November is the month when we are supposed to focus on being grateful. Families around the country sit down to enjoy a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner, and many take turns listing one thing they are thankful for from the past year. Without a doubt, taking the time to be grateful for a day, or a month is a good thing. However, gratitude changes your life when you incorporate it into your daily routine. It sounds easy enough. But, if you are struggling through a difficult time it may not come that naturally to you.
Dr. Rick Hanson can relate. In his blog post, How Gratitude Can Change Your Life, he wrote, “The intention with gratitude is not to put pressure on yourself to positive-think your way out of painful experiences, or to deny their existence. Nor is it to create long lists that don’t have any meaning for you and feel false or insincere. The aim is simply to direct your focus away from dwelling on what’s not going well in life, whilst still acknowledging the existence of the pain. ”
How Gratitude Changes Your Life
Changing your focus from pain to gratitude can help you make it through difficult times. Here are a few ways that it will help.
Gratitude improves your physical health
Struggling with depression causes you to feel bad physically. I know because I’ve been there. Many people get stuck in this vicious cycle. Your mental health pulls down your physical health, which then causes you to feel even worse mentally. And it continues to cycle around, pulling you further away from where you want to be. But, multiple studies have proven that increasing your level of gratefulness will help stop the cycle.
Gratitude helps you sleep better
You sleep better when you focus on gratitude, which makes sense. Depression causes us to focus on the things that are going wrong or the troubling situations that are happening around us. It can cause feelings of anxiety and hopelessness. It is difficult to get a good restful night’s sleep when we are worrying about everything and everyone. But, when you begin to spend the last few minutes of the day writing things you are grateful for it shifts your focus. You go to sleep thinking about the things that you are thankful for instead of the things that worry you. Many studies have tested this theory, and the test groups continuously find that they are getting more sleep and waking up more rested.
Gratitude helps you exercise more
Did you know that increasing your level of gratitude can also cause you to exercise more? Who knew it was that simple?
Professors Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D., and Mike McCullough conducted a study with participants in three groups. One group was to record five things they were thankful for during the week. The second group was to document five things that were a hassle from the week. The last group was merely asked to record five things that happened that impacted them over the week. It was their choice if they were in positive or negative situations. After ten weeks, the professors found that the group that focused on positive experiences was exercising on average 1.5 more hours each week.
Exercise releases endorphins in your brain that help boost your mood. When we are going through troubling times, this boost can help us make it through the day. Regular exercise contributes to self-confidence. These are critical positive changes that we can experience more of when we increase our level of gratitude.
Gratitude changes your perspective on life
how gratitude changes your life
Life is life, plain and simple. We have good times, and we experience bad times. We will face troubles and blessings. And, there are some things that we will have no control over. But, we do have control over how we respond to life.
Think about someone you know who is a “glass half full” kind of person. No matter what is happening in this person’s life, they seem to have a good attitude towards it. They find a way to put a positive spin on it. Now, I’m not talking about people that are living in denial. I’m talking about the people that can acknowledge what a situation is, but then choose a positive response to it. Gratitude will turn you into this type of person.
In the article, The Neuroscience of Why Gratitude Makes Us Healthier, Ocean Robbins writes, “Several studies have shown depression to be inversely correlated to gratitude. It seems that the more grateful a person is, the less depressed they are. Philip Watkins, a clinical psychologist at Easting Washington University, found that clinically depressed individuals showed significantly lower gratitude (nearly 50 percent less) than non-depressed controls.”
Where do we go from here?
The good news is that we can choose to be more grateful. Increased gratitude brings loads of benefits along with it. It can be challenging to decide to exercise more, change our perspective on life, or sleep better. But, these things come naturally to us when we choose to be more grateful. It won’t happen overnight though. Commit to sticking with it until you start to see the benefits. When you stick with the behavior longer, you see increased benefits. Studies have found that after four weeks significant changes are noticed and improved after that. These are examples of how gratitude changes your life in the long term.
It may feel forced at first, but it’s as simple as taking the time every day to acknowledge what you are grateful for. It could start out as merely having a roof over your head or food on the table. But, as you continue to do this activity each day you will start to become more aware of the things in your life you can be grateful for. Things like the kindness of a stranger holding the door open for you and the sunshine warming your skin will begin to stand out to you.
Let me get started right now – I want to take the time to thank you for taking the time to read this. Thank you for your willingness to put a new focus on gratitude in your life. I am grateful for your love and support. Thank you for sharing this with your friends and family. And in the words of Earth, Wind, & Fire:
“Wanna thank you,
Wanna thank you
Freedom in stride, love, peace of mind
We just wanna give Gratitude”Earth, Wind & Fire
