The dawn of a new season, a new year, a new decade, can often make us pause and offer a time of reflection – what have we done well, and what hasn’t gone quite as we had planned. It also offers us opportunity to work towards what we would like to change in the future.
The art of gratitude, the idea of an ‘Attitude of Gratitude’ has far reaching benefits in many areas of our lives, of which I want to just explore three, and then set you a challenge ……
1. Better Physical and Mental Health
Feeling appreciated helps us to have healthier minds as well as healthier bodies. A 2015 research study showed that patients with heart failure who completed gratitude journals had:
- reduced inflammation,
- improved sleep,
- better moods;
which reduced their symptoms of heart failure after only 8 weeks.
A 2003 study on the impact of practicing gratitude showed that after 10 weeks, people who focused on gratitude showed more cheerfulness in many areas of their lives, including health and exercise. This changed the way they acted and supported an overall healthy lifestyle.
2. Improved Relationships
Showing gratitude with someone you live with, colleague or friend, is a powerful tool for strengthening interpersonal relationships. Not only does it help with forming and maintaining relationships, but also promotes relationship connection and satisfaction. People who express their gratitude for each other tend to be more willing to forgive others and less self focussed (DeShea, 2003; Farwell & Wohlwend-Lloyd, 1998). (Algoe et al., 2008; Algoe, Gable, & Maisel, 2010).
3. Improved Self-Control
We all know how hard it can be exercise self control, especially when it comes to avoiding the alcohol, overspending or sticking to a healthy diet.
Self-Control helps with discipline and focus as well as helping us stick to the “better choice” for our long-term health, financial future, and well-being.
A study by DeSteno et al. in 2014 found that self-control significantly increased when subjects chose gratitude over happiness or feeling neutral. One of the study’s authors, Professor Ye Li, said:
“Showing that emotion {gratitude} can foster self-control and discovering a way to reduce impatience. With a simple gratitude exercise it opens up tremendous possibilities for reducing a wide range of societal ills from impulse buying and insufficient saving, to obesity and smoking.”
The very art of being thankful can provide us the resolve we need to make choices in our lives that serve us in the long run both emotionally and physically. As this study highlights, there are so many applications to using gratitude as a path towards being healthier as individuals as well as our communities.
So if you would like to be healthier in your mind, body and relationships this year, combined with the self control to do that, then why not start with this challenge of committing to completing 30 days of gratitude. Below are 5 simple ways to foster an ‘Attitude of Gratitude’.
5 Practical Ways To Foster An ‘Attitude of Gratitude’
- Keep it fresh and keep it specific. Aim to go beyond “I am thankful for my family” to… I am thankful for the dinner prepped for me after busy day at work.
- Gratitude journal – try writing or drawing at least 3 things at the beginning and end of each day that you are thankful for – look at people, your environment, things you can’t do without as a starting point.
- Gratitude With Friends & Family – At our Christmas Eve dinner, We each had a piece of paper and wrote one thing we were grateful for before folding it over and handing it onto to the next person to write their gratitude on. At the end we all read out the different gratitudes on the paper in front of us. You may simply want to verbally ask what thing have they been most grateful for this week/month. As a family you may want to choose one person for every one else to comment on what they are most grateful for in that person.
- Gratitude Jar – Choose one day each week for each member of the family to write a gratitude a pop it in the jar. From time to time, take the opportunity to re-read your gratitudes.
- Write a thank-you card/note/letter. It’s so rare to receive a card or letter in the post these days, which probably makes it even more special. Having a ready supply of cards and stamps makes it so much easier to be spontaneous.
