Intentionally putting your focus on gratitude doesn’t have to take much time but it has some huge payoffs. Even if your gratitude practice involves writing down a sentence about each of several things that you are grateful for, you can add gratitude to your life in just a couple of quick minutes. The hardest part about adding a gratitude practice to your daily routine is often simply remembering to do it!
So, what are the benefits the practice of gratitude has been shown to bring? I’m going to let Robert Emmons tell you. Emmons is a researcher who has studied gratitude and is the author of Gratitude Works!: A 21 Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity. The following is an excerpt from his book:
Groundbreaking research has shown that when people regularly cultivate gratitude, they experience a multitude of psychological, physical, interpersonal, and spiritual benefits. Gratitude has one of the strongest links to mental health and satisfaction with life of any personality trait—more so than even optimism, hope, or compassion. Grateful people experience higher levels of positive emotions such as joy, enthusiasm, love, happiness, and optimism, and gratitude as a discipline protects us from the destructive impulses of envy, resentment, greed, and bitterness. People who experience gratitude can cope more effectively with everyday stress, show increased resilience in the face of trauma-induced stress, recover more quickly from illness, and enjoy more robust physical health.
And believe it or not, Emmons describes many other impressive outcomes tied to the practice of gratitude. Want to exercise more? How about an extra half hour of sleep every night? Gratitude can help with both, enriching your life while helping you make other quality of life improvements.
If you are at a place in your life where it’s hard to imagine feeling grateful, I invite you to give me a call. Let’s talk about what we can do to help you change your life s that you have more to celebrate and enjoy. I’m not saying we’ll get there overnight, but we can sure get started moving in the right direction immediately. Call or text me at (816) 226-4678.
