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Feelings of gratitude


Gratitude (for Teens) - Nemours KidsHealth

Reviewed by: Mary L. Gavin, MD

en español Gratitud

What Is Gratitude?

Gratitude is one of many positive emotions. It's about focusing on what's good in our lives and being thankful for the things we have.

Gratitude is pausing to notice and appreciate the things that we often take for granted, like having a place to live, food, clean water, friends, family, even computer access. It's taking a moment to reflect on how fortunate we are when something good happens — whether it's a small thing or a big thing.

We can use lots of words to describe feelings of gratitude: We might say we feel thankful, lucky, fortunate, humbled, or blessed.

Why Gratitude Matters

Gratitude doesn't just feel good. Making a habit of gratitude can also be good for us. Like other positive emotions, feeling grateful on a regular basis can have a big effect on our lives. Brain research shows that positive emotions are good for our bodies, minds, and brains.

  • Positive emotions open us up to more possibilities. They boost our ability to learn and make good decisions.
  • Positive emotions balance out negative emotions. People who often feel grateful and appreciative are happier, less stressed, and less depressed. Gratitude is like a U-turn on complaining or thinking about what we don't have.
  • One positive emotion often leads to another. When we feel grateful, we might also feel happy, calm, joyful, or loving.
  • Gratitude can lead to positive actions. When we feel grateful for someone's kindness toward us, we may be more likely to do a kindness in return. Your gratitude also can have a positive effect on someone else's actions. Thanking people can make it more likely they'll do a kindness again.
  • Gratitude helps us build better relationships. When we feel and express heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to people in our lives, it creates loving bonds, builds trust, and helps you feel closer.

When we make it a habit to feel grateful, it makes us more aware of good things as they happen.

Build a Gratitude Habit

Sometimes, feelings of gratitude happen spontaneously. But we also can create feelings of gratitude by deliberately counting our blessings.

You can build a habit of counting blessings just by paying attention each day to things you're glad to have in your life. Slow down and notice what's around you. For example: "Wow, the sky is beautiful today! What an incredible world we live in," or, "There's Sara! It was so nice of her to help me yesterday."

Noticing the things you're grateful for is just the first step in building a gratitude habit, but you can try other things too, like taking the time to thank people or pausing to appreciate a star-filled sky. Start now. What's good about this moment?

Reviewed by: Mary L. Gavin, MD

Date reviewed: August 2018

How to Practice Gratitude - Mindful

  • How to Practice Gratitude
  • Daily Practices
  • Starting a Journal
  • Gratitude and the Brain
  • Science of Gratitude

Practicing gratitude can be a game-changer: it has far reaching effects, from improving our mental health to boosting our relationships with others. Living your life with gratitude helps you notice the little wins—like the bus showing up right on time, a stranger holding the door for you, or the sun shining through your window when you wake up in the morning. Each of these small moments strings together to create a web of well-being that, over time, strengthens your ability to notice the good.

Building your capacity for gratitude isn’t difficult. It just takes practice. The more you can bring your attention to that which you feel grateful for, the more you’ll notice to feel grateful for!

  1. Start by observing. Notice the thank yous you say. Just how much of a habitual response is it? Is it a hasty aside, an afterthought? How are you feeling when you express thanks in small transactions? Stressed, uptight, a little absent-minded? Do a quick scan of your body—are you already physically moving on to your next interaction?
  2. Pick one interaction a day. When your instinct to say “thanks” arises, stop for a moment and take note. Can you name what you feel grateful for, even beyond the gesture that’s been extended? Then say thank you.

How Do I Practice Gratitude?

Robert Emmons, psychology professor and gratitude researcher at the University of California, Davis, explains that there are two key components of practicing gratitude:

  1. We affirm the good things we’ve received
  2. We acknowledge the role other people play in providing our lives with goodness

Most of us know it’s important to express thanks to the people who help us, or silently acknowledge the things we are grateful for in life. Research has linked gratitude with a wide range of benefits, including strengthening your immune system and improving sleep patterns, feeling optimistic and experiencing more joy and pleasure, being more helpful and generous, and feeling less lonely and isolated. 

Interested in reaping some of these benefits? Get started with a gratitude practice.

Practicing Daily Gratitude

10 Ways to Practice Daily Gratitude 

As Jon Kabat-Zinn says, “The little things? The little moments? They aren’t little. ” Saying thank you, holding the door for someone, these little moments can change the tone of your whole day.

