Powerful Benefits of Practising Gratitude

Have you ever thought about practising gratitude? Counting your blessings can be very rewarding and dramatically improve your quality of life. In short, gratitude is being appreciative of what you have in life rather than dwelling on what you don't. Practising gratitude is excellent for your mental health and wellbeing. Happiness can be achieved through practising gratitude.

It helps to shift your mindset to become more positive. In other words, you can learn to see the glass as half full rather than half empty by saying something as simple as "today I am grateful for…".

You will find several benefits in this article to help see how practising gratitude is a very useful tool.

Practising gratitude promotes happiness in your life. We focus on the good things that we have in our lives and learn to pay more attention to them. Therefore, we understand that our lives have got many positives, more than we ever realised. As a result, we discover many things that we can be happy for and develop a better outlook on life. A great idea is to start the day off by staying "today I am grateful for…" as this promotes you thinking about the positive things in your life.

We can be happy within ourselves; we just need to realise what to focus on. As a result, we experience more positive emotions regularly. Accordingly, we will have less stress in our lives. Therefore, there is less risk of developing anxiety and depression.

When you practise gratitude, you are grateful for the people in your life. The reason you are thankful for them is that they have been helpful to you and shown. Therefore, this leads to you having higher self-esteem. In other words, when you begin to realise how other people are good to you, you develop greater self-worth. Therefore, you can judge yourself less harshly as you recognise these people want you in their life for a reason.

As a result, you hold a higher standard for the relationships you have in your life and are likely to have a social circle full of positive people.

Nonetheless, you will also begin to recognise those around you who you are not grateful to have. If you are not thankful for these people, they are probably not worth having in your life. In other words, practising gratitude can help to adapt your social circle to those who add value to your life and make you happy.

When we are practising gratitude and learning to appreciate what we have in our lives, we can become aware of what others don't have. In other words, we remember that other people are harder off than ourselves. However, that is not to play down your own emotions, it simply puts them into perspective, and you realise that everyone experiences difficult times.

When practising gratitude, you acknowledge your own successes and do not compare them to those of others. However, you can appreciate the difficulties you have gone through and the struggle to be where you are now. Therefore, practising gratitude can make you less judgemental because you understand everybody's situation is different. In other words, things can happen in people's lives that isn't their fault or that they hadn't planned for. As a result, you are likely to be less judgemental of others as you can appreciate that they too have gone through hardship to be where they are now. Therefore, it can be a good idea to sometimes say to ourselves, "today I am grateful for my struggles", as a reminder that you would not be where you are now without them.

You can appreciate the little things when practising gratitude. For example, if someone has complimented you. That compliment may have made your day. Therefore, you may want to be the person who can do this for others. So, give compliments to others to make them feel good about themselves. Also, maybe someone has offered to help you out, why not return the favour? Or even further, offer to help someone who hasn't helped you out before? If a friend is having a hard time, offer to meet up with them or send them a card. That way, they know you are thinking about them. The little things count. Therefore, be good to others. Not only will it encourage them to be good in return, but it will make you feel good that you have brightened up someone else's day.

Practising gratitude makes you more aware of what you say. In other words, the same way you know one simple comment can make your day, a negative one can ruin it. People who do not practise gratitude tend to be less resilient than those who do. Therefore, you will be more careful in what you say to others. Ask yourself, do you need to make a comment that could come across hurtful? Will that improve the situation for anyone? The answer will always be no. By hurting others, you can make yourself feel guilty. Therefore, the best thing to do is have as little interaction with people you have negative feelings against. Refrain from saying your true thoughts. In other words, live and let live.

Happy people make good company. Therefore, a great benefit of practising gratitude is that people want to be around you. Practising gratitude draws others toward you because you are more confident, self-aware and happy. Also, it can help to strengthen relationships that already exist. Practising gratitude can help resolve relationship issues in couples as you can learn to appreciate each other more and not take watch other for granted.

How does practising gratitude increase self-esteem? When we appreciate what we have, we aren't so envious of others. Envy can result in us being bitter and lead us to try to achieve a lifestyle that isn't realistic for us. Therefore, by practising gratitude, you can be happy with what you have right now. Sure, you might not have the best body, the most money or the most friends. However, you do have lots to be grateful for. Intentionally noticing the good things in your life distracts you from thinking about what others have that you desire. In other words, who's to say that others are not jealous of you? The way we see each person's life is only part of the story, and we don't know what others are going through behind the scenes. Therefore, by being grateful for what we have, we can live our lives to their fullest.

Practising gratitude also comes with a wealth of physical benefits. The reason is that our minds often have an impact on our bodies. Physical benefits include things such as:

• Improved sleep- You sleep better because you are overthinking less at night when you spend time practising gratitude. Therefore, you have positive thoughts before going to sleep, which promotes calmness and relaxation.
• Improves your relationship with food- practising gratitude changes your perception of life. By thinking positively, you can be more grateful for what you have, and therefore you can gain the power to change your mindset around food.
• Exercise more regularly- those who practise gratitude tend to have a greater drive to exercise as they are more confident and optimistic. Therefore, giving them the determination to become the best version of themselves.
• Lower blood pressure- practising gratitude lowers stress levels because the individual changes to a more positive mindset. Therefore, they become more resilient and react better when in a stressful situation. As a result, of less stress, they are less likely to suffer from high blood pressure.

Practising gratitude is easy; it just takes some time to get used to. The simplest way of practising gratitude is to start the day by saying, "today I am grateful for…". However, there are many ways, for example:

• Be more mindful and appreciate the present moment
• Keep a gratitude journal
• Smile often
• Tell others you are grateful for them
• Focus on your successes and strengths
• Be nice to others and help them out when you can
• Complain less
• Try to see the positive in any situation

Written by Amy Bamford