The Benefits of Practicing Gratitude
Written by Natalie Glennon
Picture this: you’re in class, and your teacher decides to give you a pop quiz. Dang! They hand out the quiz papers, but you notice that there aren’t any questions on the quiz—only a black dot in the middle of a blank white page. The teacher asks you to write about what you see. Overwhelmingly, you and your classmates write about the black dot—its position, its size, its shade—but nobody writes about the majority of the page made up of white space. Instead of assigning grades, your teacher uses this opportunity to teach the class about mindsets and perspectives.
They explain that the black dot represents a minor flaw or source of negativity on an otherwise perfectly good canvas. Naturally, we tend to fixate on the black dots of our lives, which are our imperfections and issues, despite having an abundance of strengths and benefits otherwise. This prevents us from being truly satisfied with our lives and often lets us take what we have for granted. Practicing gratitude can help us retrain our brains to focus on the good in our lives, see the black dot as it is without magnifying it, and accept that black dots are inevitable—and that’s okay!
How Gratitude Fosters Health and Happiness
A popular practice in positive psychology, gratitude involves taking time to list and reflect on the things you are grateful for. Whether you express gratitude for significant experiences such as getting a new job or for small blessings like a nice cup of coffee, this simple practice can have powerful effects on both your mental and physical health as it garners feelings of hope, resilience, and overall life satisfaction. There are numerous benefits that result from this mindset shift and can last for weeks or even months on end, including:
Improved sleep
Reduced stress
Lowered symptoms of depression
Lowered risk of heart disease
Lowered valuation of materialism
Increased generosity
Strengthened interpersonal relationships
Improved mood
How to Incorporate Gratitude in Your Life
There are many different ways to incorporate gratitude into your life, depending on what kind of person you are, what your schedule looks like, and what kind of habits you want to build. Here are a few tips that can help you get started:
Savor the moment. Although creating physical gratitude lists is an important part of the process, one step that can help you shift into a more appreciative mindset is savoring. This involves being mindful about what you are grateful for and trying to soak up as much of that moment or that memory as possible. You could make mental notes about the details of your environment, the senses you’re experiencing, and the emotions that you feel. When we actively acknowledge how meaningful something is and how much it affects us, we reap the benefits of it even more.
Write it down. If you’re the type of person who enjoys journaling, you can try out gratitude journaling! Dedicating time to regularly write about the things you’re grateful for can be incredibly beneficial, and it can even inspire more topics to journal about. Studies also show that writing a gratitude letter to someone special in your life and reading it out loud to them can have positive effects that last a month after you do this. However, if you’re reading this and thinking “I don’t have time for that!”, don’t worry. Writing gratitude lists can also be as easy as jotting down your thoughts on a post-it note or in your notes app. I personally use the app Gratitude Jar which reminds me to document my gratitudes at the same time every day. You could even text your gratitudes to a friend and hold each other accountable for completing this practice—and then experience the benefits together!
Find a routine that works for you. Making gratitude practices a part of your routine can be an easy way to incorporate it into your daily life. You can make a gratitude list when you wake up, before you go to bed, or while you’re meditating or praying. Although keeping a daily gratitude list has proven to be beneficial for many, it can be difficult for others, especially those who struggle with their mental health. If you’re one of those people, I see you. You can still experience the benefits of gratitude by starting small and working your way up, or by practicing gratitude just three times a week. What’s most important is that you do what feels good for you and try not to feel guilty if it’s hard to come up with genuine gratitude sometimes—we’ve all been there.
All in all, the point of practicing gratitude is to shift our mindset so that we make the most of our days instead of trying to make the least of them, which is instinctual for many of us. Even if you find it difficult to get into a routine at first, completing this practice at all can still have immediate benefits as it helps you feel a little bit more grounded and hopeful.