One of the most powerful ways to rewire your brain for more joy and less stress is to focus on gratitude. Here are 10 simple ways to become more grateful:

  1. Keep a Gratitude Journal. Establish a daily practice in which you remind yourself of the gifts, grace, benefits, and good things you enjoy. Recalling moments of gratitude associated with ordinary events, your personal attributes, or valued people in your life gives you the potential to interweave a sustainable theme of gratefulness into your life.
  2. Remember the Bad. To be grateful in your current state, it is helpful to remember the hard times that you once experienced. When you remember how difficult life used to be and how far you have come, you set up an explicit contrast in your mind, and this contrast is fertile ground for gratefulness.
  3. Ask Yourself Three Questions. Meditate on your relationships with parents, friends, siblings, work associates, children, and partners using these three questions: “What have I received from __?”, “What have I given to __?”, and “What troubles and difficulty have I caused?”
  4. Share Your Gratitude with Others. Research has found that expressing gratitude can strengthen relationships. So the next time your partner, friend or family member does something you appreciate, be sure to let them know.
  5. Come to Your Senses. Through our senses—the ability to touch, see, smell, taste, and hear—we gain an appreciation of what it means to be human and of what an incredible miracle it is to be alive. Seen through the lens of gratitude, the human body is not only a miraculous construction, but also a gift.
  6. Use Visual Reminders. Because the two primary obstacles to gratefulness are forgetfulness and a lack of mindful awareness, visual reminders can serve as cues to trigger thoughts of gratitude. Often times, the best visual reminders are other people.
  7. Make a Vow to Practice Gratitude. Research shows that making an oath to perform a behavior increases the likelihood that the action will be executed. Therefore, write your own gratitude vow, which could be as simple as “I vow to count my blessings each day,” and post it somewhere where you will be reminded of it every day.
  8. Watch Your Language. Grateful people have a particular linguistic style that uses the language of gifts, givers, blessings, blessed, fortune, fortunate, and abundance. In gratitude, you should not focus on how inherently good you are, but rather on the inherently good things that others have done on your behalf.
  9. Go Through the Motions. Grateful motions include smiling, saying thank you, and writing letters of gratitude. By “going through grateful motions,” you’ll trigger the emotion of gratitude more often.
  10. Think Outside the Box. If you want to make the most out of opportunities to flex your gratitude muscles, you must look creatively for new situations and circumstances in which to feel grateful. Please share the creative ways you’ve found to help you practice gratitude.

Try This 5-Minute Gratitude Meditation

Gratitude Practice: Savor The Moment—Elaine Smookler

  • 5:00
  1. Savor the good. On days when gratitude feels difficult to find, tune into your senses. This meditation invites you to cultivate thankfulness by slowing down and noticing what you can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. There doesn’t have to be anything special going on in order to practice gratitude—maybe it’s as simple as feeling grateful for your morning coffee, or for a good book. Explore this simple practice to appreciate the little things.
  2. Use the breath to anchor yourself in the present moment. Our minds are always so easily pulled to busyness. Bring particular attention to feeling the breath, or something in the body, as you bring your shoulders down and orient your attention toward gratitude.
  3. Next, bring to mind a sight you are grateful for. Move through your senses, and find one thing to start with that you appreciate that comes to you from the world of sight, if you have this available. It could be a color…a shadow…a shape…a movement. Remember, it will never be like this again. What do you see right now, and can you feel grateful that you get to see this, whatever it is?
  4. Now, shift to a scent you appreciate. As you continue to work with your senses, now take time to tune in with appreciation to an aroma. What do you notice? What about that glorious or interesting or subtle smell is making you smile? It could be gratitude for something familiar: a scent that brings comfort, upliftment; or maybe it’s something you’ve never smelled before, and it just piques your curiosity, ignites you, enlivens you.
  5. Moving on, tune into any sounds around you. Allowing the world of smell to gently recede into the background, on an in-breath, shift your attention to your ears and the world of sound. Maybe notice what it feels like to really listen. How many sounds can you notice, and can you feel grateful that you’re able to experience sound, if you are? What can you notice about these sounds—far away? close? Perhaps you could play a piece of music that brings you joy, and have gratitude that it’s so available? Or maybe it’s the sound of children laughing, the sound of loved ones breathing, the sound of the beating of your own heart.
  6. The world of touch and texture beckons us next. We find so much to be grateful for in touch! If there’s someone near who you can hug or who can hug you, notice how this makes you feel filled with gratitude for the joy of human contact. Or perhaps you have a beautiful pet that you can stroke and cuddle, or some lovely material with a texture that feels warm to the touch, soft, evocative. Let your senses ignite your gratitude! There’s so much to be appreciative of.
  7. Shift to noticing and appreciating objects around you. Now take a moment to look around: Look down, look up, and from side to side. Appreciate how much effort must have gone into anything at all you own or use. Someone conceived of the need and many people worked on the details of the design. Much care even went into the packaging to deliver your item to you safely. What do you feel when you let yourself be grateful that all that talent went into making your life a little easier?
  8. As you end this practice, carry this attitude of gratitude with you. One last little grateful tip: Why not offer your thanks to each person who does anything at all for you today? Even if it is their job to help you? When you’re grateful, when you let your heart open up and be filled with appreciation, notice how being grateful makes you feel.
  9. Close with gratitude. I’m so grateful that you tuned in to this gratitude practice, and I appreciate your time, your effort, and your energy to be present, awake, and alive to your precious life. Have a beautiful day.

