9 surprising ways it can improve your physical and mental health and even boost your career
I was sitting drinking a cup of tea a few mornings ago. It was early, the sun wasn't quite up and I was looking at the mountains, the Sierra Espuña, that I can see from the house. As the sun rose, the sunlight began to strike the very tops of the mountains and as I watched, it slowly trickled down, gradually lighting up the mountains, the valleys and the towns. It was a beautiful experience and I really got to thinking about how amazingly lucky and blessed I am to live the life that I do. It's been an incredibly difficult year for just about everyone with the arrival of Covid and its effects on people's lives, livelihoods, families and friends, as well as our social lives and the normal everyday things we like to do. Reports suggest that physical and mental health have been badly affected with many more people reporting weight-gain, poorer health, stress, depression and a feeling of hopelessness. We've all had to change our lives to a greater or lesser extent and if we're honest, we're not going to be 'back to normal' anytime soon. So what have we to be grateful for? This week's blog is about gratitude and how it can actually have amazing benefits, not just for our mental health, but for our physical health, our friendships and even our careers, not to mention the lives of people around us.
Gratitude – what is it, exactly?
We sometimes get the wrong ideas about gratitude; we think it's something about being subservient, indebted or weak, and the modern world tends to idolise 'self-sufficiency' but in fact gratitude is none of these things. Gratitude is very simply being thankful for the good things in our lives, however small, and so focusing less on what is wrong. This has been scientifically proven to have huge benefits in all aspects of our lives – I will put a link to further studies and evidence at the end of this blog:
Gratitude is the acknowledgement of kindness with thanks
Steve Scott
Gratitude can help you sleep better – research has shown that people who practise gratitude sleep better than those who don't. Studies suggest that this is because when we practise gratitude, especially at the end of the day, our minds are more relaxed as we're not so focused on our worries and anxieties. People with higher scores on a gratitude test reported falling asleep quicker, sleeping longer and waking less often. You already know how important sleep is to our overall health, so this has to be a big benefit.
Gratitude can improve your relationships - focusing on the positives in our lives allows us to be open to kindnesses of others and to be kinder ourselves. When we experience kindness from other people, we're naturally inclined to be kind ourselves, so the positivity grows. This can impact our friendships and actually make us friendlier and more outgoing.
Gratitude can improve our marriage – in a long-term relationship, it's easy to take the other person for granted and forget the things that made us fall for the person in the first place and actually focus more on the the little niggles and irritations. Research has shown that couples who thanked each other and showed gratitude for the things their partner does, had longer and more satisfying marriages.
Gratitude can improve your physical health – studies show that people who practise gratitude are more likely to exercise and less likely to overeat. The reasons for these findings aren't completely clear but some suggestions are that - ◦ being grateful relaxes us and when we're relaxed we're less likely to eat too much – stress can seriously affect our eating habits ◦ being grateful affects our physical and mental well-being, both of which may make us feel more positive, energetic and likely to exercise
Gratitude can make you more optimistic – by focusing more on the good things in our lives instead of the negatives, we gradually form a habit of seeing the good things. When we focus on the good things, we expect good things to happen and so become more optimistic.
Gratitude can make you less materialistic – by focusing on the little but good things in our lives, we realise how much we already have and therefore are less likely to crave the things we don't. We also feel happier and more content, so we don't look to material things for happiness. This is an interesting one – when we're less focused on material things for happiness, we're less likely to get stressed about money, work and having the latest things. Studies have shown that there is absolutely no correlation between high income and happiness. That's not to say that having no money is a good thing either, but by feeling gratitude we may find we want to focus more on the things money can't buy – relationships, friends, family, health and hobbies.
Gratitude can make you more resilient – nobody's life is perfect and things do go wrong, but cultivating an 'attitude of gratitude' has been shown to help us bounce back after setbacks and be able to think positively about the future.
Gratitude can help your career – it sounds pretty obvious but employees who experience appreciation and gratitude for their work are happier, more productive and more creative than those who experience criticism. When we feel appreciated, we are far more likely to do more and give more to our work. If you are a manager, showing gratitude and appreciation of your employees can make a huge difference to their work and yours. If you are part of a team, showing gratitude to your team mates and appreciating their support will make your team stronger and more productive. Gratitude has also been shown to help networking skills.
Gratitude can make us feel good – Gratitude researcher Robert Emmons says that 'gratitude is recognising happiness after the fact' so gratitude doesn't just make us feel happier, it is happiness. I can say for certain that after watching the sun come up over the mountains and recognising what a great life I have, I felt much calmer and happier for the rest of the day.
So what am I grateful for?
I do realise that I actually have a dream life. I live in a beautiful house in a lovely part of the world with my husband and cats; I have good friends and a great, crazy family; I am healthy and I get to do lots of great things. But at the end of the day it's really the most basic things that matter.
Practising gratitude brings me back to the basics – I have enough to eat, I have clean, fresh water to drink and to wash, I have clothes to wear and a roof over my head, and at the end of the day I have a clean, comfortable, safe place to sleep – all the other things are wonderful and I never stop appreciating them, but these basic things are the ones that matter – all the rest is a whole lot of yummy icing on the cake.
If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep you are richer than 75 percent of the world.
Sara Debbie Gutfreund
How to 'do' gratitude
Cultivating gratitude isn't difficult. Gratitude is simply recognising and being thankful for all the good things in our lives and then passing on that good feeling to others. Some ways to achieve this are:
• Keep a gratitude journal – I know this might sound a bit cheesy but it really does work. Taking a few minutes each day to just write down 3-5 things that you're grateful for can have a huge impact – just 5 minutes a day can make a 10% improvement in our overall happiness
• Tell people when you are grateful to them - we are interdependent beings and however independent we like to feel, we all need other people. By taking the time to tell people and thank them for their support, actions, words etc. we not only increase our own happiness, we certainly will increase theirs as well
• Before you go to sleep, think about 3 things you are grateful for – as I said above, this has been shown to improve sleep quality and reduce stress
• Practise mindfulness – mindfulness is a key part of gratitude; when we're mindful, we can more easily focus on the little things that make our lives so special – autumn leaves, rain on the window, sun on the mountains, the look on our pet's face, a hug from a loved one....
• Pay it forward – when we feel gratitude, we are naturally more likely to be kind to others and when we realise just how amazingly lucky we are, it's easy to want to share that. Suspended Coffees is a Facebook group which aims to change the world one act of kindness at a time. The basic premise is that occasionally when you buy a coffee, you pay for the person behind or ask the barista to keep one for another customer, but paying it forward can apply to many things: Offer to help someone with their shopping bags, buy a drink or a sandwich for a homeless person, buy something from a charity stall, smile at a complete stranger, pay an honest compliment, donate stuff to charity shop, make cakes for a fund-raiser, let someone in the queue in front of you, leave positive post-it notes in public places for others to find, leave a good book for someone else to read - the list can go on and on but there are a thousand ways to pay it forward in life with random acts of kindness. Just to round off, take a look at this incredible video – it's quite old but it still never fails to make me cry:
So what are you grateful for today? Try some of the suggestions above and see how your attitude to life gradually changes – and please let me know how you get on.
Yours gratefully,
Further reading:
Comments