9 Ways Gratitude Can Make You Happier, Fitter and Richer

   

Your parents taught you to mind your manners. You write thank you notes and tip your barista. But there’s more to being grateful than going through the motions. According to numerous studies, true gratitude is a powerful force that can improve your relationships, increase happiness and even boost immunity. Deep down, most of us know this to be true. But we still have trouble taking time from our busy lives to actually stop, reflect and give thanks for what matters most. The good news: Making the effort to get grateful is easier than you’d expect, and it’s way more effective that you might imagine. 

Why It Pays to Be Grateful

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it”

Spend just minutes each day reflecting on what you’re grateful for and we can pretty much guarantee you’ll see a snowball effect resulting in physical, psychological and social benefits. Here’s the catch: You need to get grateful throughout the year — not just on Thanksgiving.

One study published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research confirmed that individuals who had a more grateful outlook got better quality shut eye, stayed asleep longer and required less time to fall asleep than their less grateful peers. Perhaps more impressive, people who spent times focusing on grateful thoughts exercised for 1.5 more hours each week, compared to people who spent time focusing on the hassles in their life, according to a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Plus, at least eight studies have shown that people who express gratitude tend to show fewer symptoms of depression.   

A grateful state of mind can help you win big in business, too. Once study conducted at Harvard Business School, found that participants who were prompted to think of a time when they were grateful were less likely to act impulsively when it came to financial choices when compared with people who were prompted to think of something happy or neutral. Gratitude increases our level of patience, researchers suggested. 

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it,” William Arthur Ward, an American writer, once said. In honor of Thanksgiving, here are nine simple ways to cultivate gratefulness every other day of the year.

10 Easy Ways to Start Being More Grateful 

1. Bust out your old diary.Studies show that people who make weekly gratitude journal entries feel better about their lives and more optimistic about the future. Not into breaking out the pen and paper? Try using an app. We like Five Minute Journal, which prompts you to write down three things you’re grateful for, three things that would make the day awesome and three affirmations (e.g. “I am confident,” “I am kind”) each day.

2. Write a letter to someone who left a mark.Remember that teacher or professor who helped you explore your passions? Or the coach who gave you the confidence to win that game? Grab some stationary and write out a handwritten thank you. According to Martin Seligman, an internationally renowned psychologist and author of Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Wellbeing, you’ll benefit from the pleasant memories of positive events and people in your life.  Plus, your recipient will feel pretty darn great reading about your fond memories of them. If you want to make thank you notes a weekly habit, gratitude-focused subscription service Gramr.us will send you enough paper and envelopes to write four notes a month.

3. Appreciate the mundane.Once you get into a routine at home, you might start taking your partner or your house-mates for granted. It’s easy to overlook daily tasks. But small acts of kindness, (like when a roommate cleans out the fridge without being asked) make your daily life easier. In one study published in Personal Relationships, showing everyday gratitude for these mundane acts helped improve and even strengthen relationships with significant others. Bonus: The effects weren’t just immediate — they lasted for days. 

4. Bring gratitude to office grouches.Even your sometimes-grumpy boss could use some recognition. One study showed that when powerful, insecure people received gratitude from subordinates, they were less likely to exhibit aggressive behavior. The corner office gets lonely, so show them some love and you just might be treated better in the future. 

5. Compliment someone.There’s nothing like being on the receiving end of genuine praise — so why not make someone else’s day? Tell someone he or she looks  awesome, did a great job

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 or rocked a workout. They’ll feel like a million bucks — quite literally. Receiving a compliment lights up the same regions of the brain that get activated when you receive cold hard cash,studies suggest. This region of the brain controls memory and learning, and researchers believe compliments can help us perform better for days after being given praise.

6. Thank behind-the-scenes people.From waiters and baristas, to cabbies and cleaning men and women, there are lots of people who help your life run smoothly. If someone has provided you a service, take a minute to ask his or her name and let him or her know you wouldn’t be able to function without that cup of coffee or late-night ride home. According to recent research, thanking new acquaintances for help can ensure that they’ll have your back in the future.

