Gratitude Practice As a Resource for Navigating Aging Challenges

Background and Purpose:

Aging well is a global concern requiring holistic approaches that attend to biological, psychological, social, spiritual, and ecological dimensions of well-being. Gratitude has been widely studied in the social sciences, with interventions associated with improved well-being and health. However, scholars have called for research that reflects diverse spiritual and cultural perspectives beyond predominantly Western psychological frameworks. In Won Buddhism, a modern spiritual tradition originating in Korea, gratitude is considered a foundational practice grounded in interdependence. This study explores how older adults engage in spiritually grounded gratitude practice and how such practice shapes experiences of aging, with implications for gerontological social work.

Methods:

This qualitative study included 23 community-dwelling older adult practitioners (aged 67–85, mean age = 74) from English-speaking Won Buddhist communities in the United States. Participants were recruited through purposive sampling via public announcements and referrals from ministers. Participants had 3–29 years of spiritual practice experience and represented diverse prior religious backgrounds. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted via Zoom, audio-recorded, and transcribed. Data were analyzed using constant comparative thematic analysis to identify recurring patterns and themes. Manual coding was conducted in Excel, with supplementary AI-assisted tools used to enhance organization, analytic rigor, and depth.

Results:

Findings showed that gratitude practice shaped participants’ perspectives on aging and responses to aging-related challenges. Twelve participants described aging as a positive developmental stage characterized by increased wisdom, acceptance, and spiritual growth, emphasizing continued learning rather than loss. Participants reported using gratitude practices alongside meditation and mindfulness to reinterpret physical limitations (e.g., arthritis, reduced mobility) as opportunities to “honor the body” and focus on remaining abilities. Across interviews, gratitude functioned as a meaning-making process that transformed emotional responses to aging, shifting experiences of fear, frustration, or anger toward acceptance, hope, and what one participant described as “happy maturity,” reflecting a broader pattern of positive orientation toward later life. Participants described engaging in reflective gratitude practices to manage pain and uncertainty, suggesting that gratitude operated not only as an attitude but as an embodied practice supporting resilience and adaptive coping. Analytic patterns indicated that participants intentionally directed attention toward remaining abilities and integrated gratitude into daily life as an ongoing practice supporting adaptation to later-life transitions.

Conclusions and Implications:

This study expands prevailing psychological understandings of gratitude by conceptualizing spiritually grounded gratitude practice as a relational and practice-based way of living that supports meaning-making in later life. Findings suggest that gratitude-informed reflective practices may be integrated into gerontological social work as strengths-based resources that help older adults reinterpret aging-related challenges and sustain resilience. Incorporating brief gratitude-based reflection into assessment and intervention may support emotional regulation, reinterpretation of aging-related changes, and holistic well-being across later-life transitions. These findings contribute to ongoing efforts to develop culturally responsive and spiritually informed approaches that support aging well across diverse populations and inform future research on spiritually integrated approaches to adaptation in later-life.