Importance of gratitude for positive mental health

Hi, welcome to this blog post. In this post I will discuss how gratitude promotes positive mental health.

Gratitude and mental health
There are thousands of reasons to be thankful for, including the major ones such as improved mental health and well-being.

Practicing gratitude is a good virtue and it can have different meanings for different people. Expression can range from daily journaling to daily prayers and can have different purposes.

People can express gratitude in different ways. They can be thankful to their past memories, the present for all the things that are good in their life or for the future with being hopeful and optimistic. Regardless of the purpose, it is a quality that can be easily cultivated in one.

REASONS TO PRACTICE GRATITUDE

1. Improves Mental Health
Practicing gratitude fosters positive feelings and can contribute to a sense of well-being when done regularly. A study conducted in 2012 study showed that practicing gratitude was linked with reduced anxiety and depression. An older study conducted in 2003 showed that grateful thinking improved mood.

Robert Emmons, a leading gratitude researcher, has conducted multiple studies on the link between gratitude and well-being. Through his studies it has been observed that gratitude effectively increases happiness and reduces depression.

2. Improves Physical Health
Along with improving mental health, practicing gratitude can improve aspects of physical health as well. For instance, an early stage study in 2017 showed that gratefulness can reduce the risks associated with heart failure.

Moreover, it was revealed that grateful people experience fewer aches and pains and report feeling healthier than other people, as per a study 2012 study published in Personality and Individual Differences.

3. Nurtures Relationships
Being grateful promotes interpersonal relationships. It is backed by a study published in 2011 which provided evidence that gratitude facilitates socially inclusive behaviors, preferentially towards one’s benefactor.

Moreover, showing appreciation can lead to winning new friends as reported by a study published in 2014 by the University of New South Wales. It reported that thanking a new acquaintance makes them more likely to pursue the relationship with you.

4. Improves Optimism
Being an optimistic person can have plenty of health benefits such as overall well-being, healthy aging and practicing gratitude can make you an optimistic person as showed by the study conducted in 2018.

5. Improves Sleep
A 2011 study shed light on the importance of being grateful. It suggested that writing in a gratitude journal improved sleep. Spending just 15 minutes writing down a few grateful sentiments before sleeping may help you to sleep better and longer.

WAYS TO CULTIVATE GRATITUDE

1. Write a thank you note
A great way to practice gratitude is to write a thank you note or gratitude letter to the person who has made a positive impact in your life. You can introspect and pen it out on the letter or card about how they have made a difference in your life.

2. Mentally express your gratitude
If you don’t want to write a letter or the other person is likely to be unable to receive it, you can thank the person mentally. You can take a moment for yourself and visualize thanking the person by saying all the things that you would like to say to them in person.

3. Keep a gratitude journal
Keeping a journal is a healthy activity which is done for busting stress and making sense of your feelings and thoughts. You can do the same to record all the things that you are grateful for. You can write it every day or once a week.

4. Make a list of things you are grateful for
A short and sweet method in which you can just make a list of things you are grateful for in your life. You don’t have to explain much and can just write the keywords. This list can come in handy when you are feeling low or de-motivated.

5. Pray
By way of praying, you are grateful to the god to whom you are praying in the religious sense. If you don’t pray for the religious purposes, you can just pray to the spiritual entities you believe in or the universe, and through your prayers, you can express your thankfulness to all the things you are grateful for.

6. Meditation
You can combine gratefulness with meditation by practicing meditation and mentally thanking the people or for the things that have a positive influence in your life.

REFERENCES

1. The differential effects of gratitude and sleep on psychological distress in patients with chronic pain

2. GRATITUDE AND HAPPINESS: DEVELOPMENT OF A MEASURE OF GRATITUDE, AND RELATIONSHIPS WITH SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING

3. A pilot randomized study of a gratitude journaling intervention on HRV and inflammatory biomarkers in Stage B heart failure patients

4. Gratitude: Prompting behaviours that build relationships

5. Strengths in older adults: differential effect of savoring, gratitude and optimism on well-being

6. Effects of Constructive Worry, Imagery Distraction, and Gratitude Interventions on Sleep Quality: A