Grateful for Gratitude
Grateful for Gratitude
by Jeane Hendrix, RN
One thing I love about Thanksgiving is seeing people sharing what they are most thankful for. This year, I think what I am most thankful for is…gratitude. That may sound weird, but practicing gratitude has changed my life! Scientific research has conclusively shown that practicing gratitude can boost your immune system, lower your blood pressure, decrease anxiety, make you more creative, productive, likable, and happy! Practicing gratitude doesn’t cost anything, can be done anywhere, and takes just a few minutes. Practicing gratitude is not a “Pollyanna” approach to life; it’s a success strategy! I love what Arianna Huffington says about gratitude: “It’s like white blood cells for the soul, protecting us from cynicism, entitlement, anger, and resignation.” And who wouldn’t want that?
So here are three simple exercises to jump-start your gratitude practice today:
1. Wake up with a smile
The goal is to smile big before even getting out of bed, regardless of how you feel. The physical act of turning up the corners of your mouth and crinkling your eyes releases the “feel good” chemicals in your brain, which can help you lower your heart rate and stress levels and even reduce pain. Being able to start your day feeling more relaxed and in a lighter mood is worth making this a habit. You could put a note on your bathroom mirror or nightstand to remind you to smile first thing in the morning. And research shows that smiles are contagious…so why not spread some smiles all day long? It will help you and everyone around you feel better!
2. Take a few minutes at night to review and write down 1-3 things that you are grateful for.
This exercise forces your brain to scan the past 24 hours for positive things that happened to you, like benefiting from a friend’s generosity, learning something new, or seeing a beautiful sunset. In just 5 minutes a day, this exercise trains your brain to become more skilled at noticing and focusing on possibilities for personal and professional growth and seizing opportunities to act on. This leads to increased creativity, productivity, and happiness – the fast track to success. At the same time, since we can only focus on so much at one time, our brains push out those small annoyances and frustrations that used to loom large in the back of our mind. The more you practice this – the more you scan your world for good things to write down – the more good things you will see. This is how you make your own good luck! Of course, any time your gratitude entry involves another person, telling that person will not only make you happy, but will also increase their happiness as well!
3. Reframe difficult situations by finding something good that came as a result of the situation.
Hardships and suffering can actually refine and deepen gratefulness. Our Thanksgiving holiday was born and grew out of difficult time, after nearly half the pilgrims died from a rough winter. Crisis can make us more grateful, but research says gratitude also helps us cope with crisis. This is not ignoring the problem or changing the facts; it’s learning to glean good from bad. Since we can’t prevent problems in life, gratitude can help us lean in to the problem and gain wisdom for the future and see how bad things can sometimes produce good outcomes. Cultivating an attitude of gratitude builds up a sort of psychological immune system that increases our resilience, our ability to bounce back.
Bottom line – practicing gratitude feels good and does good!
The more you do it, the easier it becomes and the more benefit you (and others) derive from it.
It was actually my mom who taught me the practice of gratitude. Of course she taught me to say thank you (as most moms do) but this past week, I had the realization that my mom was far ahead of her time! When I was a child, the field of positive psychology hadn’t emerged. There were no gratitude studies or evidence-based research to draw from. But my mom lived gratitude…and lovingly transferred these daily habits to me from an early age.
Mom woke me each morning with her favorite verse: “This is the day that the Lord has made. Let’s rejoice and be glad in it!” She wore a big smile when she said it, and I would (usually) mirror a smile back to her. To this day, I wake up and smile first thing on most mornings (no one’s perfect!)
Mom trained me to write thank you notes. I wrote a thank you for every birthday party I was invited to, every gift I received, and any other time that she could conjure up a reason to say “thank you” to someone. I even remember her suggesting that I write a thank you to the doctor for making a house call when I had scarlet fever. My response to her was, “Did you see the size of that needle he stuck in me?!?” (I don’t remember, but I probably wrote him a thank you note too!) She taught me the daily habit of searching for things and people to be grateful for.
Every day when I got home from school, mom would ask me about my day. On occasions when I would tell her about my “no-good-horrible-day,” she would give me a hug, a big glass of sweet tea, and then ask me to tell her all about it. After I had vented (and maybe cried…just a little), she’d tell me a story. My mom was a great storyteller, and I just thought it was her way of distracting me to make me feel better. But of course the story always helped me see the situation from a different perspective and to see how sometimes hard things turn out to be blessings. I didn’t realize my mom was helping me learn how to reframe my difficult situation in order to find some good. She was helping me be grateful even when I didn’t feel grateful!
Thanksgiving will be difficult for me and my family this year, because we said goodbye to my mom for the final time last week. But as I wrote her eulogy and shared the things that I was grateful to her for, I realized that I was actually doing what she had trained me to do as a child – to write and speak words of gratitude no matter how difficult the situation. While I was speaking those final words, I could feel a sense of lightness and peace come over me, and I could even smile, because I knew my mom would be proud!
So this Thanksgiving, I am grateful for gratitude and most of all, for a mom who instilled the practice of gratitude in my life from an early age.
I hope that all of you enjoy this Thanksgiving holiday with those you love, and enjoy the benefits of gratitude every single day of the year.