Don't Forget to Count Your Blessings

The psychology professor gave his students a homework assignment to write a "gratitude letter," a kind of belated thank-you note to someone in their lives. Studies show such letters provide long-lasting mood boosts to the writers. After the exercise the students feel happier every time. Gratitude is a sentiment positive psychologists, mental health clinicians and researchers say is good for you. Feeling thankful and expressing that thanks makes you feel good and simple exercises can give even skeptics a short-term mood boost.

In gratitude letters detail the kindnesses of someone you've never properly thanked and read this letter aloud to the person you're thanking and you'll see measurable improvements in your mood. Studies show that for a full month after a "gratitude visit" (in which a person makes an appointment to read the letter to the recipient), happiness levels tend to go up, while boredom and other negative feelings go down. In fact, the gratitude visit is more effective than any other exercise in positive psychology.

Take just a few minutes each day to jot down things that make you thankful, from the generosity of friends to the food on your table or the right to vote. After a few weeks, people who follow this routine feel better about themselves, have more energy and feel more alert, say researchers. Feeling thankful even brings physical changes, studies show. List-keepers sleep better, exercise more and gain a general contentment that may counteract stress and contribute to overall health.

Gratitude exercises do call for a certain amount of openness, sincerity and effort. For people who want to activate their gratitude say "thank you" enough and your mind will fall in line with your words. You can be grateful for just about anything that you've received in part because of someone or something else. You may feel grateful to nature for a scenic view or to fate or a higher power for your safety. Thankfulness helps you see that you're an object of love and care.

A conscious focus on gratitude may also remind you that the most important blessings are the ones that are most consistent, such as family, health and home; and that are often taken for granted.Grateful reflection helps you know and appreciate the best things in life.

Gratitude turns your attention to what you do have instead of what you lack. People who count their blessings get happiness from things like fulfilling relationships—which, research shows, are the real sources of satisfaction. Grateful people don't fixate on money or material goods.

Traumatic memories fade into the background for people who regularly feel grateful. Troublesome thoughts pop up less frequently and with less intensity, which suggests that gratitude may enhance emotional healing.

Grateful people achieve closure by making sense of negative events so that they mesh with a generally positive outlook. When individuals start a daily gratitude journal, they can begin to feel a greater sense of connectedness to the world.

Count your blessings for a mood boost.





Source article in Psychology Today, 2006