Daily Gratitude Journaling

The practice of writing in a journal, a diary, or just scribbling notes to ourselves on pieces of paper, has both a rich history and present-day appeal. The famous 20th-century novelist and diarist Anaïs Nin believed writing serves “to heighten our own awareness of life…to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection.” She was on to something. Writing has a remarkable way of shifting our awareness—keeping a journal can be an accessible way to experience that shift.

As a hobby, journaling is inexpensive, portable, and can brighten our quality of awareness, making sense of our thoughts, feelings, perspectives, our own developing story line as it happens. It gives us a chance to slow down, breathe, turn to a fresh page, and “get real” about what we’re thinking and feeling—also referred to, particularly in therapeutic settings, as expressive writing. Although we refer here to writing, journaling is not only about putting words on paper. Visual journals filled with sketches, doodles, or any form of art you desire, vastly expand the options and the accessibility of journaling practice. You don’t have to erase your doodles, correct your grammar, or worry about garnering Likes and emojis from a virtual fan club. In other words, expressive journaling is expressing yourself, for yourself.

How to Do It

There’s no wrong way to keep a gratitude journal, but here are some general ideas as you get started.

Write down up to five things for which you feel grateful. The physical record is important—don’t just do this exercise in your head. The things you list can be relatively small in importance (“The tasty sandwich I had for lunch today.”) or relatively large (“My sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy.”). The goal of the exercise is to remember a good event, experience, person, or thing in your life—then enjoy the good emotions that come with it.

9 Gratitude Writing Tips

As you write, here are nine important tips:

1. Be as specific as possible—specificity is key to fostering gratitude. “I’m grateful that my co-workers brought me soup when I was sick on Tuesday” will be more effective than “I’m grateful for my co-workers.”

2. Go for depth over breadth. Elaborating in detail about a particular person or thing for which you’re grateful carries more benefits than a superficial list of many things.

3. Get personal. Focusing on people to whom you are grateful has more of an impact than focusing on things for which you are grateful.

4. Try subtraction, not just addition. Consider what your life would be like without certain people or things, rather than just tallying up all the good stuff. Be grateful for the negative outcomes you avoided, escaped, prevented, or turned into something positive—try not to take that good fortune for granted.

5. See good things as “gifts.” Thinking of the good things in your life as gifts guards against taking them for granted. Try to relish and savor the gifts you’ve received.

6. Savor surprises. Try to record events that were unexpected or surprising, as these tend to elicit stronger levels of gratitude.

7. Revise if you repeat. Writing about some of the same people and things is OK, but zero in on a different aspect in detail.

8. Write regularly. Whether you write every other day or once a week, commit to a regular time to journal, then honor that commitment. But…

9. Don’t overdo it. Evidence suggests writing occasionally (1-3 times per week) is more beneficial than daily journaling. That might be because we adapt to positive events and can soon become numb to them—that’s why it helps to savor surprises.

Gratitude and the Brain

4 Ways to Train Your Brain to Practice More Gratitude

1. Take time to notice what’s around you

Practicing mindfulness helps you tune in to the present moment. It is possible that if you are a grateful person, you are more mindful of others’ gestures. The more often you tune into your awareness, the greater the chances you will notice all the good that’s around you to feel gratitude for, which can then bring satisfaction and happiness.   Our ability to pick up on the beauty of nature, kindness from one another, the chance to make a living via a job, all require our ability to be cognizant of ourselves and our surroundings. Being mindful of help in the kitchen, or the color of the sky allows us to generate gratitude by simply noticing them.

