How To Practice Gratitude and Increase Your Happiness

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Read on for Ways to Practice Gratitude, Benefits of Practicing Gratitude.


Subrat Das

              
          Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

We are experiencing the worst pandemic right now and passing through an unprecedented time. Economies are struggling to keep up, social distancing, quarantine, lock-down, shutdown have become new normal. Even in these tough times when you feel doubtful, stressed, frustrated, and scared you can find your blessings if you look for them.


Maybe you are blessed to have a roof over your head, maybe you are blessed to have your family, near and dear ones with you. Maybe you are safe at your home and blessed to have a job where you can work from home when millions of people are losing their livelihood due to deadly pandemic. When you think about all these things once you took for granted you will realize that there is a lot of things to feel grateful for, which will make you feel abundant and blessed even during adversity. Practicing gratitude will help you cope with hard times and will make you feel happier.

“When I started counting my blessings my whole life turned around.”-Willie Nelson

             Photo by Candice Picard on Unsplash

What is Gratitude?

The word gratitude comes from the Latin word gratus, meaning pleasing or grateful. Gratitude is a feeling of thankfulness or gratefulness towards the universe, God, or towards specific individuals.

Definitions of gratitude from various dictionaries:

“The feeling or quality of being grateful” https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gratitude

“The state of being grateful” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gratitude

“Gratitude is the state of feeling grateful.” ttps://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/gratitude

Robert Emmons, the world's leading scientific expert on gratitude, explains that gratitude has two key components, which he describes in an essay, “Why Gratitude Is Good.”

First, he writes “it’s an affirmation of goodness. We affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts, and benefits we've received." This doesn't mean that life is perfect; it doesn't ignore complaints, burdens, and hassles. But when we look at life as a whole, gratitude encourages us to identify some amount of goodness in our life.

He explains, the second part of gratitude is figuring out where that goodness comes from. “We recognize the sources of this goodness as being outside of ourselves. It didn't stem from anything we necessarily did ourselves in which we might take pride in. We can appreciate positive traits in ourselves, but I think true gratitude involves a humble dependence on others: We acknowledge that other people—or even higher powers, if you're of a spiritual mindset—gave us many gifts, big and small, to help us achieve the goodness in our lives.”

                     Photo by Elijah Hail on Unsplash

“Gratitude is associated with a personal benefit that was not intentionally sought after, deserved, or earned but rather because of the good intentions of another person” (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

The person who cultivates gratitude is grateful for what he has and does not constantly seek more. You can express your gratitude to someone who has done something good for you. You can express your gratitude to the universe or God for everything good in life.

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

                Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Being thankful every day could have tremendous benefits on your quality of life. Infect, gratitude is one of the best tools that we all have access to every day to improve our life. Living with gratitude does not take much time and does not cost any money, but the benefits are huge. 

“Enjoy the little things. For one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” – Robert Brault

                Photo by Fernando Brasil on Unsplash

Here are the few benefits of practicing gratitude:

1. Increase positive emotions and make you more optimistic: Expressing gratitude regularly can help you to feel more positive and optimistic about life. Gratitude rewires your brain so you focus more on the positives than the negatives. Feeling grateful every day for what you have reduces envy, increases positive emotions, and make you more resilient. 

“Thankfulness is the quickest path to joy.”- Jefferson Bethke

2. Increases happiness: Research has shown that grateful people feel better about themselves and show higher levels of happiness.

“The heart that gives thanks is a happy one, for we cannot feel thankful and unhappy at the same time.” -Douglas Wood

3. Improves physical and mental health: Research has shown that people who are positive and practice gratitude regularly will have less risk of depression, stress, and anxiety which are factors behind heart disease. Gratitude improves mental and physical well-being.

“Benefits associated with gratitude include better sleep, more exercise, reduced symptoms of physical pain, lower levels of inflammation, lower blood pressure and a host of other things we associate with better health,” said Glenn Fox, an expert in the science of gratitude and head of program design, strategy, and outreach at the USC Performance Science Institute.

“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions.” – Zig Ziglar

4. Improves Social relationships: Gratitude improves social behavior. A Grateful person helps not just to the people who helped him but to other people as well. Studies have shown that people who cultivate gratitude show more empathy and sensitivity toward other people. Gratitude can make you more trustworthy, nicer, and more social.

Glenn Fox said “Gratitude is such a key function of our social lives and our evolution as a species,” he said. “People who did not develop gratitude or grateful relationships with others, it’s very unlikely they would have survived in a social context.”

