Shift Your Attitude with Gratitude – The Key to a Happier Life

Gratitude (noun) the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. Gratitude is quickly becoming extremely popular in the wellness space and rightly so! Gratitude is one of the easiest and most simple ways to boost your happiness and appreciation. The practice of gratitude is fairly self-explanatory, it focuses on empathy and mindfulness to notice and reflect upon experiences to be grateful for. The studied benefits of regularly practicing gratitude are vast, including feeling more positive emotions, feeling in tune with your mind, improved sleep, higher levels of compassion and kindness; even a stronger immune system.

Practicing gratitude can mean varying things for different people, it may simply be making a conscious effort to thank those around you, making note of 3 things you’re grateful for at the end of each day, or purely being appreciative of your life and good health. Benefits due to practicing gratitude don’t necessarily happen overnight. But by consistently practicing, you will notice an ease in shaking negative feelings or emotions and be able to address potentially negative situations with a more optimistic outlook.

Where to start:

•         Verbalise your gratitude: When someone is going above and beyond or doing something you are thankful for, simply saying ‘thank you’ is such a small but effective way to show someone you are grateful for them.
•         Write it down: Starting the day with a positive prompt will help you remember there’s always something to be thankful for. Write a list of 3 things you are grateful for in life, whether it be your friends and family, your body for all it does or having a roof over your head.
•         Smile! A smile is universally understood – it can completely turn someone’s day around and help them to feel acknowledged and appreciated. It’s important to be kind as you never know what someone is dealing with in their life.

Most people assume that expressing gratitude means verbal or physical acts of kindness, but gratitude is also psychological, it’s a much deeper appreciation and feeling of being thankful. There are so many things in life to be grateful for but in this chaotic world we live in, sometimes it’s hard to have time to stop and smell the roses. Top motivational speakers including the likes of Tony Robbins consistently cite gratitude, and the act of thinking and expressing it as part of their key to a happy, successful life and daily routine. Living with gratitude in your heart and constantly making habits to appreciate the good in your life is an amazingly easy way to remedy negative mindsets and live life with more purpose!