2. Practice gratitude for the little things

We often remember to be grateful for big events, like graduating from university or getting married, but it can be more difficult to feel grateful for the small things we do every day. Reminding yourself that eating a meal, for example, is in itself special can be very powerful.   Your immediate awareness of the food in front of you, combining flavors while removing hunger, is a great way to enjoy gratitude as often as you eat! Another example is feeling grateful in the morning for being able to comfortably sleep at night. We gain comfort, satisfaction and peace by practicing mindfulness and gratitude in this repeated fashion.   

3. Share your gratitude for your loved ones

Most of us are a little bit guilty of taking our loved ones for granted. The next time you notice a kind act by a loved one, why not show gratitude by simply saying ‘thank you’ , or giving a hug? We ought to show appreciation and not let kind acts go unnoticed. Training yourself to show your gratefulness for loved ones can strengthen your relationships with others.

4. Spread gratitude via your social media platforms

Social media can feel so negative at times, but using it to share your gratitude can help create a more positive online atmosphere. For example, share an uplifting moment from a recent event or a lesson you learned from a book you read, or a photo of a place near you that you’re grateful for. Spreading good, and in a unique and uplifting way, is one way we each can do our part in this digital age to remind each other that we have a lot to be grateful for.  Let us each inspire one another in this way.

Training our minds to practice gratitude more often is possible if we are mindful of ourselves, each other and our environment. Let us widen our circle of appreciation. Please share your ideas for reminding yourself to be grateful.

3 Ways Gratitude Benefits Our Brains

  1. It can help relieve stress and pain. The regions associated with gratitude are part of the neural networks that light up when we socialize and experience pleasure. These regions are also heavily connected to the parts of the brain that control basic emotion regulation, such as heart rate and arousal levels, and are associated with stress relief and thus pain reduction. Feeling grateful and recognizing help from others creates a more relaxed body state and allows the subsequent benefits of lowered stress to wash over us. (We recently published a scientific paper elaborating on these ideas.)
  2. It can improve our health over time. They are also closely linked to the brain’s “mu opioid” networks, which are activated during close interpersonal touch and relief from pain—and may have evolved out of the need for grooming one another for parasites. In other words, our data suggest that because gratitude relies on the brain networks associated with social bonding and stress relief, this may explain in part how grateful feelings lead to health benefits over time.

It can help those with depression. Perhaps even more encouraging, researcher Prathik Kini and colleagues at Indiana University performed a subsequent study examining how practicing gratitude can alter brain function in depressed individuals. They found evidence that gratitude may induce structural changes in the very same parts of the brain that we found active in our experiment. Such a result, in complement to our own, tells a story of how the mental practice of gratitude may even be able to change and re-wire the brain.

The Science of Gratitude

Gratitude offers us a way of embracing all that makes our lives what they are. More than just a happy feeling for the parts of our lives currently going our way, gratitude encompasses the willingness to expand our attention so that we perceive more of the goodness we are always receiving.

In the past two decades, a growing body of evidence in the field of social science has found that gratitude has measurable benefits for just about every area of our lives. Gratitude appears to contribute substantially to individual well-being and physical health. So much so that the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley—a leader in research on the science of social and emotional well-being—describes gratitude as the “social glue” key to building and nurturing strong relationships.

Robert Emmons, professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, and one of the world’s leading experts on the science of gratitude, defines gratitude as having two parts. The first is an affirmation of goodness: People can learn to wake up to the good around them and notice the gifts they have received. The second part of gratitude is recognizing that the source of this goodness rests outside of oneself—that we receive these gifts from other people, and sometimes from a higher power, fate, or the natural world. In other words, gratitude helps people realize that they wouldn’t be where they are without the help of others.

A Brain Built On Gratitude

Gratitude is more than just a momentary good feeling. Scientists who have studied written gratitude interventions, such as gratitude letters or journals, have found benefits for an individual’s mental health and well-being. Gratitude practices also appear to help you feel more satisfied in life and can boost your self-esteem, according to peer-reviewed research.

The Science: Feel Happier

In one study involving nearly 300 adults seeking counseling services at a university, one randomized group wrote a gratitude letter each week for three weeks. The gratitude group reported significantly better mental health (compared to the control group) at follow-up, 12 weeks after the last writing exercise. Another type of written gratitude practice is counting blessings, or “Three Good Things.”A study of this practice found that people who wrote down three things that had gone well in their day and identified the causes of those good things were significantly happier and less depressed, even six months after the study ended.

