Gratitude Practices - Ideas and Why

I think of gratitude as one of those practices that is underestimated or treated us fluff. In actuality, gratitude has been linked to better sleep, less health problems, stronger bonds in relationships, and increased happiness.

By definition, gratitude is a noun that means the quality of being thankful, readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. Similar words, synonyms are thanks, appreciation, recognition, thankfulness.

It's not too hard to think about why gratitude can be helpful in one's life. Gratitude helps you feel more positive and it also brings attention to good experiences. Sometimes we just don't take the time to notice positive events or be thankful for small things among perhaps a bad day.

GRATITUDE JOURNAL by Studio Oh! called The Jotter Guided Journal

// SOURCES:
“14 Health Benefits of Practicing Gratitude According to Science”
“Is Gratitude Good for your Health?”
"How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain"

In other words, gratitude brings attention to the things in your life that you do have rather than what you don't have. It's January 2021 and we have had a very, very tough year, meaning the United States as a whole and the globe, everyone as a whole. There are a lot of emotions to feel and work through, and there are a lot of news sources that are throwing at us significantly scary, anxiety-inducing events, and so gratitude could not be needed more than now.

If you think about gratitude as a practice that only happy, zen people do, nix that idea right now! Gratitude can be especially helpful for people who tend to join the toxicity train. So if you get caught up in the whirlwind of negative events, which I'm not blaming you for, it's natural to be caught up in them. But if you do get caught up in them and you can't snap yourself out of it, consider starting a gratitude practice because it can help you not ruminate over horrible things and help you calm your day, bring some peace to your day, let yourself get some things done that you actually have to do. And it will improve your mood and help you see some positives in the world. Usually gratitude practices somehow help you recognize your connection to other human beings, and that can also help you feel less alone.

OK, let's get to some information that I found in some studies. One article from positivepsychology.com. called “14 health benefits of practicing gratitude according to science” states, “Expressing gratitude reduces stress, increases optimism and changes your brain.” The author Corey D. Miller goes on to say that some studies showed that people who did gratitude exercises donated more money to charity.

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In another study, a weekly gratitude letter was associated with better eating habits. Gratitude can reduce inflammation when it's sustained over a long period of time. Gratitude in the workplace can make people have an increase in employee job satisfaction.

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It's really neat to know that such a simple practice of being grateful and being conscious of your what you're thankful for and showing thanks to others for what they do for you, or who they are in general, can have such great benefits in tons of areas of life.

Similar to other mindfulness meditation or prayer practices, gratitude is going to give you a more positive state of mind and that's why it can prevent or decrease the effects of mental health issues.

If you think about how that works, gratitude can increase your sense of control because you're noticing what you have and what you can do and what you're grateful for in the future, possibly. And so when you feel that confidence and that peace, you become more relaxed and that leads to improved sleep, lessened stress and possibly lessened depression. You might even have a healthier heart. I found these health benefits in the study I already referenced and also a study that was posted by Berkeley.

It's important to note that these studies also note when gratitude practices didn't work. Some of the examples they have are a test group of women who are going through a divorce, people with significant health conditions, and people who didn't do the study for a sustained amount of time. You need to practice gratitude, sometimes from 8 to 12 weeks before you can notice any changes in your outlook. Although these studies weren't able to prove that gratitude practices always result in health benefits or mental health improvement. They cannot really hurt you, so they were proven to either work or do nothing. So you might as well do it.

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Let me tell you some ways that you can practice gratitude.

1. The first thing you can try is gratitude lists. So you write a brief list, usually about the past 24 hours. Of things that you are grateful for, they could be tangible things or intangible things.

