Dr. Zorba Paster: Showing gratitude can help others

How often do you thank people for what they do? It’s certainly a habit for most of us when we receive something. Teaching our kids to say “please” and “thank you” was part of good parenting for me and my wife, Penny, and we had them do it all the time. It makes life a little kinder.

Now a recent study of nurses in Oregon shows that as many times as we show gratitude, it might not be enough – especially for people we work with side by side.

Portland State University researchers studied nurses looking at how satisfied they were with their jobs or how burned out they were. Hospital nursing can be a thankless job.

It’s physical, and you’re working with patients who might scream at you while you have to keep a straight face. Patients aren’t always at their best, so nurses can get lots of things thrown at them – including, well, you know.

The study took nearly 150 nurses and had them keep track of how they felt physically and mentally. After a period of time, the hospital staff started to go out of their way to thank the nurses for their work.

The more the staff thanked the nurses, the greater the nurses felt. They slept better, had fewer headaches and, get this, they also ate healthier. My spin: Showing gratitude makes those you come into contact with feel better. The more you show it, the better they feel.

And the better you feel, too.

Please, Doc: Will you stop recommending consumerlab.com. They keep charging my credit card, and I can’t get them to stop. I have a medical background and find the newsletter useless. Please save me from them and their greedy charges. –H.M.

Dear H.M.: I looked up the price, and it’s $3.50 a month when you get a 12-month subscription. That’s less than a Big Mac or a typical sub at Subway – it’s a Grande Latte at Starbucks.

I don’t call that a lot. I know that we’re used to not paying anything for information, but there is a time to step up to the plate and pay your share.

If you want good information not colored by advertisements, you need to be part of that equation and put in some greenbacks. Someone has to pay to have these products analyzed. It’s us.

For anyone who uses supplements, it’s a must because they test them to see what their potency is and tell you how much it costs per unit. For example, let’s say you’re using curcumin for arthritis. They tested 20 products and found that four didn’t have what they said they should have.

These were not approved. Among the ones they recommended, the lowest price was 37 cents per day and the highest was $2.17 per day, a six-fold difference. This is good information. Who wants to take a pill with blanks, and who wants to spend extra money for the same product?

My spin: You get what you pay for, and sometimes you have to ante up.