When a revolutionary new technique or therapy is described, it can take a while for science to catch up. Funding must be obtained to conduct studies. Studies must be performed, reviewed by committees of the researchers’ peers, critiqued, refined, and replicated.

This process takes years, and often decades. Much of the medical progress in the last fifty years has resulted from studies that build upon studies, from step by step incremental experimentation, with each step extending the reach of our knowledge a little bit further.

This evolutionary progress over the lifetimes of the last few generations has encouraged us to think that this is the way that science progresses. Yes, it is a way – but it is not the only way. There are scores of important medical procedures that were discovered years, or decades, or even centuries, before the experimental confirmation arrived to demonstrate the principles behind the treatment.

Here are some reflections on what science has to say about gratitude, which has been called the “forgotten factor” in happiness research.

Psychologists Robert Emmons at the University of California at Davis, and Michael McCullough, at the University of Miami, are foremost researchers in field of gratitude. What they have learned so far is that gratitude is good for you, really good for you.

In an experimental comparison, people who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events (Emmons & McCullough, 2003). It doesn’t end there.

In 1982 a remarkable event took place. At the University of Paris a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed what may turn out to be one of the most important experiments of the 20th century. You did not hear about it on the evening news. In fact, unless you are in the habit of reading scientific journals you probably have never even heard Aspect’s name, though there are some who believe his discovery may change the face of science.

Aspect and his team discovered that under certain circumstances subatomic particles such as electrons are able to instantaneously communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating them. It doesn’t matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion miles apart.

Do you get a knot in your stomach when you sit down to pay the bills each month?  Wake up in the middle of the night wondering how you’re ever going to get out of debt?  Get a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness when you read headlines about the housing crisis, oil prices, soaring health care costs, inflation, recession and unemployment?

If you’re feeling worried and anxious about money, you’re not alone.  For millions of people, financial stress is eating away at their basic sense of security and well-being.  And it’s not just bank accounts that are being drained, but also physical and emotional resources, which in turn impact health, relationships, productivity and happiness.