Let me explain a little bit more. For those who know me, I'm a teacher and I recently asked my students to make gratitude lists in order to teach them. I decided to give them an example of five things I was grateful for, and I showed them a paragraph I wrote about my 24 hours. And then I showed them my gratitude list so they could understand where the items on my list came from. This is the paragraph that I read to them: “I had a peaceful Sunday when I expected it to be very stressful because I was going back to work after vacation. I did laundry. I went skiing by myself and I watched TV. I was surprised at how relaxed I was all day. I made my lunch for the next day. I watched a really good movie called Brittany runs a marathon. I read a few pages in a book. I slept horribly. I woke up constantly because my subconscious was making sure I would wake up on time (6:00 AM). I have some physical pains that I wish would go away. There was a little snow on the road, but not too much, so my drive wasn't as sketchy as I expected it to be. I got to work and felt a little sick after eating breakfast. I texted my friend Jackie. Now I'm really tired.”

I then showed them my list and I ask them to guess where my gratitude lists came from. Knowing the paragraph that I had read. My list says 1. a safe drive to work 2. Good movies 3. Planning ahead 4. things in common 5. snow covered trees. They were basically able to guess where my list came from.

After my example, I asked my students to make their own list of five things they are grateful for from the last 24 hours.

TRY MAKING YOUR OWN LIST NOW ABOUT 5 THINGS IN YOUR LAST 24 HOURS…

If you're thinking that you can just do this list in your head and you don't need to write it down, there's actually a lot of science that shows that writing things down solidifies them more and makes them more real to you.

I would say gratitude lists are probably the easiest way to incorporate gratitude into your life. HOW DID YOU DO?

You don't need to worry about how it sounds when you're actually writing.

Let's go on to another gratitude practice.

2. There's one that you can do with a group of people, or perhaps with your partner. You would get a jar at the beginning of the year and you have strips of paper and perhaps once a week, you write something on it that was good news, or that you're both grateful for. And then you put it in the jar. At the end of the year on New Year's Eve, you take out every piece of paper in the jar and you read them. It's a celebration, and it's a nice way to slow down and not jump right into the new year by looking back on your year. I bet that there will be things on the strip of paper that were great and you forgot about, and so it'll be really fun to look back and read it. That came from Doctor Caroline Leaf. It's her idea, and I'd love to follow her on Instagram if you want to check her out. She has a lot of good posts about psychology and mental health.

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3. One of the classic ways that people practice gratitude. They might not even be realizing it, but it's a famous meditation called the Lovingkindness Meditation. Basically, you could find this online and it would lead you through thinking and saying out loud that you are thankful for yourself; you have a wish for yourself; and then you turn it around and you think of someone else in your life and you answer the same questions about them

4. A common practice that a lot of religious folks might do is pray, pray before dinner. Prayer does include gratitude. In fact, you might try starting every prayer with thanks. Prayer, in the brain, is the same as meditation. I learned that in Finding God in the Waves.

5. A really easy but sort of vulnerable practice is writing thank you notes to people. Thank you notes used to be really common and it depends on the home that you grew up in, but I remember writing thank you notes for various gifts that I received, especially thank you notes after a graduation. Whether you're used to writing thank you notes or gratitude notes or not, it is something good to try because not only are you spending a sustained amount of time thinking about what you're grateful for, but you're writing it down, which I mentioned before as being an added benefit to solidify the thought. And you're sharing that gratitude with someone else.

6. A really complex way to practice gratitude is to recall a negative event. If it's far behind you, usually you can try and practice gratitude by seeing what came of it or finding what is present in your life. What are you grateful for that would not have happened or wouldn't appear the same if you had not gone through the negative event?

7. In a similar vein, you can think about what you have done to someone who you love that was not great. What that means is it's a reflection exercise (I'm still referencing positivepsychology.com) and it looks like it's called the Naikan reflection exercise. You ask, what did this person give to me? What did I return to this person and what trouble did I cause? “It also allows people to discover how much they take versus given personal relationships.”

Another article by Berkeley explains how gratitude changes your brain so your brain becomes activated in the medial prefrontal cortex when you're thinking about gratitude or experiencing gratitude. Down the line, in the future, your brain will be sensitive to gratitude an it can activate the prefrontal cortex faster.

That will eventually lead you to be a happier, healthier person because it will be easier and quicker for you to experience gratitude which can lead to the health effects that I mentioned in the beginning.