What is gratitude?

Two words “Thank You”. The power of gratitude can heal, forgive, energizes, and helps to achieve anything in life. Expressing gratitude is scientifically proven to make you happier.

Here’s the deal. 

Humans operate on what’s called the hedonic treadmill. It means we generally stabilize at one level of happiness, going to a party or going to your favorite place, might perk you up for a minute. But generally, your level of happiness stays constant. Basically, we take the things that make us happy for granted, though they stopped setting us up. By practicing gratitude and constantly examining what you’re thankful for and why you stop ignoring what makes you happy, essentially being actively grateful will make you a happier person. But don’t take my word for it.

Dr. Emmons’s Experiment

Dr. Robert Emmons a psychology Professor at UC Davis and author of “Thinks the new science of gratitude can make you happier” has been doing experiments on gratitude for more than a decade or so. For example, Dr. Emmons gave 300 people journals and divided these people into three groups. One group had to write daily lists of things that they were grateful for another group had to write daily lists of things that annoyed them. And the last group. Well, they could write about whatever popped in and out of their minds that man, strawberries, whatever Dr. Emmons found that people who wrote about things that they were grateful for had a much higher level of wellbeing, than the other two groups. Not only that, they slept better and exercise more. According to Dr. Emmons, people who are regularly writing in weekly gratitude journals are more involved in physical exercise routines, felt more positive about the coming week. A simple act of writing down what they were thankful for seem to kickstart their brains.

Here is the summary of findings:

• More involvement in daily exercises routines
• More enthusiasm
• Sense of determination
• Alertness
• Attentiveness
• Positive energy
• High commitment towards personal goals and professional goals

So, it’s time to kickstart your brain with today’s wellness exercise.

Time to take a small exercise

Take out a fresh page and write things I am grateful for at the top, if you’re the kind of person that likes to be micromanaged make three columns and labels, people, places, and things take five minutes each night this week, and add things to those columns. At the end of the week, take a look at the list. It’s pretty long. Pick one of the things you wrote down and think about who gave it to you. Actually, expressing gratitude will help you get off that hedonic treadmill and make you feel better about all the little things to draft a letter to this person. tell the person, what you’re so grateful for and why. And then thank them sincerely for it, if you’re feeling adventurous. Ask them out to dinner. And then you can thank them in person. After you send a letter or returned from dinner, take out that gratitude journal, one last time. Open it up to a clean page and write down how you feel now in detail. Are you like one of the folks in Dr. Emmons’s study and feeling pretty awesome?  

Let’s do a recap

We learned today that humans, take for granted the things that make them happy. And the best way to shake up that paradigm is to spend time thinking about things that you’re grateful for. Studies show that by saying thank you, your general sense of wellbeing increases to get that happy ball rolling. Write down a list of things that you’re grateful for in your journal, pick one and write a letter or email or use any social app to the person who’s responsible for that thing. Start doing this exercise just for five minutes a day in a gratitude journal or your secret diary whatever you named it.

Now it’s time for me to express my gratitude.

I am really thankful to all of you to be a part of this journey. I wish I could help transform more lives.

Loved it?

Do share it with your loved ones and be a part of this positive journey.

Pay gratitude and get gratitude,

make you help out of the attitude!!

With love,

Shining Mantra