Tips for a Healthier You: Practice Gratitude
You may have heard that practicing gratitude can be good for you, but what exactly does that look like? Dr. Stracks outlines the health benefits (both mental and physical) of gratefulness, as well as practices for incorporating it into your daily life.
Practice Gratitude
In Emily and Amelia Nagaski’s excellent book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, they note that women have been told throughout human history to be grateful for what they have, with the subtext being “So be quiet.” The Nagaskis acknowledge that their readers can be forgiven for feeling a bit down when someone tells them to be grateful.
However, they and many other authors have also reviewed the literature that demonstrates the positive health benefits of gratefulness. Here, for example, is a blog post by psychologist Catherine Sanderson showing that daily gratitude practices can make people feel healthier, be more optimistic, become more resilient to disease, and feel better about their lives.
Interestingly, the Nagaski sisters’ research also showed that our usual ways of practicing gratitude don’t always provide positive benefit and even sometimes leave people feeling shameful for not feeling grateful enough—you may know that spiral.
Fortunately, there are at least two gratitude practices that consistently do show benefit.
The first is to be grateful not necessarily for what you have but for who you have. This may mean taking time each day to think about the people in your life who bring you joy, those who have encouraged you, those who have inspired you, those who have brought out the best in you, and even those who simply want the best for you. This frequently brings a short-term boost in mood and, when done repeatedly, leads to improved mental and physical health outcomes over time.
To get an even longer-term boost, you can consider going a step further and writing a gratitude letter. Dr. Martin Seligman, the creator of positive psychology, assigned this exercise to students and found that the health benefits lasted for over a month. In brief, you:
· Identify someone in your life who has had a positive effect on your life and whom you would like to thank.
· Write down a narrative about that person describing what your relationship has been like and what it has meant to you.
· If you’re brave enough, seek that person out and read the letter to them in person, on the phone, or by video chat.
I have always been fascinated by this exercise and a few years ago was in a position to try it out. I have to admit, it was an incredibly moving experience for both me and the other person, and I still regularly think about it to this day.
A second, longer-term strategy for reaping the benefits of a gratitude practice involves being grateful not for what you have or even who you have but for how what you have came about; in essence, being grateful for the process, not the results, a concept that will be familiar if you have read Carol Dweck’s work in her book Mindset.
The Nagaskis describe a more advanced exercise to do this:
· Identify a situation or circumstance for which you’re grateful.
· Write down the details of what happened, being specific about your and others’ roles and words.
· Describe your feelings about the situation or event, both when it happened and now as you reflect on it.
· Then, explain how this happened. What caused the events that led to the outcome? How did it come about? What happened over both the short and the long term that ended with this as the result?
The official recommendation is to do this three times per day for a week, but that’s a big ask for most of us. Emily Nagaski says she did it daily for three weeks and found that it made a huge difference in her life, allowing her to see not only the positives in her life and but also her personal traits that contributed to positive outcomes and what she had and could appreciate in those around her that encouraged the positive outcomes as well.
Overall, the literature on gratitude shows a wealth of positive outcomes to those who practice this regularly. For many years, our family has shared at the end of the day three things we’re grateful for, and it really has made a big difference for all of us. If you are looking for a way to boost your overall health, doing any of these practices, from simple to more involved, can bring you (and others) substantial benefits.
Cormendi Health offers a holistic perspective on your health. For more insights about how to achieve your mental and physical health goals, please contact us through our website or by calling us at 312-489-8890.