MSS #019 Practicing gratitude

MSS #019: 4 Practicing gratitude.

MSS #019: How to be happier – 5 ways to practice gratitude.

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This week lets understand how we can enjoy and appreciate life more, so it becomes a habit to notice more of the good things.

Gratitude is an ancient practice; science can now reveal the huge mental wellbeing benefits.

Most people pass through each day ignoring the good things, they just pass them by, what a waste.

Learn this powerful technique and why it is important.

Background and research on Gratitude

Gratitude, the practice of acknowledging good things in your life.

Back in 2016, every night I started writing down three things I was grateful for that day.

Some days it was easy, some days I had to dig deep to find some positives.

Over tie it became easier to find the positives and my outlook became far more positive. I taught myself, to unlearn my original trait of focussing on the things that did not go well that day.

I now have four notebooks full of gratitude’s, each group of three gratitude’s dated.

From time to time, I look back at past days of gratitude and happily reflect on them either just for fun, or when having a particularly challenging day and wanting to remind myself of better times and getting things into perspective.

I have written proof of all the good things in my life.

On difficult days, I then started reframing negative things into the positive that came from it. As my dear old Nan taught me, out of every disaster something good will come, look and focus on that and things will not seem as bad.

I tend to write my gratitude’s down just before I go to bed, as this has the added advantage of creating a relaxing routine before sleep and engaging my unconscious mind on positive thoughts whilst I sleep.

You can share what you write with those closest to you if you want, they may give you suggestions and start their own book.

There has been increasing amounts of research conducted on the power of gratitude and the benefits it brings including,

• Increased mental resilience.

• Reductions in stress and associated chemical releases of Cortisol.

• Increased immunity.

• 25% increase in happiness!

Some of these studies have been psychological based and others have looked at images of the brain to see how brain activity has changed.

Psychologists, Dr. Robert A. Emmons of the University of California, Davis, and Dr. Michael E. McCullough of the University of Miami, have conducted significant research on gratitude.

Another researcher in gratitude, by Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, tested the impact of various positive psychology interventions on 411 people.

Dr. Robert A. Emmons book “Thanks” (Emmons & McCullough, 2003): discusses his research carried out with three experimental groups over 10 weeks, where he drew his conclusion that those who regularly engage in gratitude increased their happiness by 25%.

Science is increasingly telling us what others have known and experienced for millennia, that positivity does increase our mental and physical wellbeing and increases our ability to absorb troubling times and bounce back quicker from major events in our lives.

Research into neuroplasticity demonstrates that we can create new neural pathways in our mind through repetition, if we create new neural pathways based around positive uplifting thoughts, we find similar thoughts cluster increasing the benefit. Practicing gratitude is far more than a simple exercise, it is about teaching your mind to have a different perspective, one of your choices.

5 ways to practice gratitude

I am not suggesting you do all of these, pick maybe one or two and do them routinely, then both your outlook and resilience will change.

Gratitude journal – everyday make 3 to 5 entries in a dedicated book at the same time each day. I do this as the last thing before I go to sleep, keeping by A5 book and pen by my bedside. I write the days date, where I am, underline this and then write three short sentences against bullet point marks of what made me happy, I enjoyed or appreciated that day.

To get the habit started, make it easier, just write down one point of gratitude.

Gratitude list – keep a running list of things you are grateful for, the act of creating the list aids gratitude, but also reviewing the list from time to time or especially when feeling low.

This is similar to the journal but is just a list you keep adding to with no dates.

Mental gratitude tally – another technique I use, which you could do at any time, but I tend to do first thing in the morning, is make a mental list.

In my head I make a mental list of three to five things I am grateful for.

For each one I create a mental image or mini movie and enjoy the emotion of thinking about what I am grateful for, often physically smiling.

I simply start the process by saying in my head

“I am grateful for………. the beautiful sunny day, the fact that I am driving in a nice car, my girls (how I refer to my direct family) ……etc”

If I find myself feeling sorry for myself or a little down, I use this simple technique to stop and reflect on what I am grateful for, to rebalance my thoughts.

Often, I list simple things that we take for granted, such as being grateful for being alive, being fit or healthy, being warm, being fed, having eyesight.

Thank you - say thank you more often out load to others, or in your head.

If it is something you already do out loud, start saying thank you in your head for all the little everyday things. e.g., say thanks for your dust bins being emptied, that you have enough money to buy some shopping, that your train arrived on time.

