GRATITUDE

What You Need To Know

Gratitude starts with noticing. Noticing is a form of conscious effort and when you can recognize that an outside source was responsible for a positive outcome, good things happen to your disposition in life. Gratitude strengthens relationships and has been rooted in our evolutionary history: having a value in helping others and being helped in return greatly increased our chances for survival.

Today, cultivating gratitude has many benefits to our social and personal lives. One way to foster gratitude is to write a small list of things to be grateful for. Identifying three things that have gone well for you and identifying the cause will harbor feelings of positivity and thankfulness. Another way to foster gratitude is to share your favorite moments of your day with loved ones and take the time to reminisce about the big and little joys of daily life.

Feeling gratitude increases the positivity in our lives, which in turn boosts happiness. Feeling gratitude has even been proven to affect lasting changes in the prefrontal cortex in being more sensitive to future experiences of gratitude. In short, gratitude increases our physical and psychological health.