“We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.”- John F. Kennedy

5. Improves self-esteem: Studies have shown that gratitude reduces social comparisons and improves self-esteem. Rather than being envious and resentful towards other people who have more money or better jobs, grateful people appreciate other people's accomplishments.

6. Can boost your career: Gratitude can help you to increase your network, increase your productivity, increase your decision-making capabilities, can help you to find your mentors. Gratitude can help you to make your workplace more friendly and enjoyable.

            Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Here are the few simple ways to Practice Gratitude:

1.Gratitude Journal: Keep a gratitude journal and make it a practice to write down every day at least 5 things you are grateful for. This method is very effective and I practice it regularly. You can be grateful for smallest things in your life such as for your morning tea with your wife, or for that phone call from your mom or brothers or for that parking space you managed to get this evening in a busy commercial street or you have clean clothes and you are breathing. Make it a habit to write something new daily for which you are feeling grateful and blessed.

“When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.” -Tecumseh

2.Thank someone: Tell someone how grateful you are to have them in your life. Tell them how much you appreciate them and how glad you are to have them in your life. If you do not feel like to tell someone personally at least you can think about the person and what nice thing he has done for you and mentally thank the person.

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” —William Arthur Ward

3. Write a thank you letter or note: Spend a few minutes every week writing a letter to someone you are thankful for. Even if you do not send the letter, this simple exercise of writing a letter to the person with a grateful heart will have a profound and long-lasting effect. The more good you notice, the happier you will be. This method really works and I practice it regularly.

4. Live in the present: Live mindfully in the present, not worrying about the past or future is one of the best ways to practice gratitude. When times are bad focus on the support and help you are getting and be grateful.

5.Water Method: This method is used by some spiritual people which is really very effective. Take a glass of water before you go to sleep look at the water and mentally remember the people who have done something good for you or who has provided some happiness in your life, appreciate, be thankful to them, and drink that water. Your approach should be genuine and thankfulness should be deep and should be from the core of your heart.

6. Share your thoughts: Share your gratitude thoughts each day by posting on social media like tweeter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Pinterest.

7. Practice a no complain day: Commit at least one day a week when you will not complain about anything and simply be grateful for everything.

8. Show Kindness and be respectful: In your day to day, interactions display kindness and be respectful to strangers. If a salesperson calls you over the phone and you do not have time to talk to him or you are not interested in his products or services, please politely inform the same to him instead of talking very rudely to him.  

          Photo by Simon Magge on Unsplash

There are many other ways to make gratitude a part of your everyday practice like notice and appreciate the beauty of nature each day, smile, call your mom, dad, brothers or sisters, friends more often, post quotes or images on your desktop or mobile that remind you to be grateful, be thankful when you learned something new. Send thoughts of love and forgiveness to the people who harmed or did something wrong with you. You can practice any one or combination of these methods, or you can develop your own methods to feel grateful and appreciate the good things in your life.

“Happiness is a choice, not a result. Nothing will make you happy until you choose to be happy unless you decide to be happy. Your happiness will not come to you. It can only come from you.” -Buddha

So, what you are waiting for? There is so much to be grateful for in your own life even in these difficult times. Give it a try and make it a habit to practice gratitude at the same time every day from today itself and see how it works for you.

Share your thoughts and experience in the comments section.

You might  be interested to read:

How to improve your Self-talk and empower yourself

 

About the Author

Subrat Das, B.com (Honours), MBA(Finance), is an experienced Finance and General Management Professional who worked in Managerial positions in reputed media houses and other industries. Inspired to write on Life, Hope, Self-help, Education, Mind, Spirituality that may be helpful to people of all ages to live a better life.

  

References:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/amymorin/2014/11/23/7-scientifically-proven-benefits-of-gratitude-that-will-motivate-you-to-give-thanks-year-round/#34f49ff5183c

https://www.countryliving.com/life/g28564406/gratitude-quotes/?slide=4

https://au.reachout.com/articles/the-how-and-why-of-practising-gratitude    

https://jamesclear.com/gratitude-habit

https://positivepsychology.com/gratitude-appreciation

https://news.usc.edu/163123/gratitude-health-research-thanksgiving-usc-experts

https://positivepsychology.com/gratitude-happiness-research

https://positivepsychology.com/gratitude-appreciation

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/in-praise-of-gratitude

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_gratitude_is_good

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/gratitude/definition

 

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