Quite often we only comment in our heads when things do not go as we would like, this process is the reverse. The more you start responding to positive things, the more you will notice them, you will program you Reticular Activating System (RAS) to look for more of the same. The RAS is the part of your brain that filters for information you have asked for, a tightly bunched set of neurons at the base of the brain.

Write a thank you note – in the world of electronic communication, personally written notes are well appreciated by those who receive them, which gives you as the writer a nice boost as well.

You could argue that gratitude is simply about perspective, 180 degrees to a more negative outlook. This way you can take the same event and feel great about it and get all the positive mental and psychological benefits as someone who takes the same event and turns it into a negative, draining experience.

Here is an example of the simple event of getting paid for your job.

By the way, being positive is not about being delusional and ignoring reality. It is simply choosing to focus on genuine positive events, feelings and outcomes rather than focussing on negatives or what you do not want to happen.

Remember if nothing else that where you place your attention is what you are “instructing” your RAS to look out for more of and what you want your unconscious to focus on.

Move away from focusing on what you fear and don't want, to what you do want and the things you have and value today.

Focusing on what you do have and value increases happiness.

Habit tips

Once you get gratitude established as a habit, you do it regularly without effort, giving you a continuous top up on happiness.

Best way to get a habit established, is to make it simple and easy to do. How?

• To start with choose only one of the gratitude methods. Once you get that established, then if you want to layer on another practice.

•  Make it as easy as possible to start with, for example,

  • Practice gratitude at the same time each day. I do not mean at 7am each day for example, I mean choose an event in your life and link it to that. If you choose to do gratitude at breakfast, be clear exactly when. At the start of breakfast or at the end? What is the trigger for this? You picking up a cup of drink to signify the start of breakfast. Or perhaps when you take the last bite of your breakfast, if at the end of your breakfast. Be CRYSTAL clear with yourself the exact moment or trigger you will use to signal when you will practice gratitude.

  • Make it easy by having everything ready. If like me you practice gratitude by writing in a journal at night, have the journal and pen by your bedside ready. If you have to go hunting for it, likelihood is you will use it as an excuse.

  • Make it easy by at first just creating a simple list of 2 to 3 things to be grateful for. After doing this for a few weeks, build on it by spending a bit more time thinking about those things, enjoying them a bit more in your mind and reliving them.

Summary

Quick recap.

• The practice of gratitude is an ancient one.

• Science now shows the benefits to us, improved happiness, reduced stress and cortisol.

• Practicing gratitude teaches our mind, specifically the RAS, to find more positive experiences – thus enhancing the benefit.

• We covered 5 ways to practice gratitude,

1. Gratitude journal – 3 entries per day.

2. Master gratitude list – you keep adding to daily.

3. Mental gratitude list – daily run through a list of thinks you appreciate that day.

4. Say thank you more often – outload and in your head.

5. Write out thank you notes.

Want more? 

When you're ready, 3 ways I can help you:

1. If you want to build amazing resilience, I'd recommend starting with an affordable course:

→ Nuclear Powered Resilience: I will teach you a single golden habit, if you want either,

• a permanent, step change in mental resilience

• an on-demand resilience turbo boost, for difficult moments

• healing for a past trauma – without having to think about or examine the past trauma in any way whatsoever

• to fill a gap you have always felt, where unconditional love and support has been absent from your life

• you are curious how the mind works and want to learn how you can enjoy life more and increase your happiness and mental wellbeing

2. Work with me 121 - I can coach you to be implement any of the techniques I share, support you implementing any of training courses or be your business and mind coach helping you better manage those distracting thoughts that often get in our way.

3. Workshops and Speaking - I run workshops and speak. Book me to help your team increase their productivity.

Nuclear Powered Resilience – learn one golden habit that gives incredible inner strength, comfort and support, that keeps growing by instilling Unconditional Love in your mind.

7 guiding principles to better thinking – what trips up our thinking and how to create different habitual responses.

What they should have taught you at school – awareness of how we think and how to get better results.

Vitamin C for the mind – how to feel and have more control in life, with simple techniques built into a habit.

Happy habits – simple habits to make you feel happier everyday.

That's it for this week. Thanks for reading, really hope this helped. Contact me if you think I can help you further at [email protected].

See you next week. If you haven't already, follow me on LinkedIn and hit the bell for daily posts on tips, insights and techniques.

Happy thinking.

20 May, 2023