The Netherlander town of Leiden and the Australian territory of Norfolk Island also celebrate this holiday (Vicens, 2022). Similarly, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan celebrate a fall harvest, where people also give thanks. Nothing unpredictable, yet so inspiring, and the most important thing is that it isn't a fantasy. Yes, gratitude transforms one's life because it transforms one's soul. Whatever the basis of your interest in gratitude, you should find at least one or two of these books useful, informative, and engaging.

Go Through the Motions. Grateful motions include smiling, saying thank you, and writing letters of gratitude. By “going through grateful motions,” you’ll trigger the emotion of gratitude more often. Gratitude also plays an important role in maintaining romantic relationships, acting as a “booster shot” to remind us why our partners are valuable and worth holding onto. By practicing gratitude, couples can initiate a cycle of generosity—one partner’s gratitude inspires the other to act in a way that reaffirms their commitment. One study found that receiving a thoughtful gesture from a partner was followed by increased feelings of gratitude and indebtedness. Experiencing gratitude from these acts of kindness led both partners to feel more connected and satisfied with their relationship the next day.This exercise can be used in sessions or assigned as homework. This PDF tool will help clients reflect on the people who have positively impacted their life and come up with ways to express gratitude to them. It includes a few suggestions for acts of thankfulness such as handcrafting the other person a gift, inviting them for a coffee, or writing them a letter of appreciation. This is a tribute to gratitude through poerty. Enjoying and being appreciative for the little things in life is something you will understand easily, one poem at a time. O’Connell, B. H., O’Shea, D., & Gallagher, S. (2017). Feeling thanks and saying thanks: A randomized controlled trial examining if and how socially oriented gratitude journals work. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 73(10), 1280–1300.

When asked to combine their gratitude journaling with a behavioral component, such as expressing their gratitude to the person they are grateful for, then participants reported even higher on measures of positive emotions and lower on measures of negative emotions than participants who only wrote down (i.e., reflected) on things that they were grateful for (O’Connell, et al., 2017). For example, in the book The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning, Elevate Your Life, Sharma (2018) advocates using a 20/20/20 method, where you put aside equal parts of time (20 minutes) in the morning to: Dr. Emmons is one of the leading figures of the positive psychology movement, and his book Thanks! takes on a little more scientific and a little bit more religious journey through gratitude. And every time I think about that moment 5 years ago, the only things I remember are the gloomy grey day and the sharp turn on the road when I decided to hit my car in a lorry that was taking that turn.Think Outside the Box. If you want to make the most out of opportunities to flex your gratitude muscles, you must look creatively for new situations and circumstances in which to feel grateful. Please share the creative ways you’ve found to help you practice gratitude. A regular practice of gratitude, or “attitude of gratitude” as some call it, can enhance your life in a multitude of ways, including: In one study involving nearly 300 adults seeking counseling services at a university, one randomized group wrote a gratitude letter each week for three weeks. The gratitude group reported significantly better mental health (compared to the control group) at follow-up, 12 weeks after the last writing exercise. Another type of written gratitude practice is counting blessings, or “Three Good Things.”A study of this practice found that people who wrote down three things that had gone well in their day and identified the causes of those good things were significantly happier and less depressed, even six months after the study ended. How It Works: Strengthen Positive Recall

I’ve also found out that gratitude is a feeling of powerful blissfulness, wholeness, and the simplest step towards a happy life. Gratitude is the appreciation for having “enough” and the knowledge that “more is coming” daily.Strange as it may seem, gratitude can also encourage us to fuel our bodies with nourishing foods. Research shows grateful people report better physical health because they tend to engage in healthy activities such as focusing on nutrition. “We have found that getting people to express gratitude could help them work toward healthier eating behaviors, like more fruits and vegetables and less junk food,” says Lisa Walsh, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate in social/personality psychology at University of California, Los Angeles, whose graduate studies included research with Sonja Lyubomirsky’s Positive Activities and Well-Being (PAW) Laboratory at the University of California, Riverside. In one of the PAW lab’s studies, high school students preselected a healthy eating goal and were asked to either write weekly gratitude letters or list their daily activities. Teens who expressed gratitude reported healthier eating behavior over time compared to those who just listed their activities. Other studies of people’s physical health outcomes have found that gratitude journaling can lead to better-quality sleep and lowered blood pressure. Thankful to Those We Love Easy to apply lifestyle– Expressing gratitude is not a difficult process, however, the benefits and day to day transformations can be hard to spot for those looking to get into it. The books we are suggesting today go to great lengths to outline the benefits and what you may experience when practicing gratitude on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s easier to express your thoughts and feelings in a letter rather than saying it in-person. The Gratitude Letter worksheet provides useful prompts to help children express their gratitude and thanks to someone special.