As you will see the positive effects of experiencing and expressing gratitude are endless. It has been described as being contagious since it is a social emotion- expressing gratitude towards others compounds its benefits. It will literally pay itself forward.
20 Benefits of Living Your Life with Gratitude
1. A life of gratitude helps you to notice the little wins. These small moments, over time, will be strung together to create a web of well-being which will strengthen your ability to notice the good in your life and around you.
2. Gratitude can open the door to a different perspective- one that values the goodness in our lives. With practice we can learn to see the bigger picture and navigate adversity with greater resilience.
3. It changes our priorities. A lot of our time and energy is spent pursuing things we don’t currently have. Gratitude reverses our priorities to help us to appreciate the people and things we do have.
4. Gratitude turns what little you have into abundance.
5. Gratitude changes your perspective of your world.
Psychological and Physical Well-being
6. Gratitude boosts immunity and heart health. Research has shown that grateful people have fewer common health complaints like headaches, digestion issues, respiratory infections, dizziness and sleep problems. They noted physiological changes including reduced blood pressure and increased vagal tone (increase in parasympathetic influence on the PNS) which slows the heart rate, stimulates digestion and calms the system.
7. It can also encourage us to fuel our bodies with nourishing foods. Research has also shown that grateful people tend to engage in healthy activities such as focusing on nutrition.
8. It helps to relieve stress and pain. Brain studies show that the region of the brain associated with gratitude is also utilized when we socialize and experience pleasure. This region is also connected to where we regulate basic emotion and are associated with stress relief and pain reduction.
9. Gratitude can improve health over time due to the fact that the brain networks that are associated with stress relief and social bonding are also relied on with gratitude and grateful feelings.
10. It can help those with depression. Some studies noted that practicing gratitude can alter the brain function in depressed individuals. It has been suggested that we can rewire and change the brain through a long-term gratitude practice.
11. People who are more grateful are also more attentive to how they express gratitude. This suggests that practicing gratitude may help train the brain to be more tuned into gratitude in the future which could contribute to improved mental health over time.
Emotional and Social Well-being
12. Gratitude appears to help one feel more satisfied in life, can boost your self-esteem and can motivate you to improve yourself.
13. Practicing gratitude magnifies positive feelings more than it reduces negative feelings so it can help you to become more resilient in the face of adversity.
14. Gratitude helps us to feel optimistic and experience more joy and pleasure in our lives by making us more aware of the benefits we have received and shifting the focus from the barriers that we may be facing. This is also known as strengthening our positive recall.
15. It helps you to be more helpful and generous to others.
16. It also helps one to feel less lonely and isolated with it’s improving our relationships and strengthening our connection with others.
17. Gratitude helps us to strengthen ties with friends, loved ones and those in our community. The find-remind-bind theory suggests that gratitude can help people to identify good candidates for a relationship, appreciate our existing relationships and motivate us to maintain or invest is these relationships.
18. Gratitude also plays an important role in maintaining romantic relationships with reminding us of why our partners are valuable and worth holding onto. It can initiate a cycle of generosity where one partner’s gratitude inspires the other partner to act in a way that reaffirms their commitment. It also opens the door to healthier communication styles in a relationship through having more positive perceptions of our partners.
19. It can overpower negative emotions. Feeling grateful boosts positive emotions like joy and compassion and encourages us to look for and connect with what is good in life. This helps us to switch our attention from toxic emotions like resentment and envy.
20. The cultivation of gratitude in one’s life may be a partial remedy for cynicism and narcissism because they are essentially thieves of gratitude.
A few other facts about Gratitude:
Concerning psychological difficulties.
· Research has shown gratitude writing is very beneficial for those struggling with psychological concerns and that practicing gratitude on top of counseling carries greater benefits than counseling alone, even if the gratitude practice is brief.
· Gratitude helps, even if you don’t share the letter. The mental health benefit of writing gratitude letters are not entirely dependent on actually communicating that gratitude to another person. The mere act of writing the letter helps you to appreciate the people in your life and shifts your focus away from the negative feelings and thoughts.
· Be aware that the mental health benefits of gratitude writing will gradually accrue over time. Studies have shown that the benefits continued to increase as time went on from the writing activity.
Gratitude has a positive affiliation with positive affect, life satisfaction, extraversion, and forgiveness. Gratitude has a negative affiliation with substance abuse and neuroticism, and there is an inverse relationship between gratitude and anxiety and depression.
Gratitude is the key to a happy life and should be continuous and practiced daily. I hope I was able to convince you to begin a gratitude practice…. Stay tuned for the third and final piece of the Gratitude blog where I will reveal a number of different ways to perform a gratitude practice of your own!
References:
https://www.mindful.org/an-introduction-to-mindful-gratitude/ https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_gratitude_changes_you_and_your_brain
Next time:
Stay tuned for my next blog in 2 weeks for Gratitude Part 3: 16 Simple Ways to Practice Gratitude
Related Post Links:
Gratitude Part 1:
Gratitude Part 3:
Author: Jen Hassaj | 4-19-23
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