20 Ways Gratitude Makes You Happier

Gratitude is a powerful emotion that has been shown to positively impact our well-being.

When we are thankful, we emphasize the positive aspects of our lives and show gratitude for what we have rather than complaining about what we don’t. An improvement in happiness and life satisfaction can result from this perspective change.

According to research, people who often express appreciation gain a variety of advantages, such as stronger relationships, greater physical health, and enhanced resilience in the face of difficulties.

In conclusion, practising gratitude is an easy yet powerful strategy to improve our general sense of wellbeing.

giving thanks can make you happier

Gratitude promotes the savoring of positive life experiences

By taking pleasure and relishing some of the gifts of life, no matter how simple they are, you can extract the maximum happiness and enjoyment out of your current circumstances. 

Taking time to be thankful for life’s present situations can help you overcome the dreariness of your long days at work or college.

A study shows that there was a 25% decrease in depression in the lives of the people who practiced gratitude for 3 weeks regularly.

Gratitude helps you to cope with stress and trauma

Being able to cope with life’s sudden problematic situations while trying to achieve something might seem daunting, but when you get an opportunity, you must grab it with both hands.

This is where gratitude helps. It allows you to interpret every difficult situation and obstacle hurling at you positively.

When you see the positive in everything and be thankful for the circumstances, stress vanishes automatically, as does every form of trauma.

Related: Ways Gratitude Change Your Life

Gratitude strengthens self-worth and self-esteem

You realize your worth when you realize how capable you are and how much you have accomplished. You realize that you are worthy of appreciation and you become grateful to yourself.

When you are thankful to people for being there and grateful to yourself for pulling things off, you feel more confident.

Instead of concentrating on the bad things, be grateful that situations are not any worse, which will help you boost your self-esteem.

Gratitude encourages moral behavior

Grateful people are more likely to help others even when they have done wrong to you. You tend to understand the situation which led them to be bad to you and you portray forgiveness. You feel compelled to reciprocate.

When you are grateful you become less materialistic and find happiness in the simplest of things life has to offer. You are not fixated upon acquiring more. You help others even though it can be unpleasant at times. 

Gratitude lead to betterment of relationships

Gratitude can help to build social bonds

Gratitude is instrumental in making new bonds with people, maybe at your workplace or the park, you go to stroll in the evening.

When you are grateful, you are kind and soft; people love this attitude. You portray yourself as someone trustworthy and friendly.

When you are grateful, you shower kindness on people, you become polite and can easily tackle difficult situations, and this is what attracts people to make friends with you.

Gratitude can help to strengthen older bonds

Just like nurturing newer bonds, gratitude can also help strengthen the older ones. When you are grateful to your closer ones you are more likely to value them, value the bond you share with them. This helps you to win their heart and better the already existing bond.

As the relationship strengthens, it gives you more to be grateful for, and in turn, it fortifies those same relationships. Thus, gratitude exists as a free aid to enhance your bonds.

Gratitude helps to prohibit unpleasant comparisons with others

When you are grateful for lives’ opportunities, you are less likely to compare yourself to others. A futile comparison.

Gratefulness does not allow you to pay attention to what others have in their lives and make you feel like a failure.

You genuinely start to appreciate what comes your way and gain confidence to achieve bigger things without having to envy other’s possessions. You are not fixated on acquiring more and become appreciative of your gains.

Gratitude helps to deter negative emotions

Gratitude does not allow negative emotions to build up in you. It diminishes the bitter feelings of envy, greed, and anger. Rage and jealousy melt in the embrace of gratefulness.

The acts of negativity and gratitude are incompatible with each other just like optimism and pessimism, they cannot co-exist together.

Gratefulness helps you to find positivity in the most negative of circumstances and even helps in transforming negative emotions into positive ones, as proved by researchers.

Related: Ways Cultivate Gratitude Every Day

gratitude help to decrease negative emotions

Thanks how The New Science of Gratitude

  • 1 Happier Mind: When we make these lists, it helps us feel less sad and worried. It makes our thoughts more positive.
  • 2 Healthier Body: Gratitude can make us sleep better, have lower blood pressure, and even help our immune system fight off sickness.
  • 3 Better Friends: Saying thank you to people makes our friendships stronger. It helps them feel good, and it makes us happier in our relationships.
  • 4 Stronger against Problems: Gratitude helps us handle tough times better. It gives us strength and helps us bounce back when things are hard.
  • 5 More Joy: Making these lists can make us feel happier and more satisfied with our lives. It reminds us to appreciate the little things that make us happy every day.

