Gratitude: the link to well-being

There is some fascinating research on the effects of practicing gratitude and your emotional, spiritual and mental well-being. It started with a short quiz on how and when you are grateful. You can take it here.
Over the course of a number of studies, psychologists found a link between those who practiced gratitude and happiness and well-being. "People who describe themselves as feeling grateful to others and either to God or to creation in general tend to have higher vitality and more optimism, suffer less stress, and experience fewer episodes of clinical depression than the population as a whole. These results hold even when researchers factor out such things as age, health, and income, equalizing for the fact that the young, the well-to-do, or the hale and hearty might have 'more to be grateful for.'" Read further summaries.