How It Works: Strengthen Positive Recall

How exactly do these practices work to improve our mental well-being?

In general, people are more cognitively aware of their “headwinds” (or barriers they face) than “tailwinds” (benefits they receive). By paying more attention to our tailwinds, studies have shown that we can accentuate feelings of happiness, optimism, and positive emotion.

“Strengthening your positive recall bias makes it easier to see the good things around you even when times are dark,” says Nancy Davis Kho, author of the book The Thank-You Project: Cultivating Happiness One Letter of Gratitude at a Time. Nancy set a lofty goal of writing 50 thank-you letters to people in her life and found that the practice improved her ability to weather some of life’s bigger challenges.

At first, Nancy found it difficult to come up with a list of 50 people. After she got started on the letters, the practice naturally boosted positive emotion and she was able to extend her gratitude well beyond her family and friends. Nancy encourages those writing gratitude letters to find “the creative people whose work carries you beyond yourself, whose vision helps you clarify your own, whose talent and hard work have combined to create a body of work that brings you simple joy.”

Why Practice: Deepen Resilience

Enduring gratitude is not just about happiness and positivity; it doesn’t require you to ignore or stifle negative emotions. In the book The Gratitude Project: How the Science of Thankfulness Can Rewire Our Brains for Resilience, Optimism, and the Greater Good, Robert Emmons writes that “practicing gratitude magnifies positive feelings more than it reduces negative feelings. ” Gratitude helps you see the bigger picture and become more resilient in the face of adversity.

Nourish a Grateful Body

When digging into the science of gratitude, we begin to see there are more dimensions to this emotion than meet the eye. In the scientific literature, gratitude is studied in several different ways:

  • Trait gratitude, which refers to whether people have a natu- rally grateful personality. Gratitude as a mood, which tracks daily fluctuations in gratitude.
  • Gratitude as an emotion, which describes a passing feeling of gratitude (when receiving a thank-you letter, for example).

The “practice” of gratitude and the interventions that scientists use in their studies are activities designed to boost gratitude as a mood or emotion.

The Science: Boost Immunity and Heart Health

Research published in the last decade has shown that grateful people (those who have “trait gratitude”) have fewer common health complaints, such as headaches, digestion issues, respiratory infections, runny noses, dizziness, and sleep problems. It appears that practicing gratitude could also help to alleviate those pesky health problems. In one study, a group of college students who wrote about things they were grateful for once per week for 10 weeks reported fewer physical symptoms (such as headaches, shortness of breath, sore muscles, and nausea) compared to two other control groups.

How It Works: Calm the Nervous System

“Physiological changes associated with gratitude are typically a reduction in blood pressure and increase
in vagal tone, which is taken as an index of increased parasympathetic influence on the peripheral nervous system,” says Dr. Emiliana Simon- Thomas, Science Director at the Greater Good Science Center. The parasympathetic nervous system (the part of the nervous system that allows our body to “rest and digest”) can help you conserve energy by slowing the heart rate, stimulating digestion, and contributing to overall relaxation.

This soothing of the nervous system may be one mechanism by which gratitude works to calm the body. A study of heart-failure patients who were randomly assigned to either an eight-week gratitude-journaling group or a treatment-as-usual group found that patients in the gratitude group showed more parasympathetic heart-rate variability, which is a sign of better heart health.

Why Practice: Make Healthier Choices

Strange as it may seem, gratitude can also encourage us to fuel our bodies with nourishing foods. Research shows grateful people report better physical health because they tend to engage in healthy activities such as focusing on nutrition. “We have found that getting people to express gratitude could help them work toward healthier eating behaviors, like more fruits and vegetables and less junk food,” says Lisa Walsh, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate in social/personality psychology at University of California, Los Angeles, whose graduate studies included research with Sonja Lyubomirsky’s Positive Activities and Well-Being (PAW) Laboratory at the University of California, Riverside. In one of the PAW lab’s studies, high school students preselected a healthy eating goal and were asked to either write weekly gratitude letters or list their daily activities. Teens who expressed gratitude reported healthier eating behavior over time compared to those who just listed their activities. Other studies of people’s physical health outcomes have found that gratitude journaling can lead to better-quality sleep and lowered blood pressure.

