The holiday season is action-packed. Our schedules overflow, and we run around as if we are sprinting through life in a hundred-meter dash. All the attention hogs we navigate, programmed consumerism, social media, status updates, deadlines, and world affairs, lead us to identify with lack, anxiety, and stress. We look at the world through a narrow lens, and it feels like everything is upside-down.
When this happens, we miss out on the beautiful richness of the holidays. Sometimes, we are downright ungrateful and may feel even more disconnected. Are you willing to up your game of gratitude and enjoy the holidays?
Here are five simple reasons to start giving thanks—and revel in the benefits!
1. Researchers found that keeping a daily gratitude journal increases your positive outlook on life. Additionally, this cultivates an attitude of abundance rather than lack, so you are able to see more of what you have rather than focusing on what you perceive as missing in your life. This simple gratitude life hack raises your level of happiness.
2. Studies show that practicing gratitude releases positive neurochemicals, like dopamine, and engages the reward system in the brain. Your attitude of gratitude builds long-lasting reward circuits that are coupled with positive behavior and thought patterns developed through meaning and intention. The simple act of expressing thanks strengthens positive brain circuits, allowing for greater brain power and prosperity.
3. Engaging in gratitude has major health benefits like lessening symptoms of depression and anxiety, reducing heart rate, as well as decreasing physical ailments and reducing physical pain. Highlighting that, a positive thought process improves your physical and mental health. Giving thanks can actually increase your longevity!
4. Gratitude builds positive relationships with people around you and enhances prosocial behavior. Since the act of gratitude recognizes goodness outside of yourself, whether it is as simple as someone opening the door for you or your spouse making dinner, this opens your mind to compassion for others by magnifying your behavior to be giving and altruistic. Build the practice of paying it forward. People with more gratitude have more positive social and family relationships.
5. Gratitude is a building block for an optimistic attitude. A person who sees the light at the end of the tunnel or a glass half full has a more optimistic outlook and is thankful. An optimistic attitude is correlated with meaning, greater social bonds, and longevity.
Here are my words of thanksgiving to kick off the holiday season. Thank you, Mom, for teaching me to have courage; thank you, Dad, for supporting me in doing what I love; Spencer, thank you for making me laugh and see the light; Billy, thank you for your endless devotion; Coco and Star, my spirit animals, thank you for just being. Thank you, dear reader, for taking the time to share this moment of gratitude with me.
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