@Approximation said in #4:
> Positive Feedback, token of appreciation, kind words, demonstrating manners = all are reasons for saying thank you to someone who has helped. I feel the value of saying 'Thank you' is diminished when people fail to use it, or don't understand what that show of gratitude does for the helping person.
>
> Moreover, A helper is more likely to continue their deeds of help to a person who shows at least a token of gratitude than someone who shows the opposite - "spitting in their face."
>
> So, this courtesy has value. And, I think, it's important to remember to use it more often - up to a point its value isn't negative due to over-use, rather than taking their help for granted, which is far to easy to do.
>
> I also appreciate a post with a kind theme, as I notice it, where I can contribute postively on it, being intelligent, but I almost never say Thank you for just for that, I think, because that would be seen as excessive and against a social norm of doing so. Also, if everyone did it, I probably wouldn't do it, because of it being overdone, as well. I just hope my comments are appreciated as much as what got the thoughts first stirring though.
>
> I think, your post shares a topic about a good idea, which I hope has other positive, intelligent, contributions as well. :)
Thank you for this wonderful post friend. I noticed your earlier posts which were uplifting and positive and thank you for those as well.
Best wishes.
Tolkien said:
>Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.
@Black-Swan-22's posts certainly fall into this category.
On the topic of health, from modern day to elder-day people have studied this and found lots of benefits.
William James (author of Varieties of Religious Experience),
and Abraham Maslow both are older ones who paved the way (the 4th chapter of Varieties (The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness) is truly wonderful and I would say contains essentially all one would need to know about this.
More recent studies:
>Two psychologists, Dr. Robert A. Emmons of the University of California, Davis, and Dr. Michael E. McCullough of the University of Miami, have done much of the research on gratitude. In one study, they asked all participants to write a few sentences each week, focusing on particular topics.
>One group wrote about things they were grateful for that had occurred during the week. A second group wrote about daily irritations or things that had displeased them, and the third wrote about events that had affected them (with no emphasis on them being positive or negative). After 10 weeks, those who wrote about gratitude were more optimistic and felt better about their lives. Surprisingly, they also exercised more and had fewer visits to physicians than those who focused on sources of aggravation.
>Another leading researcher in this field, Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, tested the impact of various positive psychology interventions on 411 people, each compared with a control assignment of writing about early memories. When their week's assignment was to write and personally deliver a letter of gratitude to someone who had never been properly thanked for his or her kindness, participants immediately exhibited a huge increase in happiness scores. This impact was greater than that from any other intervention, with benefits lasting for a month.
>Of course, studies such as this one cannot prove cause and effect. But most of the studies published on this topic support an association between gratitude and an individual's well-being.
www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-make-you-happier 
