude practice. I explain why common gratitude practices (like simply listing things you're grateful for) are far less impactful than engaging in story-based gratitude practices. I also explain how being grateful activates specific brain regions, which enhance calm, social connection and motivation, while reducing anxiety and inflammation. Finally, I share why we can't simply trick our brains into feeling grateful and describe a practical weekly gratitude practice that will improve both your mental and physical well-being. Read the episode show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AGZ by AG1: https://drinkagz.com/huberman Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman Our Place: https://fromourplace.com/huberman Timestamps (0:00) Gratitude (0:30) Gratitude Practice Benefits (3:22) Pro-Social vs Defensive Behaviors, Gratitude (6:25) Sponsor: Eight Sleep (8:07) Serotonin, Brain & Context, Gratitude Mindset (14:02) Context, Can You Lie to Yourself? (14:48) Effective Gratitude Practice, Tools: Receiving Gratitude, Story (21:18) Sponsor: AGZ by AG1 (22:47) Tool: Find & Revisit Inspirational Stories (27:30) Heartfelt Intention, Genuine Thanks (29:42) Sponsor: Our Place (31:03) Gratitude Practice Benefits for Anxiety, Fear & Motivation (33:29) Gratitude Practice Benefits for Immune System (36:02) Recap: Establishing an Effective Gratitude Practice Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable
0:05.8	science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. I'm Andrew Huberman,
0:12.7	and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today we are
0:17.4	talking all about the science of gratitude. There's now a wealth of data showing that having
0:22.2	an effective gratitude practice can impact
0:25.1	a huge number of health variables,
0:27.1	both mental health and physical health,
0:29.3	in positive ways.
0:30.5	However, in researching this episode,
0:32.3	I was completely surprised as to what constitutes
0:35.1	an effective gratitude practice. I, I think like many of you, would have thought that an effective gratitude practice.
0:38.2	I think like many of you would have thought
0:40.3	that an effective gratitude practice simply involves
0:42.4	writing down a few things or many things
0:44.7	that we're grateful for or thinking about those
0:46.8	or really making an effort to somaticize
0:51.0	or feel some of the elements of gratitude
0:54.4	while writing out that list or thinking about that list.
0:57.3	It turns out that an effective gratitude practice
1:00.1	doesn't resemble that at all.
1:01.9	The neuroimaging data, the physiological data,
1:04.2	looking at things like inflammatory markers,
	...

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