5 of Diamonds - Grateful Thoughts
An easy one - or is it?!
Gratitude is defined as “as a generalised tendency to recognise and respond with grateful emotion to the roles of other people’s benevolence in the positive experiences and outcomes that one obtains” (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002, p. 112).
The “classic” gratitude activity entails compiling written lists of numerous points for which one is grateful on a regular basis. A good example is people could be tasked to keep a diary or journal where they write three things for which they are grateful and complete each night right before bed (Wood et al., 2010).
How to do it?
An Easy One – Or Is It?!
Writing down three things each day that you are grateful for trains the brain to recognise this more easily day after day. Can you name three new things to give gratitude to each day this week?
The more we think positive, grateful thoughts, the healthier and happier we feel.
Our expert mental fitness coaches can help you train your internal dialogue to be more positive and gratuitous through the days and weeks.
Why do it?
The practice of gratitude improves our mental strength through an active approach to build a positive mindset which offsets any negative narrative which may be swimming in our head. Moreover, gratitude helps us to develop resiliency and provides an edge when individuals are faced with a stressful event by ensuring a faster mental recovery. Gratitude can act as an empowering force, but it requires time, effort and investment to alter our brain patterns (Rayner and Caine 2021).
There are a multitude of benefits which arise from the practice of gratitude. Firstly, there are improvements to psychological health since gratitude helps to lessen harmful emotions, such as frustration, resentment and regret. Grateful people tend to enjoy higher levels of well-being and happiness with an increase in accessibility to positive memories. Secondly, there are improvements to physical health as individuals who display feelings of gratitude report a general feeling of health and are more likely to exercise. Finally, the additional benefits from gratitude include improved sleep, self-generation of happiness rather than seeking happiness from external sources, improvements in forming and maintaining relationships and enhancements to self-esteem (Rayner and Caine 2021, Morin 2014).
What’s the science behind it?
Gratitude connects with the perception of well-being and improvements in physiological health. Specifically, gratitude is linked to increased life satisfaction, resiliency to health issues, better sleep quality, lower levels of burnout, and reductions in stress, inflammation, and depression (Henning et al. 2017).
Physiological signals can modify the quality of mental experiences and mental experience can also modify an individual’s physiological state. Within this framework, feelings can be recognised as a method to access an individual’s body state. This allows the purposeful practice of gratitude to reduce physiological stress and improve our health through optimal body functioning. Conversely, the body can be a channel to access the mind by allowing the direct reduction of physiological stress through massage or social touch to reduce mental stress and as a result improve one’s emotional wellbeing (Henning et al. 2017).
Small changes CAN make a big difference – that’s what The 1% Club is all about.
Do you want to know more?
Here are some helpful resources to learn more about the topic of gratitude:
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/gratitude/definition
https://www.mindful.org/an-introduction-to-mindful-gratitude/
References
Henning, M., Fox, G. R., Kaplan, J., Damasio, H., and Damasio, A. (2017). A potential role for mu-opioids in mediating the positive effects of gratitude. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 240179.
McCullough, M. E., Emmons, R. A., & Tsang, J. A. (2002). The grateful disposition: A conceptual and empirical topography. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 112–127. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ 0022-3514.82.1.112
Morin, A. (2014). 7 scientifically proven benefits of gratitude that
will motivate you to give thanks year-round. Accessed June 12, 2024. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-mentally-strong-people-dont-do/201504/7-scientifically-proven-benefits-of-gratitude
Rayner, A., & Caine, A. (2021). Practising gratitude and the life‐changing benefits it can bring. In Practice, 43(6), 338-340.
Wood, A. M., Froh, J. J., and Geraghty, A. W. (2010). Gratitude and well-being: A review and theoretical integration. Clinical psychology review, 30(7), 890-905.
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