Gratitude why do we need it?
A grateful heart is a magnet for miracles!
Gratitude is the quality of being thankful, showing appreciation and giving back kindness. It helps yourself and others through hard times when it is difficult to see the positive. A simple act of kindness can change your day/point of view. Gratitude can make us happier, healthier, and more settled in ourselves. Gratitude is the appreciation of the valuable and meaningful things in our lives.
Countless studies have shown that gratitude can have physical, psychological, emotional and social benefits. It helps us appreciate all the positive elements of our lives and the people in them.
The benefits of practising gratitude include:
● Makes you happier
● Improves your mental wellbeing
● Improves your physical health
● Increases your self-esteem
● Enhances your positive emotions
● It can help you make friends
● Improves your sleep
● It can boost your career
Practising gratitude
There are a few easy ways that you can start practising gratitude, such as:
● Start by observing yourself and how often you show your gratitude towards others. You can use your journal for this as well.
● Pick one interaction a day - at the end of the day, reflect on one moment where you could have used gratitude and didn’t or where you did and how it affected the other person.
● Keep a Gratitude Journal allows you to reflect on yourself and helps you keep track of yourself. Make sure to write down everything, the good, the bad and the ugly.
● Remember the Bad - this will help you to change for the better and allow you to learn how to react and express yourself if it were to repeat.
● Share Your Gratitude with Others - expressing your gratitude can strengthen relationships so remember to tell the other person when they do something you appreciate.
● Use Visual Reminders - the two main obstacles that hinder your gratitude are forgetfulness and a lack of mindful awareness. A simple visual reminder can help stop this and could be a post-it note or even a person.
Why do we need it?
We need gratitude to understand where that goodness comes from and the sources that produce it. It didn’t stem from anything we necessarily did ourselves in which we might take pride. Gratitude makes us understand that there is goodness all around and that people show it in many different ways, which allows us to celebrate the present and block toxic, negative emotions. Therefore, making us are more stress-resistant and have a higher sense of self-worth.
