Gratitude is a positive emotion that involves the feelings of thankfulness and appreciation for other people or things in your life.

Gratitude is a conscious awareness of your blessings.

Gratitude is all about your perspective on life and your ability to view life's situations with optimism.

While everything in your life may not be perfect, gratitude allows you to recognize and focus on those things in your life that are good.  Regardless of what is going on in your life, there are always positive things that you can be thankful for.

Gratitude is a tool that you can use improve your attitude about yourself and about life in general.

For centuries philosophers and religious leaders have touted that gratitude as a virtue is of vital importance to our health and well being.  It has been said that "gratitude is the key ingredient for success".  Gratitude can redirect your mind to see the positive in life, even during difficult times.  The following are just a few of the adages on gratitude that have been passed down through the centuries:

• "Whatever your God has blessed you with, take it with grateful hand."  Horace
• "Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others." Cicero
• "A noble person is mindful and thankful of the favors he receives from others." the Buddha
  

Can Gratitude Benefit Your Health?

Researchers are now studying gratitude as part of an emerging movement called positive psychology, which analyzes how virtues such as gratitude benefit our health.

Positive psychology is all about understanding what factors and character traits facilitate mental well-being versus studies on mental illness. Thus, positive psychology is the study of why some people enjoy good mental health, while others do not.

Researchers are finding that feelings of thankfulness for life and gratitude are attributed to mental well-being, and are a contributing factor to making people psychologically positive.

The Benefits of Gratitude

Gratitude is a powerful force, that when practiced daily, can provide you with numerous benefits.

Being grateful for even the smallest thing in your life can trigger positive and happy feelings.  Research by Emmons & McCullough has suggested that feelings of gratitude may be beneficial to our subjective emotional well-being and that having a deep sense of gratitude is a critically important factor in maintaining positive emotional health.⁽¹⁾

Gratitude allows you to replace negative thoughts and feelings that can derail you from a happy and productive life with a more positive and constructive outlook.

According to Robert Emmons from the University of California at Davis, "Gratitude research is beginning to suggest that feelings of thankfulness have tremendous positive value in helping people cope with daily problems, especially stress, and to achieve a positive sense of the self."  Other benefits of daily gratitude that have surfaced as a result of academic studies by Emmons and McCullough include:

• individuals that are grateful tend to have a higher vitality
  
• those that are grateful are more likely to experience positive emotions such as optimism
  
• thankful people are less likely to develop mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety
  
• those that are grateful tend to be less materialistic
  
• grateful individuals tend to have a greater satisfaction with life in general
  
• individuals that practice gratitude tend to take better care of themselves by engaging in healthy behaviors such as regular exercise, healthy diet, and regular physical exams
  

Gratitude and Weight Loss

Gratitude can be of particular benefit to you as you travel through your weight loss journey.  Any journey in life will have its ups and downs.  Gratitude can help get you through the rough parts of your weight loss journey by redirecting your focus to all that you have to be thankful for, versus what is going wrong.

As you practice daily gratitude you will see that it will help keep you on track, focused, and motivated to achieving your wellness and weight loss goals.  For example, if you get to a point where your weight plateaus for a week or so, instead of having negative thoughts of self doubt, take a minute to think of all that you have to be grateful for (be thankful for the last two pounds that you just lost, or how much better your clothes feel on you).

Learn to celebrate each small milestone in your weight loss journey.  Be thankful for each step that brings you closer to health and wellness.  For each negative situation in your life, there are probably three or more good things that you can celebrate.  The whole idea of practicing gratitude is to avoid letting yourself focus on negative situations.  Redirect your thoughts and feelings to the positive and good things in your life.

Practicing Gratitude

Gratitude is a feeling that must be cultivated and nurtured.  One of the easiest ways to practice gratitude is to keep a gratitude journal, where each day you write down at least three things in your life that you are thankful for.  If you are already in the habit of keeping a gratitude list or journal, congratulations!  If not, today is a great day to start.  This easy and fast exercise will improve your attitude by teaching you to focus on what is good in your life versus what is wrong.

According to Emmons and McCullough, "those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week, compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life experiences. In addition, a related benefit of gratitude was observed in the realm of personal goal attainment: Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal, and health-related)." ^[1,2]

If you are feeling sad, or are going through a rough time in your life, instead of focusing on the negative, find something to be grateful for.  You may be thankful for a warm bed and a roof over your head, your family, your health, the smile that your child gave you, a phone call from a friend, the five minutes you had alone ,or anything that raised your spirit during the day.  You have many gifts, talents and opportunities in your life.  Think about what they are and be grateful for them.

As you practice gratitude on a daily basis, you will see that you will become more positive, you will see that you have more and more to be grateful for, and you will be able to find joy in living each day to the fullest.

Giving To Others

Gratitute can also be derived by giving to others.  One of the deepest gratifications you can experience is when you act in a selfless manner and your actions benefit others.  Doing kind things for others, whether for family, friends or strangers, makes us whole, loving human beings.  At the end of your journey, it will be these acts of kindness that fill your heart with love and happiness.  There truly is no better feeling than doing for others, when nothing is expected in return.

 

Sources:

[1] Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 377-389 by Robert Emmons, Ph.D. and Michael McCullough, Ph.D.

[2] Highlights from the Research Project on Gratitude and Thankfulness: Dimensions and Perspectives of Gratitude, by Robert A. Emmons, University of California, Davis and Michael E. McCullought, University of Miami