Gratitude

Gratitude for your wellbeing

If a genie granted you three wishes, likelihood is one of those wishes might be for more time. And if that wish was granted, you’d probably be feeling very grateful! 

How would you spend that extra time? With people you love? Doing activities you enjoy? Catching up on neglected priorities? Taking care of yourself? Doing something kind for others? 

Whatever you might choose, as long as you are purposeful, it will create tremendous benefit to you and others. 

Leap Year gives us all the bonus of an extra day this year, and that gift inspires this gratitude practice.

Why gratitude? 

There are many things we all know we can or “should” do to support our well being. But too often, these habits feel like “to-dos” that compete with other priorities of obligations. (How’s that new year’s resolution going a few weeks into the new year?) The beauty of gratitude is that it is accessible to us in our daily events and doesn’t need to displace anything (other than potentially replacing negative headspace). 

Expressing your gratitude is good for your physical health and mental wellbeing. Research continues to demonstrate the numerous benefits of regular gratitude, including improved sleep, positive effects on blood pressure, increased exercise, less physical pain, lowered depressive symptoms, greater job and life satisfaction. It certainly seems that gratitude promotes a mindset and healthy habits that further create even greater health benefits. 

Because “a picture is worth a thousand words,” I encourage you to capture an image every day of something that inspires a feeling of gratefulness. You can keep these images as a “gratitude album” on your phone, as a way to access this positive, mood boosting emotion at any time. (Journaling about your gratitude also has tremendous benefits if you want to make that a health habit). 

This list is designed to help you find (and express) gratitude in all aspects of your life. Hopefully it creates an attitude of gratitude that sparks this sentiment in moments and places beyond the prompts on this page. 

Want to read more about gratitude?

Here are some places to learn more about the research and benefits of gratitude. 

https://positivepsychology.com/gratitude-research/#gratitude-proven-benefits

https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Gratitude-FINAL.pdf