Does Gratitude lead to Happiness?

I decided to find out how gratitude contributes to wellness as there are many memes and printables focusing on gratitude.

Have we ever thought about gratitude and its importance to us as a society?

*If you wish to go straight to the Gratitude Bundle offer, scroll down to the end of this post.

What is gratitude?

Gratitude is a social emotion and it connects us to our social world.

It is directed at someone who has helped us in some way and it can range from a simple act of someone offering their seat on public transport to lifelong gratitude for an act of kindness that may have had grand repercussions to someone, such as an act that may have saved someone's life.

The power of gratitude is its ability to build repricocity in others so if you practise gratitude towards others, they are more inclined to reciprocate gratitude themselves.

Gratitude becomes a circular event that connects us socially, with warm feelings towards other human beings.

Scientific research has shown that practising gratitude, with you being the giver or receiver, stimulates the frontal cortex of the brain and this sets a chain reaction that ultimately leads to a boost in our mental wellbeing.

Practising gratitude helps us become better human beings by being less selfish in our wants and perceived needs, and develops humility in ourselves.

Instead of focusing on perceived deficits, such as the lack of material wealth, we focus on our blessings by actively thinking about the 'positives' in our daily and long-term life.

It is so easy to focus, for example, on one bad thing that has happened and not let it go.

That one thing masks the many good things that have also happened and we need a jolt in our thinking to put things in perspective as focusing on negatives can impact your mental wellness.

What prompted me to start thinking about gratitude?

As I spend a lot of time on Pinterest, I saw an idea that I loved. It was the Gratitude Jar, wherein you write one thing you are grateful for each day and place this note in the jar.

At the end of the year, you should have 365 memories of things you were grateful for throughout the year.

I thought it was a great idea and what a lot of lovely memories you would be reliving, that you would ordinarily have forgotten.

It is a great way of training your mind to think of something that was positive and uplifting, and that you are grateful for.

Throughout my life, I have seen others who spend most of their time ruminating on all the negatives in their lives and focusing on bad memories.

They were emotionally draining, unhappy people.

Should you make an effort to practise the art of gratitude?

As mentioned earlier, practising gratitude has a beneficial effect on our brain and mental and physical wellness.

On social media, time and time again, I have often read that if we ever saw the effects negative thought had on us internally, we would never have a negative thought again.

I was listening to an audiobook prior to sitting down to write this part, and it was discussing the effects that negative and positive thoughts have on us and it made an astounding statement.

Along with the claims that are perhaps expected, it said that when we are in a negative zone e.g. we are scared of bees that may be in our line of sight, we emit our anxiety so powerfully that a bee can actually pick up our vibrations, interpret our anxiety and sting us.

I have never been scared of bees so that may explain why I have not been stung, even though there were plenty of bees around as I grew up.

I have decided to add this in as an interesting fact, and you may or not believe it!

One article went into depth about how a negative thought triggers a set of physical reactions within our body and it was staggering to read how many reactions our bodies experience, without us being aware of the potentially harmful chemical surges within our body.

Having negative thoughts sets a train of events inside our bodies that we cannot fully perceive as it is invisible to us.

So it is valuable to train yourself to practise gratitude until it becomes a habit.

I have witnessed a total lack of gratitude in others who are unable to say 'thank you' for a present or unexpected handout, for time spent helping them or mentoring them in a new job and they are negative souls and you can never get their loyalty.

Needless to say, they have fractured relationships in life and this turmoil cannot be good for their mental or physical wellness.

If you feel you have nothing to feel grateful for or think that you are a 'half-glass empty' person who dwells on the negative, remember that :

Today

someone took their last breath
someone received news that they had a life-threatening illness
someone was just retrenched
someone lost a baby
someone didn't have enough money when shopping and had to put groceries back
someone suffers from depression in silence
someone had news that their partner had just died
someone who needs to work has a sick child but manages their family
someone has a child with a diagnosis that means lifelong special care
someone is in an abusive relationship but it is better than living on the street or being stalked
someone whose marriage has deteriorated and finding it hard to keep up the pretence
someone is having a breakdown and being judged by family

What to be grateful for each day:

Do you appreciate

someone you don't know smiling at you unexpectedly?
offering you a seat?
making you a cup of tea or coffee?
cooking dinner?
taking you out for dinner?
helping you with a project?
staying after work to talk to you?
a child bringing you a flower? (I get this sometimes from school children)
letting you go first in the queue?
someone picking up something you dropped?

So many possibilities!

The Benefits of Gratitude

The benefits of gratitude are twofold: physical and mental wellness. Some people are better at it than others so, for some, it is a habit to be acquired by practising with deliberate intention.

Without gratitude, we lose the 'glue' that binds us, not only to those we know but to the rest of humanity.

Those who helped Jewish people escape from the Nazis, by hiding them in their houses, did so at their own peril.

The gratitude felt by those who were saved was a lifelong feeling towards those strangers.

Gratitude develops trust towards the humanity of others.

If people are kind to strangers, we feel safer and more secure in our place in the world.

How to start developing the habit of gratitude.

It takes 30 days to develop a new habit and this habit is a worthwhile, important habit for your overall happiness.

You can start developing the habit of gratitude with this bundle which contains downloadable pdf's:

-weekly templates
-attractive Binder Cover
-Reflection sheet template to use as many times as you want
-Gratitude Jar labels