Thankful to Those We Love

In addition to giving individual benefits, gratitude may also help to strengthen ties with friends, loved ones, and those in our wider communities. The find-remind-bind theory, first proposed by psychologist Sara Algoe—an associate professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—suggests that gratitude can help people identify good candidates for a new relationship (find), appreciate existing relationships (remind), and motivate people to maintain or invest in these relationships (bind). As Sara writes in a 2012 paper on her theory, “Gratitude starts inside one individual and its effects spread to a dyadic relationship and perhaps throughout a social network. ”

The Science: Stronger Connections

“Social connection is likely key to well-being,” says Lisa Walsh. She explains that gratitude might not be an emotion that just makes people feel good; it appears to have social implications by motivating individuals to improve themselves. In an upcoming study from the PAW Laboratory at UC-Riverside, high school students who expressed gratitude had a mixed experience—they felt “elevated” (a positive emotion) and indebted. Immediately after writing their gratitude letters, the students also felt motivated to improve themselves.

Find-remind-bind theory suggests that expressing gratitude may prompt individuals to pay back the kindness they have received, and can also motivate a person to make decisions that will strengthen their relationships. Gratitude may increase a person’s desire to spend more time with someone, and it encourages prosocial behaviors.

How It Works: Better Communication

Gratitude also plays an important role in maintaining romantic relationships, acting as a “booster shot” to remind us why our partners are valuable and worth holding onto. By practicing gratitude, couples can initiate a cycle of generosity—one partner’s gratitude inspires the other to act in a way that reaffirms their commitment. One study found that receiving a thoughtful gesture from a partner was followed by increased feelings of gratitude and indebtedness. Experiencing gratitude from these acts of kindness led both partners to feel more connected and satisfied with their relationship the next day.

While many studies have examined the effects of writing gratitude, all the ways we communicate—letters, conversation, and social media—are avenues for expressing gratitude. Gratitude may also open the door to healthier communication styles within a relationship. Since the practice leads to more positive perceptions of our partners, friends, or family (and likely, greater trust), we may feel more comfortable talking through disagreements. In one study, participants who expressed gratitude toward a romantic partner or close friend reported greater ease when voicing relationship concerns in the future.

Why Practice: It’s Better Together

“Gratitude has made our family closer,” says Randi Joy, a chiropractor and life coach living in Ottawa. She’s been practicing gratitude with her family for about five years. “When we talk about our gratefulness and what we’re grateful for…we have a better connection,” she says. Whether it’s a gratitude walk where they discuss what they’re grateful for, or a list of their “gratefuls” at the dinner table, Randi’s family takes every opportunity to practice together.

Whether you hope to boost your mood and mental health, protect your physical health, or improve your personal relationships, a rich body of research in the field of social sciences has found that gratitude offers significant benefits. The takeaway: Cultivating 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.

How gratitude makes life better

A person among people

There are moments when the rays of the sun break through the clouds or when a partner decides to clean the house, or when a computer that you have already mentally buried suddenly starts working again. Pleasant surprises make you feel grateful. At that moment we would be ready to open the window and sing at the top of our voices.

But there are ordinary days, and most of them, when we think only about preparing for a meeting at work or a to-do list, about how we will spend the holidays. We simply do not have time to stop and appreciate all the amazing things that surround us. In such a mood, one no longer wants to sing, much more often we have a headache from worries. In everyday life, we almost do not experience this feeling, and this is very sad. After all, this is not just a rule of good taste, but the most important element of self-care, health and well-being.

“Gratitude is a powerful tool to make you feel better,” says Amy Gordon, a research scientist at the University of California, San Francisco. A growing body of research shows that gratitude improves sleep, enhances mood and joie de vivre, and lowers blood pressure. “It brings us the greatest benefit just when it is hardest to feel it. ”

Our ancestors could not afford to carelessly enjoy the scent of flowers

Robert Emmons, an expert in the study of gratitude, defines it as the ability to recognize and appreciate all the good things in life. We feel it when we realize that the source of our joy is something external. It could be a beloved aunt knitting socks, or nature creating a beautiful star-studded sky. Since gratitude is directed at the other, it can serve as a kind of emotional putty for a relationship. When you thank your spouse for agreeing to run to the dry cleaners, it brings you closer.

What can you do to feel this feeling more often in everyday life.

How to overcome instinct?

