What is gratitude? 

Gratitude is an affirmative expression of satisfaction and other positive feelings as a result of an experience or a situation. In other words, gratitude is a way of saying “I’m glad that happened.” Or saying “I feel happy this person is in my life.” Though gratitude practice does not train an anatomical muscle, it helps to focus  your energy to seek the positive and it equips you to deal with the negative.  

Gratitude is an excellent practice to add to your self-development behaviors. Our midlife years offer many chances to reset and redefine the theme of our lives. Decide today that you will shift your focus to gratitude. Apart from your time and perhaps paper and pen, you don’t need any special equipment. Any work you undertake to have a positive mindset and an outlook of positivity will be greatly enhanced by regularly practicing gratitude.  

What are some of the Benefits of Gratitude?

Feelings of Pleasure

Researcher Alex Korb found that gratitude practices stimulate increased levels of dopamine and serotonin in the brain. Dopamine is a feel-good substance associated with pleasure. Serotonin is a neurochemical that improves mood. Together these substances contribute to an all-around good feeling.  

Patience and Delayed Gratification

In addition to increased feelings of pleasure and positivity in the moment, practicing gratitude can make you more patient. In one study, researchers found that participants who were asked to recall an experience of gratitude were more likely to choose an option for a larger but later reward than participants who did not write about gratitude. 

Moving More and Aching Less

College students who made a list of things they were grateful for each week reported fewer physical complaints and spent more time being active, in addition to a more positive outlook on life than participants who were told to list challenges each week. This finding comes from what has become a seminal study of gratitude, a 2003 work Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life by scholars Dr. Robert Emmons and Dr. Michael McCullough.  

Raising Your Vibrations

Expressing appreciation, the act of thanking, sitting with feelings of gratitude are all activities that brighten and raise your vibrational level. Whether or not we know it we all function at a certain vibrational level and we are all sensitive to energy. Don’t believe it? Think about the most beautiful place in nature you’ve ever been to. Close your eyes and picture it. Now recall if you’ve ever entered a space where the energy felt inexplicably tense, despite everyone’s insistence that everything was fine–only to find out later that an argument had just taken place? The two felt markedly different, didn’t they? That icky, post-argument feeling you detected were low vibration feelings and that lovely shock and awe from beauty was an experience of high vibrations.   

Resilience

Gratitude can help you cope with negative events. If you practice gratitude even for a short period of time, you will realize that not only do you have a list of things to be positive, but the list is evidence that you have resources and strengths. Even in the darkest of times, gratitude can remind you that you have access to something that can get through even the most difficult times.

More Gratitude

The biggest benefit of gratitude is that it tends to attract more opportunities in your life to be grateful. Being aware of something leads to seeking out more of the same. This is because of selective perception. If you are still not convinced, here is a PSA to raise awareness about distracted driving:

Once you see it, it becomes difficult to not see it. Gratitude will show up more in your life, if only you take time to notice it!

Gratitude Practice

There are many ways to practice gratitude. A very simple way would be to meditate and focus on gratitude. Another way would be to keep a list on your phone or on a spreadsheet. But there is something to be said about putting pen to paper and writing down the things you feel grateful for. You could also get a jar or box and record things you are grateful for on paper, then place them inside. Whatever it takes to help you cope better with negative and focus on the positive, gratitude is worth it. Like things to be grateful for, there are no limits to how you can express them. 

How could raising your vibrations and sitting in gratitude improve your life? How would you show up in the world if you feel better physically? How would you show up if you are regularly experiencing more pleasure? How would you show up if you are comfortable in your own skin have a sense of optimism and positivity? 

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Featured photo by Freshh Connection on Unsplash