Counting Blessings Improves Emotional Wellbeing

One of the tips for healthy living is to count our blessings and be thankful. Many of us, moi inclusive, will always moan about one disappointment or the other, forgetting every disappointment is a blessing in disguise, and failing to recall and appreciate successes and blessings achieved each day. Now, when you fail to pat yourself on the back for achievements, how can saying ‘thank you’ to others become easy for you?  Compiling a gratitude list, as a way of saying ‘thank you’ to someone, provides long-lasting mood boosts to the writer. Speaking from the heart makes us happier, lifts the heavy burden off our shoulders. According to psychologists, gratitude is a feeling we should develop because feeling thankful makes us happier and emphatic.

Make a Gratitude List

If you’re not in the habit of appreciating a good deed, no need to despair.  There are some simple exercises that can give even skeptics a short-term mood boost, and once you get started, you find more and more things to be grateful for. Make a gratitude list where you detail the kindnesses of someone you have never properly thanked. Read this list aloud to the person you are thanking, and you will see improvements in your mood. Studies show that for a full month after a person has unburden the gratitude list 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.

Gratitude need not be directed at another person to experience healthy emotional benefits. You can take just a few minutes each day to list down things that make you thankful, from the kindness of associates to the food on your table, or the fantastic successful presentation you just had at work. After a few weeks, people who follow this routine feel better, more energetic and vigilant. Findings from studies reveal that feeling thankful surprisingly brings physical changes. Gratitude list keepers sleep better, do more exercise, and contented.  All of these benefits may reduce stress and contribute to overall health.

 Do A Make Believe for Starters

If you feel slightly silly about reading a gratitude list to anyone, you can practice saying ‘thank you’ severally during the day, and very soon your mind comes to believe your words. Alternatively if there is no one to thank, you can be grateful for just about anything that you have received partly through someone or something else. You may feel grateful to your neighbour for keeping an eye on your house while away for the weekend, to your brother for always being there for you, or to God for sending your spouse your way. Thankfulness helps you see that you’re a person to be loved and cared for. Your confidence goes up a notch when you know people have done things for you.

Focusing on gratitude may also remind you of little bonuses that get lost in the ups and downs of a busy life. The most important blessings are the ones that are most regular, such as family, health, and life.  Unfortunately those are the ones we take for granted. Gratitude helps you to identify and enjoy the beauty of life even if the beauty does not come with a loud bang.  Besides, gratitude turns your attention to what you have instead of what you don’t. Many times ungrateful people tend to think that material things, such as a brand new Mercedes, or a giant flat-screen TV, or millions in the bank will make them happy. Most times this is not the case.  On the other hand, people who appreciate their blessings are those who believe their happiness lies in fulfilling relationships – not material things – which research has shown is the real sources of satisfaction. Another plus is since grateful people are not preoccupied with material things; they may cut back on negative energy involved in being envious and making irritating comparisons with their friends or neighbours.

Gratitude Enhances Emotional Healing

Traumatic memories and negative events fade into the background for people who regularly feel grateful, which suggests that gratitude may enhance emotional healing. When individuals start a daily gratitude list, they begin to feel a greater sense of belonging to the world. The differences are noticed by others, as people who know them say they are more helpful, says an expert psychologist. Further, being grateful may actually start a happy cycle in which rich friendships bring joy, giving you more to be grateful for, and in return strengthens your friendships once again.

Have you noticed how people light up when you say ‘thank you’? Even a grumpy, tired, salesgirl cheers up slightly when you throw up a ‘thank you’. This is because a simple ‘thank you’ spurs people to act in compassionate ways they might not otherwise consider. People thanked for their kindness assist more willingly in the future, teachers who get thank-you letters are encouraged to put in more efforts into teaching, and of course when you say ‘thank you’ to God for daily mercies, you get bigger favours, right?

In this fast paced age, gratitude may be seen as old fashioned, but it does have its important role in society. It has its rewards if we could imbibe the culture of saying ‘thank you’ more.  It doesn't make you look silly,  It is simple courtesy and appreciation of one another.