If you always feel like your glass is half empty, it's time to be gentle with yourself. Experts believe that thanks to evolution, we are constantly on the alert, expecting something bad. Our distant ancestors could not afford to enjoy the scent of flowers, they looked out for saber-toothed tigers on the horizon. Only the survivors left offspring. Today, we face other threats (“Why is the dishwasher making strange noises ?!”), but, nevertheless, the brain is primarily engaged in the search for possible problems, and the joys of life fade into the background.

The second problem is that most people quickly adapt to changing circumstances. This is useful when something terrible happens. For example, when you file for divorce, you may feel like your life is over. Surveys show that after a year or two, most feel as happy as they were before the divorce. Scientists call this hedonic adaptation. Similarly, we very quickly get used to joyful changes, we begin to take them for granted.

“When I moved to a new house, I was so grateful to fate for the opportunity to live here! I loved the hardwood floors and was glad the windows let in so much light. But after a few months, she began to complain that the floors creaked, and because of the large windows it was cold in winter, ”recalls Amy Gordon.

There are many other obstacles in the world. “In order to experience gratitude, we need to stop rushing and start being mindful of our surroundings,” says Christine Carter, author of The Perfect Balance: How to Do More with Less. “But in our culture, staying busy is now the norm. We don't have the time for the quiet contemplation needed to feel that feeling."

The good news is that now that you are aware of these obstacles, you have already taken the first step towards getting around them and developing the habit of constantly feeling gratitude. There is no need to allocate a separate time in the schedule for this practice. It is better to practice it without interrupting your daily activities, over time you will develop such a habit.

“Imagine yourself as a curator collecting life's joyful moments. Your goal is to collect all the good things,” says A.J. Jacobs, author of A Thousand Times Thanks: A Journey to Gratitude.

Don't Forget the Invisible Helpers

While writing the book, Jacobs traveled the world to thank everyone whose work made it possible for him to enjoy his morning cup of coffee, from the designer who created the lid to the bean farmers: what we use is created by hundreds of people, and we take it for granted. ” You can follow his example. If you're buying a turkey at a farmer's market, for example, take 10 seconds to look the salesperson in the eye and tell him that you've been eating his turkey for years. This will make you happy for him and for yourself. Not a bad result for ten seconds.

Try expressing gratitude in other words.

Even if you are sincere, the usual thank you often sounds like you say it automatically without thinking. Try to put it in other words. “Once I said to my wife: “I am very grateful to you that you yourself took your son to the orthodontist today.” She was impressed,” recalls Jacobs. Or: “It’s hard to even explain how much this means to me”, “I just want to tell you how much I appreciate ...”. So you show the interlocutor the full depth of emotion.

Make a list

To overcome the brain's innate tendency to look for danger and trouble everywhere, try to consciously pay attention to everything that is joyful and positive around you. Rachel Finzi Woods, a psychotherapist in Santa Monica, writes down 10 reasons every day to be grateful to someone today. She keeps a list electronically, but if you want to practice regularly and in an organized way, keep a paper diary. This will help you not get stuck on one thing.

"You're unlikely to benefit if you repeat every day, 'I'm grateful to life for the wonderful morning tea' without actually feeling it," says Gordon.

Get in the habit of mentally listing reasons to be grateful at certain times

Where do you get inspiration and fresh ideas from? Look for what causes awe in the soul. Walk through the beautiful forest, listen to great music, you can take advantage of the free minutes in the schedule. Get into the habit of mentally listing reasons to be thankful at certain times of the day, like when you're waiting in line or taking a shower.

Listen to all the senses

When you perceive the world around you not only with sight and hearing, but also with all other senses, everything around you seems to slow down. You have the opportunity to appreciate what surrounds you. Clinical psychologist Barbara Greenberg says that when caring for indoor plants, she consciously tries to perceive her surroundings with all her senses: “I have 50 plants, and the first thing I do in the morning is inspect every single one. I inhale their fragrance, touch them, sometimes take pictures to capture a beautiful moment. I always feel deep gratitude if I manage to catch the moment when one of the plants blooms.

Trouble happened? Accept this fact and move on with your life.

“It's not only in moments of bliss that you can feel this feeling,” says Christine Carter. Otherwise, you would have to wait a very long time for the right moment, because there are always enough difficulties in life. Trouble happened - mentally express dissatisfaction: "Oh ... again, he scattered his underwear in the bathroom." Then imagine how you would feel if the annoying person (or other factor) disappeared from your life: “Without him, there would be no one to sleep with in an embrace, let him stay. ”

Write a letter of thanks

By writing it to any person who has made life better in some way, we bring joy not only to him, but also to ourselves. Why don't we do this more often? “Many people think that the recipient of the letter may feel embarrassed or awkward. They underestimate how much he will enjoy reading it,” says Amit Kumar, a marketing researcher and professor at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2018, Kumar conducted an experiment to measure how we respond to thank you letters. It was just about emails, but the recipients were still deeply moved. So sit down and write, for example, to a violin teacher who has always believed in you and motivated you, how grateful you are to him. This will make both of you happier.

