Every year, families across the country gather together to celebrate Thanksgiving. Some love the excuse to spend time with loved ones. Others are simply depressed by the idea of spending that many hours with relatives. Then there are those who feel it doesn’t properly acknowledge American history. Even with all these varying opinions on the day itself, the spirit of thankfulness that everyone strives to adopt for this one day a year is pretty universally accepted. What many don’t know is that gratitude is good for you. It’s not even that hard; we just tend to live life wanting more instead of practicing this simple act. To inspire you this Thanksgiving and to hopefully encourage you to make a habit of giving thanks, I outlined some simple ways to add gratitude into your daily life and a few of the profound benefits this can bring.
Practices
journal
One common way to reflect on life, feelings, and experiences is through journaling. When you journal about what you are thankful for, you are shifting your focus to that thing. This helps train your mind to dwell on the positives in your life instead of whatever may be wrong at the time. The more you do this, the more natural it will come. This can help boost happiness and reduce stress.
Discuss
Another way and possibly the easiest way to practice gratitude is talking with others about what you are thankful for. By bringing the things we are thankful for into our conscious thoughts and verbalizing them, it allows for us to fully pay attention to what is going well in our lives. This conscious awareness can reinforce positivity in your life.
Internalize
The last way to increase gratitude in your life is by internalizing an attitude of thankfulness. This one probably will take the most self-awareness, but if done correctly, will yield lasting results. By actively focusing your mind on things to be thankful for, you then become more consciously aware of all the other things you have to be thankful for. This then snowballs into constant reflection and awareness of the things that are worth being thankful for in life.
Benefits
Better sleep
One of the benefits of adding gratitude into your daily life is improved sleep quality. By focusing on the positives in life, you dwell less on the negatives. This helps relieve the anxious spiral that keeps many up at night. It allows for a more relaxed state because of the calm in the nervous system. It also helps promote positive thoughts as you fall asleep, and who doesn’t love that?
Higher self-esteem
By embracing gratitude, your self-esteem can also be raised. This comes with a more positive outlook on the world. When you start viewing others and the world in a good light, it eventually spills into how you analyze and view yourself. Also, by intentionally being positive with your view of others, you will develop a stronger sense of personal identity and value.
Decreased anxiety
With something like decreasing anxiety as a benefit, it is hard not to want to add the simple act of being thankful into daily life. As said before, focusing on the good shifts the focus from the bad. Additionally, research has shown that stress hormones are reduced and emotions like envy, resentment, depression, and regret are blocked by just being thankful. This honestly makes sense because if you are thinking about how a thing is good, it eliminates the need to want something else, overthink how a situation went, or dwell in a negative space.
improves Interpersonal relationships
There are many reasons why expressing gratitude can help with relationships, but a huge one is the increase of oxytocin that comes from it. Oxytocin is a hormone linked to connections and bonds and is sometimes known as the “love hormone.” Beyond the neurologic benefit to your relationship, gratitude also teaches you to acknowledge and think about people’s positive qualities, which can reduce conflict, see them in a good light, and increase communication.