Description

What Is Gratitude?

Gratitude is one of many positive emotions. It's about focusing on what's good in our lives and being thankful for the things we have.

Gratitude is pausing to notice and appreciate the things that we often take for granted, like having a place to live, food, clean water, friends, family, even computer access. It's taking a moment to reflect on how fortunate we are when something good happens — whether it's a small thing or a big thing.

We can use lots of words to describe feelings of gratitude: We might say we feel thankful, lucky, fortunate, humbled, or blessed.

Why Gratitude Matters

Creating a propensity for appreciation can likewise be great as far as we're concerned. Like other good feelings, feeling thankful consistently can hugely affect our lives.

Research shows that positive feelings are really great for our bodies, psyches, and cerebrums.

• Positive feelings free us up to additional potential outcomes. They support our capacity to learn and use sound judgment.
• Positive feelings balance out pessimistic feelings. Individuals who frequently feel thankful and grateful are more joyful, less focused, and less discouraged. Appreciation resembles a U-turn on whining or contemplating what we don't have.
• Positive emotions balance out negative emotions. People who often feel grateful and appreciative are happier, less stressed, and less depressed. Gratitude is like a U-turn on complaining or thinking about what we don't have.
• One positive emotion often leads to another. When we feel grateful, we might also feel happy, calm, joyful, or loving.
• Gratitude can lead to positive actions. When we feel grateful for someone's kindness toward us, we may be more likely to do a kindness in return. Your      gratitude also can have a positive effect on someone else's actions. Thanking people can make it more likely they'll do a kindness again.
• Gratitude assists us with building better connections. When we feel and express heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to people in our lives, it creates loving bonds, builds trust, and helps you feel closer.

When we make it a habit to feel grateful, it makes us more aware of good things as they happen.

Build a Gratitude Habit

Sometimes, feelings of gratitude happen spontaneously. But we also can create feelings of gratitude by deliberately counting our blessings.

You can build a habit of counting blessings just by paying attention each day to things you're glad to have in your life. Slow down and notice what's around you. For example: "Wow, the sky is beautiful today! What an incredible world we live in," or, "There's Chenemi! It was so nice of her to help me yesterday."

Noticing the things you're grateful for is just the first step in building a gratitude habit, but you can try other things too, like taking the time to thank people or pausing to appreciate a star-filled sky. Start now. What's good about today?

Thanks for being part of our 2022 podcasting season. We hope you had a great time and that you'll be back for more in the future.

2023 podcasting season will start with our annual event Tagged Golden Rubbish, looking forward to your full participation in our coming event.

Feel free to refer to our previous podcast, share, comment, and even ask questions.