Gratitude Makes You Happy

Gratitude makes you more productive

Gratitude lessens the impact of negative and wayward thoughts on your mind and helps you to be more focused. This helps you to be more attentive in your place of work and manage tasks in a much efficient way.

When you are more capable of focusing you get to do a lot of work in a shorter period and that too more efficiently, this gives you job and work satisfaction, and makes you happier and everyone’s favorite.

Gratitude improves your sleep

Being grateful improves your sleeping schedule and helps you to fall asleep faster and sleep for a longer duration. In other words, it is beneficial in curing insomnia.

When you are grateful to others, you tend to have a proper night’s sleep which in turn, curbs the tiredness in the morning and that angry behavior. Better sleep makes you more polite and thankful to others, enabling you to sleep well.

Gratitude boosts your psychological well-being

In the year 2017, a researcher named Chih-Che Lin observed that gratitude was instrumental in providing sound peace of mind and boosting your psychological health.

It had an immense impact on regulating anxiety, stress, and trauma levels.

His research stated that to enjoy gratitude from others one must incorporate gratitude in their daily life and live a life of gratefulness. The regular showcase of gratitude and commitment can achieve this.

Inhibits the suicidal thoughts and attempts from arising

The amygdala is kept under regulation by rehearsing gratitude. The amygdala is the brain’s emotional center, responsible for stress and anxiety, which prompts suicidal musings and even attempts when not controlled as expected. 

Showcase of gratitude when joined with meditation, assists with the shrinking of the amygdala.

An investigation showed that gratitude is the defensive factor in suicidal ideation and helps produce command over yourself when you are most vulnerable.

Related: Ways To Be Happy Instantly

ways gratitude journaling helps you

Being Grateful Makes You Happy

Makes you more idealistic and less self-focused 

The more you showcase your gratitude towards others, the more positive they feel, and thus, the more positive you feel about yourself.

Gratitude journaling every day, for around 5 minutes, is supposedly helpful in boosting optimism by around 5-15%. 

Another advantage of gratitude is the decrease in self-centeredness. Inculcating gratitude within yourself assists you with imparting more to other people, even at the expense of yourself.

Instrumental in the advancement of work-related mental health 

Employing gratefulness at your workplace can greatly affect the mental health of your colleagues.

Assume that you appreciate the peon for bringing you a file, even though he isn’t content with his work, your showcase of gratitude can fill his heart with joy. 

A study conducted on a hospital’s staff showed that members randomly assigned to a gratefulness group experienced less or no depressive symptoms, and stress, as opposed to those who weren’t assigned.

Instrumental in the recovery of patients experiencing coronary diseases 

An investigation led at Harvard University and the Massachusetts General Hospital showed that the patients experiencing acute coronary intricacies experienced more prominent improvements in the quality of their health and were capable of managing depression well. 

The patients found that when they dealt with their recovery with gratitude and optimism, there was a substantial decrease in their depression and anxiety levels. In this way, Gratitude can even aid from critical life conditions, besides other physical and psychological infirmities.

Gratitude helps eliminate inner fears 

Likely the best thing about gratitude is that it makes you more courageous and helps you diminish your inner fears. You frequently overthink situations and fear something impossible. 

Gratitude helps you overcome this fear. It helps you in bringing a considerable mindset, and fight the situation, paying little heed to how hard it is.

When you are happy and thankful, regardless of the daunting things that have happened to you, fear vanishes!

Related: Ways to Make Someone Happy

How gratefulness helps you to reach your goals

Gratitude helps you in accepting what’s not perfect 

Gratitude instructs you that nothing or an individual in this world is perfect. Everyone has their flaws. Gratitude helps in accepting the reality of life and live life how it is. 

It makes you comprehend that life itself is a gift and you are fortunate to have it. It encourages you to give your best in each undertaking and accept the outcome with a bold heart. It is, without any doubt, the best virtue one can have.

Gratitude helps to counteract hedonic adaptation

Hedonic adaptation is depicted by your ability to adapt to any new circumstances or situations rapidly.

This is extremely adaptive when the situation is unpleasant but not when the situation is affirmative. 

The boost in your happiness while you are adapting to a pleasant new circumstance is usually short-lived due to hedonic adaptation.

By making people avoid taking good things for granted in their lives and making them grateful, gratitude helps in counteracting hedonic adaptation.

Related: Ways Free From Inhibition

Conclusion

It is easily concluded from the above points that gratefulness is the biggest virtue one can possess.

It comes with many benefits that are proven to make you happier, no matter how difficult the circumstances become.

It enhances all the attributes necessary to become happy in life and achieve the set goals.

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emotional benefits of gratitude

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