Gratitude is more than a holiday
With this week being Thanksgiving week, I believe that practicing gratitude and giving thanks reach a peak in the year! That being said, having grown up in the United States, it can seem like a, “here today, gone tomorrow” situation by the end of the week. Thursday we gather with family, friends, and loved ones to celebrate, and give thanks. However, by Friday morning, many U.S citizens are right back on the Holiday shopping train to take advantage of “Black Friday.”
My thought is this, “How effective is the gratitude that we practice as a society on the Holiday of Thanksgiving, if the next day we are already out seeking more things to add to our life, or the lives of others?”
So today, I wanted to share with you some thoughts and research as to how practicing gratitude on a regular basis will have a positive impact on your mindset, and your Wellness. There are several ways that one can install a gratitude practice regularly:
Gratitude Journaling
Gratitude Meditation
Expression of Gratitude
Each of these practices takes place in a unique environment, and is executed in a slightly different manner. Gratitude Journaling works very well in a routine at the beginning or the end of a day. It can be as simple as writing down, “3 things I am grateful for today.” When practiced consistently, this becomes a positive anchor point in your routines. Even if you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, or have had a rough day at work, your gratitude journal to start or end the day is where you anchor yourself in the positive.
Gratitude meditation can take place at similar points in your routines, but is also flexible, as all you need is yourself! I still encourage those that I work with to keep the time of day consistent if they feel gratitude meditation is beneficial to them. This allows there to be consistency with which we experience positive mindsets, which has a profound effect on our Wellness overall. A gratitude meditation would have similar cognitive focuses to journaling, but does not require a record be made of what you meditated on. This can be inviting if you already record and document thoroughly in your day to day. Gratitude is not meant to be another pesky To-Do list item, it is meant to be an enjoyable and positive practice.
The final practice that is listed above is the most straightforward of them all! Simply looking for opportunities in your day to be honest with someone else about your gratitude for something they said, did, or provided you! We all know the feeling of receiving gratitude for our efforts, and we also gain a similar positive mental effect from expressing this gratitude towards others.
While each practice discussed above is individual and unique, I also believe that there are some commonalities to all 3 that are important to keep in mind if you are working towards a routine with gratitude.
Be present. The only way to truly experience the authenticity of how grateful you are for something, is to be present in that experience.
Be specific. The more details your gratitude practice covers, the more powerful the positive impact the practice will have on your mindset.
Be authentic. This is important because gratitude is about what resonates with YOU! Is everyone grateful to be at the gym every day at 4:30am for a workout? NO, but I AM!
Be consistent. Coming back to the Holiday that we are celebrating this week. Do not be a Thanksgiving Day practitioner, then leave it behind for another year. USE IT DAILY!
So why are these pieces so important? When we practice gratitude, we are literally TRAINING our BRAIN! We are training our brain to be more outward looking, and understanding of our environment around us. Gratitude also trains us to be more attentive to detail, and aware of the situations of others around us. It reminds us of humility, and how important caring for those around us is.
I am sure we have all heard a variation of the saying, “Practice makes progress.” That is absolutely true, and why I encourage Gratitude practices to be a part of your daily routine! As you create consistency with any of these practices, the Brain actually gets better at seeing the world through this positive lens.
When we all have a more positive lens on our world, it positively impacts our mindset, and therefore our Wellness. It also translates into a more positive and supportive community environment on small and large scales!
It may seem strange that you can have such a large impact by simply starting with 10 minutes of journaling or meditation on a regular basis. But that is the AMAZING truth about gratitude. I have always been a believer in putting my time and energy into the places that will bring the largest positive return on my investment. If you are in the same boat, and are not practicing gratitude regularly, then I would highly encourage you to do so!
If you are looking for hard evidence of how powerful gratitude can be, I have shared a study at the bottom of this blog post that looks at the effects of gratitude in oncological patients! Gratitude practices had a strong positive effect on things like;
Self Esteem and Optimism
Support from a partner/community
Being able to see different perspectives
In the study, it was also found that a regular gratitude practice had a negative relationship with the following (meaning it lowered these measurables):
Regret of the past
Focusing on physical symptoms/illness
Depression and Anxiety
There are many studies and meta-analyses available on the effects of Gratitude, however I think it speaks volumes to how powerful of a positive tool it can be, if it is able to improve the mental wellbeing of those who are battling cancer!
To close this blog post, I would just like to share that I am incredibly grateful for those of you who read these blog posts, and take the time and effort to implement them in your Wellness routines! It is my sincere hope that you do benefit from them, and will continue to join me as I share them!
I hope that everyone has a great Thanksgiving week and day with family, friends, and loved ones! Here is to using gratitude on a regular basis (not just on Thursday this week), to help you find the mindset that leads you to Actualizing your Potential!
Sources:
Sztachańska Joanna, Krejtz Izabela, Nezlek John B., Using a Gratitude Intervention to Improve the Lives of Women With Breast Cancer: A Daily Diary Study, Frontiers in Psychology, Volume 10, 2019, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01365 DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01365