7. Give credit where credit’s due.Just finished a big collaborative project at work? Be the one to publicly toot everyone else’s horn. Recognizing how each person contributed to the success of the group will create a sense of community and can make individuals more motivated to bring their A-game next time around, suggests research from psychologists in Japan. Not the type to shout your appreciation from the rooftops? Write someone’s manager a note to report excellent service.

8. Make it a public affair.Posting on social media or participating in an on-line gratitude project can help you pay your grateful feelings forward. According to data scientists at Facebook, emotions are contagious on the social network. Post a grateful status update and your friends just might feel more positive. Don’t want to bombard your personal newsfeed every day? At The Gratitude Jar, read why other people around the world are feeling grateful, and add your own positive thoughts to the “jar.” Or, put your blessings on the World Gratitude Map. 

9. Put gratitude before gossip.Catching up with friends over a few beers? Instead of immediately ranting about a bad roommate, demanding boss or weird date, start by sharing the positive highlights of your life. Talking through hardships is important, but sharing the good stuff with your buddies can help you feel happier and even help you cope with the truly sucky things that occur.

Gratitude isn’t about believing that life is perfect, writes Robert Emmons in Why Gratitude Is Good. Rather, it’s about identifying happiness when we look at our lives as a whole.

http://dailyburn.com/life/lifestyle/easy-ways-practice-gratitude/

A Gratitude Habit to Boost Your Positivity

Be grateful when bad things don’t happen.

There’s a blackout while I’m in the basement of my house. At least it didn’t happen when I was cleaning the cats’ litter box, I tell myself. Next morning, I spill coffee all over the kitchen counter. At least it didn’t go in the silverware drawer. Then it’s on to bonking my hip on a table (at least I didn’t cut myself), burning the breakfast sausages (at least the kitchen didn’t catch fire), and buying $150 worth of groceries (at least it was cheaper than buying those same groceries in Tokyo). And so on, every day.

Friends of mine—accustomed to my “at least” habit—crack me up by saying, “You’re so positive!” I think they see me as a 21st-century Pollyanna, that sunny and fictitious orphan. In fact, as my husband knows, I’m a private expert at imagining the worst. Does my kid have a sniffle? I’ll see that sniffle and raise it to pneumonia. Is she late getting home from school? Bam: I picture a hideous bus crash. For me, the gratitude-for-what-hasn’t-happened mindset is a way of using my hyperactive imagination for good.

And, just in time for Thanksgiving, I’m pleased to report that a number of scientists are in my corner. No, they haven’t specifically endorsed—yet—my pattern of being grateful 30 times a day that small problems weren’t more drastic. But their research does suggest that picturing sadder versions of your past might make you happier in the present.

At the University of Virginia, the University of Western Ontario and other places, psychologists asked people to imagine that something in their lives (either bad or good) had turned out worse. In one study, for instance, students remembered a test they had done poorly on and imagined having done even more poorly. In another, people in romantic relationships imagined never having met their beloved. This way of seeing things—known in the psych biz as “downward counterfactual thinking”—had swift results: Those who imagined getting lower grades were in better moods immediately afterward than those who imagined getting higher grades; those who pictured a world where they hadn’t met Mr. or Ms. Right promptly reported more satisfaction with that person than they had two weeks before.

What explains such shifts? Maybe, scientists suggest, it’s that when you imagine a worse version of events, you rekindle the novelty of reality: But I did meet Bill! I didn’t get an F! I scooped the cat poop before the lights went out! And novelty seems key to enjoying your blessings. (Which is why even the best memories—from reaching a professional goal to watching your World Cup team score a winning one—feel less thrilling as time passes.)

Could “downward counterfactual thinking” goose long-term happiness? Could it prepare us to cope with major challenges? Science has yet to offer a verdict. But—true to my Pollyanna reputation—I’m optimistic. As a 2008 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology points out, small daily boosts of positive emotion “improved life satisfaction and reduced depressive symptoms over time.”

And I can definitely vouch that my “at least” habit brings daily boosts of positive emotion—even, on occasion, rueful laughter. Now if I could just quit spilling coffee and walking into things, I’d be in business.

How you deal with the insanity life throws at us every day is your choice. Find out how to stop negative thinking your sense of humor.

https://www.success.com/a-gratitude-habit-to-boost-your-positivity/