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Kyle Red
@redkyle
Gratitude letters and visits
Write a letter of gratitude to someone, even if you never send the message. The positive effects this has on the brain can last for months.
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Olivia Lambert
@oli_lam22
Choose to Be Grateful. It Will Make You Happier
Gratitude raises our happiness
We don't have to feel grateful in order to give thanks. Acting grateful can make you grateful.
For many people, gratitude is difficult because life feels difficult. But we don't...
Research on gratitude
Studies consistently show that the people practicing gratitude enjoy significantly greater life satisfaction than those who don't.
One explanation is that acting happy, regardless of feelings, encourages the brain into processing positive emotions. Gratitude stimulates the hypothalamus (a part that regulates stress), and the ventral tegmental area (a part that produces the sensation of pleasure.)
Strategies for practicing gratitude
- Start with interior gratitude - giving thanks privately. Then move to exterior gratitude, which focuses on public expression.
- Regularly express gratitude in letters to loved ones and colleagues, thanking them for what they do.
- Be grateful for the little things you experience, the smell of fall in the air, a song that brings back good memories.
Musa
@musa81
How to make gratitude a way of life
Philosophical roots of gratitude
Aristotle argued that we become what we habitually do. If we spend our days thinking of everything that has gone poorly and how dark our future appears, we can think ourselves into...
Religious roots of gratitude
- In Judaism, the first words of the morning prayer could be translated, "I thank you."
- From a Christian perspective, thanksgiving is vital. Jesus gives thanks before he shares his last meal with his disciples.
- The 55th chapter of the Quran lists all the things humans have to be grateful for - the sun, moon, clouds, rain, air, grass, animals, plants, river, and oceans.
- Hindu festivals celebrate blessings and offer thanks for them.
- In Buddhism, gratitude develops patience and serves as an antidote to greed.
Gratitude as a way of life
One way to cultivate a disposition of gratitude is to give thanks regularly - at the beginning of the day, at meals, and at the end of the day.
Holidays, weeks, seasons, and years can be punctuated with thanks - grateful prayer, writing thank-you notes, and keeping a gratitude journal.
Peyton M.
@pey_m61
How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain
The Practice of Gratitude
Many studies have shown that people who are grateful and often count their blessings are those who lead happier and less depressed lives.
Practicing gratitude is an activity where ...
How Gratitude Works on Our Minds and Bodies
- The practice of gratitude has long-lasting effects on a person's brain, suffering from depression or not.
- Those who practiced writing gratitude letters and received psychological counseling have shown significantly better mental health.
- It unshackles us from negative emotions by writing fewer negative emotional words, it shifts our attention away from toxic emotions.
- Eventually, as we put our focus on appreciating the things we have we will become more attentive to how we express gratitude.
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