Creating Gratitude

GRATITUDE

Why gratitude? Gratitude, when practiced regularly, has many benefits including better physical and psychological health, increased happiness and life satisfaction, and decreased materialism. Gratitude also is a positive “social glue.” It is the fuel for people to be more generous, kind and helpful, with a pro-social orientation. It tends to strengthen all kinds of relationships—including romantic relationships!

Studies have shown that a practice to increase gratitude can improve people’s health and encourage them to adopt healthier habits. Even more studies shows that grateful people are happier, more satisfied with their lives, and less likely to suffer from burnout. And studies focused on specific gratitude practices have shown that these practices increase people’s happiness and positive mood.

Emerging science also shows that people with medical or psychological challenges can use gratitude to help with the healing process. For instance, heart failure patients that kept gratitude journals for eight weeks had reduced signs of inflammation. In other words, gratitude equates to higher resilience—people that practice gratitude have less depression and bounce back more quickly following difficult events.

And you’ll probably be interested to know that grateful adolescents are more interested and satisfied with their schools lives, tend to be more socially integrated and, exhibit more kindness and helpfulness as behaviors.

Robert Emmons, one of the world’s leading experts on gratitude puts it this way: gratitude is “an affirmation of goodness. We affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits we’ve received.” And, importantly, “we recognize that the sources of this goodness are outside of ourselves...We acknowledge that other people—or even higher powers, if you’re of a spiritual mindset—give us many gifts, big and small, to help us achieve goodness in our lives.”

In Forum, you’ll learn how gratitude works, why it works, and importantly, key practices that you can use to foster gratitude in your life on a regular basis so that you get the full well-being benefit of gratitude.