The Benefits of Gratitude for Mental Health and Well-Being

While it may not come easily to some, cultivating thankfulness is a skill that can be acquired. People can learn to be more appreciative by engaging in a few easy activities, such journaling their gratitude. Try putting a few things you are grateful for every day in writing. You may also try an exercise similar to the one Emmons and McCullough employed in their study, which involves keeping a journal of your blessings and problems for a week.

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1.Elevates Mood People who are grateful typically experience greater overall happiness and lower levels of stress. Gratitude helps elevate your mood by releasing dopamine and serotonin, which contributes to those sentiments. Furthermore, thankfulness promotes sharing good fortune with others because it is a prosocial feeling. For this reason, it is also described as a "moral emotion." Being grateful can benefit your mental health and general well-being because, as studies have shown, appreciative people tend to be more prosocial. In one study, for instance, participants were instructed to write down any blessings or difficulties they had, and then they were asked to aid a stranger or a confederate. The findings demonstrated that compared to the group that wrote about their problems, the blessings writer experienced fewer headaches, nausea, dizziness, and respiratory issues. Comparably, compared to a control group that did not keep a journal, a heart failure patient who kept a daily notebook of her blessings shown greater parasympathetic heart-rate variability, which is linked to better cardiac health.

2. Strengthens Connections

It is simpler to concentrate on the people and things you have gratitude for when you practise thankfulness. This enhances interpersonal connections. Gratitude practise also helps you see the bright side of bad circumstances. This allows you to concentrate more on discovering solutions and expend less energy worrying about them. According to studies, folks who write letters of gratitude tend to be in better mental health than those who don't. It's interesting to note, though, that the amount of positive feeling or "we" phrases they used in their essays had no bearing on the disparity in mental health. Instead, the difference in mental health outcomes was explained by the absence of words that convey negative emotions (Bartlett & DeSteno, 2006). Writing a daily journal entry outlining the people and things you are thankful for is one approach to cultivate thankfulness. Try not to merely make a list of all the positive things in your life, but also concentrate on a few things for which you are most grateful.

3. Assists You in Handling Tough Circumstances

It's critical to keep in mind that thankfulness is more than just an emotion; it's a way of being. You may cultivate gratitude even in the face of adversity by engaging in gratitude activities. Although studies show that cultivating thankfulness can enhance your outlook, relationships, and happiness, it shouldn't be seen as a treatment for mental health issues like anxiety or depression. If you're going through a tough moment, get expert assistance. In as little as 48 hours, BetterHelp can match you with a certified and screened therapist. Refocus on the people and things you have gratitude for if you're feeling more like Eeyore than Tigger. Try concentrating on depth rather than width; jotting down a small number of persons for whom you are thanks will have a bigger effect than enumerating several things. Additionally, rather than adding up all of the bad things that have happened to you, think about the good things instead. This can have a significant effect on your sense of wellbeing.

4. Boosts Self-Respect

Not only can gratitude help you see the good things in your life, but it can also help you get over negative tendencies like jealousy and cynicism. It's particularly helpful in battling narcissism, as it's been connected to less thankfulness (Bono and McCullough). It might be simpler for certain people than for others to learn gratitude. It takes conscious effort to retrain your brain to recognise the positive things in life because it is human nature to focus on the unpleasant aspects of life. Writing a journal entry about your blessings or envisioning your best self are two activities that have been demonstrated to boost appreciation. Regular practise of these strategies can yield long-term advantages as they become ingrained in your daily habit and perspective. According to Sheldon and Lyubomirsky's study, individuals who engaged in these gratitude-enhancing treatments reported feeling more personally well-off than a control group that did not carry out these activities. These workouts can make a big difference and are simple to add into your daily routine.