Four Tips To Cultivate Gratitude.

Gratitude is crucial for your health. A grateful heart reaps the benefit not only spiritually but also physically. Because we are in the season of Thanksgiving here in the US, I thought, why not share how being grateful has helped me? So today I am sharing four tips for cultivating gratitude.

 Studies show that a person who is grateful tends to have fewer aches and pains and better health than one who is ungrateful. According to research conducted by Robert Emmons, a leading expert on the scientific effects of gratitude, a conscious focus on one’s blessings has emotional and interpersonal benefits.

There is a whole community on Facebook dedicated to gratitude, and it offers motivation and inspiration to those with chronic illnesses and has seen the positive effects of this emotion on its members. Here’s what Lauren Blanchard Zalewski, the group’s founder, said in a comment:

As the founder & admin of the only gratitude-based group on Facebook for people with chronic conditions, I can say that these studies are very factual based on my observations with those who begin a gratitude practice. I started “Attitude of Gratitude With Chronic Pain” in 2014 as a group where no complaining was allowed, and it has evolved into much more than that 3 1/2 years later.

We are now a group over 3,400 strong and you we state our gratitude every single day. We state daily intentions every morning. We have live chats, and we have members who say that after decades of suffering, incorporating gratitude and this way of live has been the biggest and most effective treatment EVER given to them….they are HAPPY. Many report that physical symptoms have lessened…that is certainly the case for me and I’ve lived with lupus & fibromyalgia for almost 20 years.

Four Ways To Be Grateful

So we know how being grateful can help our health and well-being. Want to learn how you can incorporate it into your day and even instill it in your kids? Read on…

1. Pray

Several studies suggest that prayer positively affects a person’s level of gratitude. As such, prayer appears to be an emerging therapeutic tool for clinicians. Given that prayer is the method used to thank God, it seems likely that praying more would be associated with greater gratitude.

Teach your kids the relationship between the two when they’re young so that they can understand the connection and use this to help themselves as adults.

2. Keep a gratitude journal

Putting our blessings down on paper has double the impact. When we ‘see’ the blessings put on paper, we are bound to internalize the emotion even more. Find some time in your day and jot down what you are grateful for. You can do it first thing in the morning or just before going to bed. The exercise doesn’t have to be time-consuming. Just get a small notebook and put down 3-5 things you are grateful for daily, and be consistent.

You can make it a practice before bed to list a few blessings with your kids as a part of their nighttime routine. Vocalizing them will reinforce gratitude.

3. Help the needy

There’s nothing like seeing those who are less fortunate than you to make you feel thankful for what you have. I recently volunteered at a food bank where we assembled lunch boxes for low-income school-aged children in after-school programs. We were told this was most likely the only decent meal the kids would get that day. To hear this brought a lot of things into perspective for me. We see a lot of poverty around the world, and I know there are a lot of low-income neighborhoods in First World America, but this was very close to home.

I plan to take my kids there soon to help them feel less entitled and more like they are of service to others.

4. Thank those around you

Making it a habit to be grateful to those around you can cultivate gratitude, too. This not only nurtures relationships between two people but also motivates employees to perform better when employers show gratitude and recognition.

Gratitude is stressed in most major world religions. Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism all promote gratitude to God and your fellow man. We always knew how it supported us spiritually, but now we have proof that it is also necessary for our physical well-being!

Do you have any tips you can add to this list? I’d love to know!

Read next: Gratitude~ Not Just at Thanksgiving