I’m someone who deals with a lot of stress and anxiety in my life. Some of that comes from living with Sickle Cell, but some is caused by my pressure to succeed and accomplish. In this digital age, we’re constantly glued to our screens, watching what others are doing. This can make us feel disjointed with ourselves after a while. I believe this is because we become so used to comparing ourselves to other people’s highlight reels. That’s why mindfulness is important. We need to reattune ourselves and stay grounded in our everyday reality. One thing that can help with this is having a gratitude routine.
What is Gratitude?
Gratitude is when you’re thankful for the positive things in your life. It’s so easy to take things for granted when you’re constantly looking at what other people have, or what they’re doing. Therefore, it’s important that we routinely take a step back and appreciate what is going well in our lives.
What Gratitude Does to the Brain
Science shows that gratitude activates areas of your brain associated with blissful feelings. Some of these areas that are activated can impact some functions throughout your entire body. This is important because when you’re under stress, your brain releases something called cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone that affects your weight gain and causes headaches and irritability.
Feelings of gratitude can actually regulate your cortisol levels, allowing you to ease stress and anxiety.
What Are The Benefits of Gratitude?
Now that we have an understanding of how gratitude affects us on a science level, let’s look at the benefits of implementing a gratitude routine in our lives.
It deepens our social connections
When we practice gratitude, we sometimes associate people with the positive parts of our lives.
For example: I have shelter, food, warmth, and comfort because my mum and dad work hard to provide it for me.
This statement associates your parents with the thing you’re grateful for. And when this happens, you’ll subconsciously feel more appreciative of those people in your life. It’s easy to take people for granted if you don’t remind yourself how they’ve helped you. Many people get stuck in the “what have you done for me lately” mindset and ignore what a person has already done to improve their life.
Another active part of gratitude involves doing things for other people. Not just because you want to feel happier, but because you appreciate them, too. And helping others will naturally cause your bond with that person to grow.
Enhanced productivity
When we feel valued, it allows us to put a higher significance on our own efforts in life. Self-confidence is often a trigger for stress and anxiety, and gratitude is known to be a solution for low confidence in oneself.
I’ll use myself as an example here. I often feel imposter syndrome with my writing. I can feel like I’m not good enough. Or sometimes, I even feel creatively bankrupt. This puts extra stress on me because then I feel like I’m not delivering work like I should. It demotivates me from writing, making the act of writing more painful than it was when I first fell in love with it.
But after some gratitude-based expression, It puts me in a state where I can get over these feelings. My thought patterns become: “Get over yourself, Gary. Life isn’t so bad. There are small challenges, but you already have this, this, and that. Why not just get this project passed the finish line and see what happens? Other people in your life have the strength to keep going, and you do to!”
Enhanced creativity
This goes hand-in-hand with the productivity benefit I mentioned above. Gratitude puts us in a positive mind state, and a positive mind state is known to be associated with creativity, open-mindedness, and effective thinking.
Reducing pain
Pain is something I struggle with a bunch as a sickle cell patient, so this is a no-brainer for me. You see, the practice of gratitude releases dopamine in your brain, and dopamine is a natural pain relief signal.
Improving sleep
Time to get scientific again! Gratitude is also known to stimulate the hypothalamus in the brain. Your hypothalamus is a structure deep in your brain that acts as your body’s smart control. Its main function is to keep your body in a stable state called homeostasis, and one of the things it affects is your sleep. This means that gratitude can contribute to giving you better sleep, alongside other mindfulness strategies.
How to implement a gratitude routine
There are a number of ways that you can express gratitude. Knowing some of these ways can help you figure out how to add a routine to your life that ensures you’re regularly expressing gratitude.
Gratitude Journaling
I’m an advocate for journaling in general. The act of writing down your thoughts, or summarising life events and experiences is immensely valuable. Especially when years go by and you can reflect on your thoughts, feelings, and experiences. In the same way that pictures hold memories, journaling is a snapshot of your brain.
But on top of this, journaling is also a therapy practice. It helps us understand and acknowledge our thoughts, and find patterns in our thinking. This is why it’s ideal for expressing gratitude. You can do this by writing out a few things you’re grateful for. This doesn’t have to be a daily thing if your schedule doesn’t permit it; but the more you make the time to do it, the better you’ll feel in the long-run.
You could literally just write one thing you’re grateful for each day and you’re practicing gratitude on a regular basis.
Expressing Your Thanks to Others
You can take some time out to thank the other people in your life who have helped you. This could be as simple as sending them a nice text message or email.
To take it one step further, you can send them a Thank You card, or letter (with a gift voucher maybe). This gives you the opportunity to write by hand, which deepens the connection between you and the other person.
If you have someone at work who always makes your life easier, you should express this to them commonly as this will improve the work experience for both parties. Maybe even treat them to a lunch or coffee sometime.
If you live with your family, you could offer to cook some nights or do the chores that someone else in your household is in charge of.
Volunteering
The V word sometimes has a negative connotation. This mainly comes from the fact that businesses exist that exploit voluntary labour as a way to boost profits without paying workers. This is a real thing, but it also shouldn’t be a reason to avoid volunteering. The trick is to volunteer for things that will leave you fulfilled.
Giving your time and energy shows that you care for others, and actively want to serve those in need. This is a form of gratitude, especially if your energy is directed toward valued members of society, such as the sick or elderly. You are giving back to your community by doing this, and you’ll also be on the receiving end of the gratitude cycle by helping others.
Gratitude Walks
Technology innovation has made many people take the great outdoors for granted. We could all do with getting out more and appreciating the environment around us. Go for a walk (or run) and notice the beauty of the world around you; the trees, the sun, the wildlife, the architecture, and the passers-by.
When you actually take notice and appreciate these things, it can really elevate your mood.
Spread Gratitude on Social Media
Social media may be full of toxicity, but that doesn’t mean you have to let toxicity impact how you use it. If you already have a habit of using social media, then you can use it to spread gratitude in many ways. You can share uplifting moments from your life like lessons you’ve had or challenges you’ve overcome, and share some insight into how you achieved this. Or you could share a photo of a memory you’re grateful for having and explain what it means to you. You could even use social media to express your gratitude for someone else, whether they’re on the platform or not.
One thing I realised very quickly is that it’s not enough to just practice gratitude once in a while. I knew I needed to make this a lifestyle change to reap the benefits. My recommendation is that you should use a combination of these gratitude practices to form a routine in your week where you’re commonly practicing gratitude.