If you’ve spent any time in the mental wellness sphere, you’ve probably heard a little something about gratitude. And there’s a good reason for it! Gratitude practices can increase production of serotonin and dopamine (the hormones that make you happy), lower cortisol levels (your body’s stress hormone), and may even be linked to decreased risk of cardiovascular disease!
All this to say that gratitude has a massive impact on your overall health and happiness. A gratitude practice can improve your self-worth and self-esteem, and even lower your anxiety.
There are some people in the world where gratitude is a natural state of mind, and if you’re one of them, you might already be doing some of these things, or at the very least you won’t have to work that hard to instill gratitude practices into your daily routine. For most of us, it’s probably going to take a little more effort, and that’s ok.
Regardless, a gratitude practice can benefit everybody. Curating a gratitude mindset takes regular (and, in an ideal world, daily) practice. If you’re willing to put the time in, I can promise it will be worth it.
I highly recommend picking 1-2 of these practices and setting reminders in your phone to work on them every single day for 3 months. Use my Mindful Practices sheet to document how you’re feeling throughout this process – revisit your first couple of entries at the end of every month to give yourself some real, tangible evidence of how much progress you’ve made to keep yourself motivated!
1. Start a Gratitude Journal
This is my personal favorite, so it’s #1.
Every morning or evening, take a few minutes to write down 10 things you’re grateful for. Paper is ideal, but you can write this on your phone or laptop if that’s easier for you!
Make each thing you write as specific as you possibly can. You can repeat things day to day (it’s good to hold gratitude for something over time!), but try to make at least half of the list new each time so you’re always expanding your gratitude mindset.
Examples:
– “I’m grateful for my dog snuggling with me while I was feeling down today”
– “I’m grateful for how accessible the internet is, so that I can spend so much time learning new things”
2. List It Out
As you go about your day, every time you have a positive emotion about anything, take a moment to add it to a list of things to be grateful for.
Personally, I recommend keeping a running list on your phone’s note-taking app. This way, it’s easily accessible any time you’re on the go and want to add something to your list. It’s also easy to go back to if you’re ever in a funk and need a reminder of the good things in life!
3. Express Your Gratitude
Make the effort to tell someone how grateful you are for them!
Write a thank-you letter to someone that’s helped you in some way. Both writing things down and saying things out loud can reinforce your mindset – so whenever anyone does something that you appreciate, make sure they know!
Studies have shown expressing your gratitude for someone in your life can strengthen your bond & sense of community, while also increasing your own happiness. If you’re comfortable doing so, take the time to read your letter to that person face-to-face (a video call works if you’re long distance!). This can feel a bit awkward at first, but this is also the most powerful way to experience the benefits!
4. Acknowledge How Far You’ve Come
We’ve all experienced some kind of adversity, and every so often it’s good to take the time to slow down and show yourself some appreciation for finding your way through it.
Again, I always recommend writing things out. Either way, just take a few minutes just to mindfully acknowledge how strong you are, and maybe even try to recognize any positive experience that came out of that situation.
Recognizing the good that came out of the bad is so important, because it’s a reminder that any time you deal with something that feels difficult emotionally, you can remind yourself you have the strength and coping skills to persevere.
*DISCLAIMER* This does NOT mean accepting patterns of behavior that are negatively affecting you because you’ve dealt with it once and can deal with it again. If someone or something in your life is causing you mental or physical harm, the good very well may be walking away.
5. Add Gratitude Language to Your Every Day
As you incorporate other gratitude practices, this will likely start to come naturally, but in the same respect being mindful and intentional about your language can support all of these other practices.
Adding gratitude language doesn’t just mean saying thank you, although that’s definitely a part of it. When you talk about anything that makes you feel happy, or even about something you struggled to get through, really acknowledge how that experience may have given you something else to be grateful for.
In addition to that, gratitude language sometimes just looks like using kind words. Expressing kindness to yourself and those around you promotes a gratitude mindset, and vice-versa.
Want to learn more?
A gratitude mindset is a life-altering practice that can bring you so much joy when practiced on a regular basis.
If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of gratitude, I recommend starting at these links:
Calm: The Science of Gratitude