The Benefits of Being Grateful

Gratitude journaling is one of the quickest and easiest ways to improve our health. It’s often one of the first things I give both my ADHD and general therapy clients as ‘homework’. All you need is a pen and a piece of paper, ideally a diary or a journal, and around three minutes a day. Imagine if a doctor said “Here, take this pill, once a day. It has no negative side effects but many health benefits”. Most people would take it in a heartbeat. Read on to find out the benefits of being grateful.

It improves our health?

Indeed, and what’s more, is that these benefits are evenly spread amongst our mental and physical health. There’s a closer link between mental and physical health than a lot of people realise. Let’s start with mental health benefits.

Mental Health Benefits of Gratitude

Firstly, gratitude journaling ensures that you inject some much-needed positivity into your life. The human brain isn’t wired for positivity, it’s wired for negativity. What would you focus on if faced with a cute purring kitten and a roaring grizzly bear? The cute kitty is of course more appealing, but it is not going to end our existence. So, while we might want to go and play with the cute kitty, our brain takes over and ensures we pay attention to the bear to maximise our chances of getting home for lunch and then playing with kitty another time. Later in the day, when recalling the day’s events, we will tell people about the great grizzly bear escape, and probably not give a second thought to the cute kitty. The brain wins, it’s survived to fight another day. Left to its own devices, the brain will follow this cycle of negativity, maybe not in the form of grizzly bears (unless you live in northwest America) but in normal everyday situations that we associate with some kind of threat.

Physical Health Benefits of Gratitude

Studies have shown that practising gratitude has a host of physical health benefits too, not least lowering blood pressure. This makes sense if you understand the physical effects of anxiety. As we focus on positivity, we distance ourselves from negativity, in turn distancing us from anxiety. When we’re anxious we go into fight or flight mode. In negative situations, our brains can think we’re in danger and that there’s a hungry grizzly bear (or equivalent) that we need to run away from. How best to prepare our bodies from running away than for our heart to pump harder and faster to get much needed oxygen around the body to our muscles. To escape from the bear, our blood pressure and pulse increase, improving our chance of survival. When faced with real life-or-death situations, this anxiety response is hugely beneficial, but our clever brains can simulate the same response just by thinking about things. Focusing on the cute kitty will lower our blood pressure and pulse.

Our brains, especially ADHD brains, when they have nothing to do, will often try to solve all the problems that have existed since time began. How can I ensure I can always get away from grizzly bears, wolves, lions, spiders, people, that bloke from work, that work project, the washing, being single, tomorrow’s traffic etc. So, by turning those thoughts off (or down) our bodies and brains will be more rested and ready for sleep.   

Over time cultivating that air of gratitude strengthens the gratitude pathways in our brain and it becomes easier and more automatic to be grateful, in turn making us a more positive person.

Here’s a list of some of my favourite benefits of gratitude, in no particular order, and in no way comprehensive.

• Improves sleep.
• Improves energy.
• Makes us a more positive person.
• Makes us more likeable.
• Makes us more employable.
• Lowers stress.
• Increases life expectancy.
• Improves resilience to challenging situations.
• Raises our chances of eating healthy and exercising.
• We become less materialistic.
• Improves focus.
• Lowers blood pressure.
• Lowers the chance of cardiac disease.
• Improves our immune system. (This one is my favourite!)
• Increases our satisfaction with life.
• It’s relaxing.
• It feels good.
• Improves our relationships.
• Helps plan life goals.
• Reminds you to do positive things.
• Helps you to focus on what matters.

How do we do it?

All you need is a pen and some paper. This can be in the form of a diary, a plain jotter pad, a journal or a purpose-made gratitude journal. The only other thing you need is around 3 minutes a day. To get started if you don’t have a journal to hand, just use a plain piece of paper, a shopping list, or the back of an envelope.  

I advise people to journal at the very end of the day if possible, especially for those who have trouble sleeping. Have a pen and pad by the side of the bed and make it the last thing (or the second to last thing!) you do before going to sleep. Alternatively, first thing in the morning would be the next preference. Ending and/or beginning the day with an injection of positivity is just what the doctor ordered.

To start with it may seem tricky to think of 3 things to be grateful for. If so, go large:

In time you can split these topics up into smaller chunks such as:

If you’re still struggling, try asking yourself these questions.

If all you can think of are the bad things that have happened in the day, use the bad things and flip them on their heads. So, if work was stressful because of a looming deadline maybe think:

It doesn’t need to be pretty, complicated or colour coded. Keep it simple so you’re more likely to continue. Just write it down. One week per page is ideal so at the end of the week you’ll have a list of 21 things you’re grateful for. Sunday evening or Monday morning, read through the list from the previous week. What a positive way to start a new week.

Supercharge your gratitude practice.

Something else I will often ask clients to do is expand on the gratitude practice with a happiness practice too. All it needs is one extra entry each day answering the question, what made you happy today? or what makes you happy? Again, these can be big or small things, something that makes you laugh out loud, or raise a slight smile.

I’ve seen an app, can I do it on my phone?

Yes you can, your phone can do all sorts these days, and there are many apps that will help you write a gratitude journal. Personally, I don’t, and I wouldn’t for a variety of reasons. Firstly, once the screen is full and you scroll down, you’re likely to never see those words again. Your own handwriting also makes it personal, and therefore will have more of an impact when you read it back. Finally, I always recommend leaving your phone alone last thing at night, there are way too many opportunities to get distracted. Mine goes on charge downstairs to remove the temptation. So, although the answer is yes you can, I don’t think you can beat good old pen and paper.

And finally,

It doesn’t need to be pretty, complicated or colour coded. I used to write ‘keep it neat’ at the top of my pages, but you don’t even need to do that. The main priority is to write down what you are grateful for and keep it simple so you’re more likely to continue. One week per page is ideal so at the end of the week, you’ll have a list of 21 things you’re grateful for, or 90 things each month. Sunday evening or Monday morning, have a read through your entries from the previous week. What a positive way to start the new week.

Keeping a gratitude journal is one part of the homework in week 1 of my 10-week online group therapy course. If you would like to find out more, click here.