Practicing gratitude is a simple action with major benefits. Making an effort to reflect on your life with gratitude can improve your mental health and well-being, enhance your relationships, and can even boost your health. Here are seven easy ways you can practice gratitude in your daily life.
Why Is Practicing Gratitude Important?
Gratitude is a powerful emotion of appreciation and thankfulness for the positive things in your life. It’s reflecting, recognizing, and valuing the good things around you - from your morning cup of coffee to your cherished friendships.
Unlike some emotions, gratitude isn’t a passive feeling. While we may feel gratitude more easily in some circumstances - for example, when we receive a thoughtful gift - it’s possible to cultivate gratitude every day. You may have heard the term ‘gratitude practice’ or ‘practicing gratitude’. This denotes the effort to feel gratitude through mindfully expressing thankfulness.
When you practice gratitude, you recognize the positive aspects of your life. Focusing on what you’re thankful for has been shown to help you have even more positive experiences and enjoy greater life satisfaction and a heightened sense of well-being.
Some studies even show that expressing gratitude can improve mental health by strengthening relationships and self-esteem. Gratitude can support physical health by lowering blood pressure, encouraging better sleep, and activating the parasympathetic nervous system.
With all of these benefits, it’s safe to say that showing gratitude is worth your time - and luckily, it only takes a few minutes a day.
7 Simple Ways To Practice Gratitude
Making gratitude a part of your daily life can help amplify the benefits in your life. There are days this might be easier said than done, but luckily, there are a few ways to keep an attitude of gratitude, even in the smallest moments.
1. Keep a Gratitude Journal
Research shows that you can experience the benefits of gratitude without actually sharing your thoughts with anyone. Reflecting privately still has a positive effect, and one powerful way to do so is with a gratitude journal.
A gratitude journal can be as simple or thorough as you’d like. You can choose a set number, like 5, and list the top 5 things that come to mind that you are grateful for that day, or just keep writing until you run out of space. You can write complete paragraphs or jot down a list. Whatever makes your gratitude journal the most consistent is what matters.
You can create a feel-good ritual around your gratitude journal practice, like heading outside to a local garden or to your favorite cafe. Grab a drink and consider everything you’re grateful for about your day. Take the time to write everything out and think about how you feel.
If you’d like to write out what you’re grateful for but don’t feel like a journal is for you, consider creating a gratitude jar or a gratitude list on your phone.
2. Incorporate Gratitude Into Your Everyday Life
Another way to make gratitude a part of your daily life is by creating space for gratitude in your routine. For instance, you can practice gratitude while driving to work, cooking dinner, or practicing your nighttime skincare routine.
One excellent time to focus on the little things is when you’re doing your nightly skin treatments. Think about the positive parts of your day while cleansing your skin, using your Microcurrent Device, and applying your evening skincare products. By stacking the habit of gratitude with your daily routine, you’re more likely to stick to the new habit and remember to do it each day.
3. Practice Acts of Kindness
You can also act on your feelings of gratitude by doing good things for the people around you. This way, your sense of gratitude doesn’t just positively impact your own life — it can also positively affect others.
Keep an eye open, and opportunities to practice kindness will present themselves. Maybe you can make dinner for a family member, help a friend move to a new apartment, or walk a neighbor’s dog when their typical sitter falls through.
4. Take Care of Your Body
While reacting with gratitude is essential, being proactive is just as important. If you’re thankful for your body, showing appreciation by caring for it and keeping your health up is important.
This might look like starting a new workout regimen, meditating and reducing stress, or cleaning up your diet. You can also be proactive by using supportive skincare technology.
Red light therapy is a skincare treatment that can help minimize the appearance of wrinkles and rejuvenate the skin by using focused red light frequencies. To experience the benefits, you can find a specific red light device or use the Wrinkle Reducer Attachment on your TRINITY+ Smart Device.
5. Write a Letter
Writing a gratitude letter to someone who has positively impacted your life can be a great way to refocus. To start, think about a person you’d like to thank. It could be a teacher, a family member, or a role model. Think about how they’ve affected your life, and try to recall specific memories that embody these feelings.
Write down these feelings and memories, and focus on how they have inspired the choices you’ve made and the values you hold today. Whether you send the letter or not, taking the time for this gratitude exercise can help inform your future decisions and give you space to reflect on what’s important to you.
6. Live in the Moment
While looking into the past and future is a great way to practice gratitude, another great gratitude meditation focuses on the present moment. Living in the moment can help you identify things that you’re grateful for right here and now, and this gratitude practice is a great one to incorporate into your everyday life.
You can start by practicing mindfulness meditation. Simply take a break from whatever you’re doing, close your eyes, and focus on your surroundings. What do you see, touch, taste, smell, and hear? This grounding practice can help you focus on the moment, which can then help you find more to be grateful for in the everyday.
7. Take a Break From Social Media
Social media can be a great way to stay in touch with friends and family, but unfortunately, it also opens up room for comparison. It’s hard to be on social media without experiencing the comparison trap and all the negative emotions that come with it.
It can be hard to feel grateful when you’re feeling insecure or comparing yourself to others online, so one way to prioritize gratitude is to take a break from social media. You can put it away for an hour, a day, or an entire weekend — any time away from the temptation to compare yourself can help. Even something as simple as silencing your notifications can be a great way to make space for more gratitude.
The Bottom Line
Being grateful isn’t just something that happens occasionally — you can incorporate gratitude into your daily habits to benefit your physical and mental health. Being grateful is as simple as making small choices or starting small habits in your everyday life.
Sources:
Giving thanks can make you happier | Harvard Health
Health benefits of gratitude | UCLA Health
