How Gratitude Can Impact Your Life
What is Gratitude?
Gratitude is an expression of thankfulness for a person, place or thing and an intention to reciprocate the appreciation through acts of kindness. The first step in engaging in gratitude is to affirm the good you have encountered. By acknowledging the positive facets of your life you are able take a second and reflect, most often on external sources, that have benefited you either mentally, physically or spiritually. This reflection is an important meshing of how external events can effect your internal perspective.
Gratitude Can Affect The Brain
Studies have shown that engaging on acts on gratitude can be beneficial for those with Depression, Anxiety and even Chronic Pain. A significant part of Positive Psychology involves engaging in gratitude so that the positive emotions associated with altruistic reciprocity have a longer lasting effect, as opposed to immediate and shorter lived pleasure derived positive emotions. The effects of gratitude on the brain can last long after gratitude has been practiced. A 2015 Study out of Indiana University, showed that certain parts of our brain are associated with experience and expression and become activated during periods of gratitude. Gratitude isn’t just a spiritual connection, it is also a neural one.
How to Practice Gratitude
Exercises in gratitude frequently involve putting pen to paper. Some recommend writing a letter to someone who has positively impacted your life. You don’t even have to share it to have a positive effect on your mental health, simply reflecting upon it can improve well being, though sharing it allows for potential added benefit of social togetherness. Another exercise is to write down three things you are grateful for nightly. Not only does this allow you to acknowledge the good during the day, it allows you to end the day on a positive note and perhaps improve bedtime anxiety and sleep.
The Right Amount of Gratitude
Expressing Gratitude is great! But like everything, too much is never a good thing. Just like Toxic Positivity, we never want an over-expression of Gratitude to minimize hurt or pain or trivialize negative emotions. It is important to experience and process all emotions while maintaining a positive outlook. Gratitude is also not supposed to delegitimize your own accomplishments or cause you to overlook a potentially harmful relationship. Implementing a gratitude strategy is there to help, not hurt your mental health. It’s all about maintaining a balanced perspective.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2016.1169332
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_gratitude_changes_you_and_your_brain
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/gratitude/definition#why_practice
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053811915011532