What is the use?

What science says about the practical benefits that feeling of gratitude can bring:

  • Sleep the quality of sleep has improved, apparently, the point is optimism and a positive attitude.

    • Self-control

    When we feel gratitude, it is easier for us to control ourselves, endure forced waiting, control impulses.

    • Harmony in love

    Couples were offered 4-5 consecutive evenings to discuss what they are grateful to each other for. At the end, partners in these couples rated the relationship as closer than those who simply discussed how the day went.

    • Happiness and Joy

    Volunteers were divided into two groups, the first was given a task for a week to remember three reasons for gratitude, and the second - three reasons for pride. After the end of the experiment, the “grateful” felt happier than the “proud”.

    • Generosity and altruism

    The researcher, disguised as an outsider, helped participants solve a computer problem, after which the subjects were more willing to help strangers.

    Source: health.com

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    A beautiful day is a great reason to be grateful. Pixabay Photos

    There is a category of people who all their lives believe that they have not been given something: parental love, success with the opposite sex (they are worse than others), they did not appreciate their talents, they infringe on their careers, their colleagues overwrite them, the authorities do not promote, children do not respect enough. It's not that they lived in any particularly bad way. Often, not only not only not worse than people of his circle, but also much better.

    But they are suffering. They feel unhappy, offended. Some of those offended are even very rich. The trouble with such people is that they do not know how to experience a sense of gratitude. This does not refer to gratitude for an appointment to a high post or for an expensive gift. No, you can be grateful for any trifle: for a good concert, an interesting book, for a person, not to mention gratitude for those who helped in difficult times, who comforted in misfortune. Memories of this help to survive troubles.

    Psychologists consider gratitude to be one of the most useful and healthy human emotions. After all, nothing relieves nervous tension like a positive charge. Gratitude is expressed in different ways: a smile, a gesture, a look, a word. It would seem that it could be easier than to say at least a simple “thank you”. Minimum effort, maximum benefit. However, in everyday life, not everyone and not always remembers that it is worth being grateful and talking about it. But this is important not only for the one who did the good, but also for the one to whom it was done. This is evidenced by the results of numerous studies.

    “A grateful person is able to see, feel and appreciate the positive aspects of life,” emphasizes Professor Dirk Lehr, head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Lüneburg. “Those who are used to focusing their attention on the good feel much better, more confident.”

    Dirk Lehr leads a group of researchers looking for ways to prevent stress. It is known that a high level of stress negatively affects cardiac activity, leads to sleep disorders, and reduces immunity. Such a person is often unable to break out of the vicious circle: poor health, problems at work, family quarrels ...

    As observations show, a conscious expression of gratitude can help in such a situation, says Dirk Lehr. That is, you need to learn to notice those pleasant little things that have not been in sight for a long time (what fragrant tea, the cactus has blossomed on the windowsill, your head doesn’t hurt today) and feel gratitude for the fact that they exist. That is, to say (write, think) “thank you” for everything that is pleasant now, today.

    The one who thanks “actively” gets rid of fears more often, becomes more stress-resistant, more tolerant and patient, and perceives what is happening less dramatically, the psychologist is convinced.

    There are many ways to learn to be grateful. For example, look for a reason to say “thank you” right in the morning: for the sun on the street, a shirt ironed by your wife, etc. You can put a handful of coins in the right pocket of trousers, jackets, coats. And every time you find something to thank for, put one coin in your left pocket. And in the evening, you can thus once again recall the best moments of the day.

    You can, fingering your fingers on your hand, thank yourself for the best feature of your own character (thumb), for something beautiful in nature (forefinger), for the good deed that we managed to do today (middle), for the person we especially love (nameless ), and for something else, for which in life you definitely need to say “thank you” (little finger).

    But it is especially important to find a reason, even if for the smallest gratitude, precisely when everything goes “wrong,” the psychologist insists. The University of Lüneburg has developed a new application called Dankbarkeits-App, a kind of daily diary for registering "moments of gratitude" - notes, photos.

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