Gratitude – the gift to yourself that keeps on giving!

What are you grateful for? Would you like to be grateful for being unreasonably happy all the time?! We certainly would and that’s what we practice gratitude as much as we can at YinYan!

Practicing gratitude means affirming the good things we’ve received, and acknowledging the role other people play in providing our lives with positivity. Becoming a regular practitioner of gratitude can be a game-changer as it has far reaching effects on our wellbeing.

Research has found gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.

How do you cash in on all these amazing benefits? Just think about the people and things in your life and ask yourself – “what am I grateful for and why?” It really doesn’t matter what – a person, animal, moment, TV show, song, piece of clothing, smell, taste or feeling?

Can you be grateful for simply having hot water and a warm bed – OH YEAH! What about being grateful for a small act of kindness from a stranger? DEFINITELY! What about a chat with an old friend? OF COURSE!

There are no limits on what you can be grateful for – doesn’t matter if it’s little/big things, just look around in your life and explore how & why you feel grateful for these things?

Don’t be surprised if you try this and struggle to think of things you’re grateful for at first – that’s totally normal because it’s incredibly normal for us to take things for granted, just give your brain a chance to get into the swing of practising gratitude: Many people find setting aside a particular time of day for gratitude helps at first, and writing down whatever you’re grateful for in a journal can really help too…soon you’ll be practising gratitude all the time and will soon start to notice positive changes in your thought patterns, emotions, relationships, mood & overall wellbeing/happiness.

The more you can bring your attention to that which you feel grateful for, the more you’ll notice to feel grateful for – this is similar to the way negative thoughts or emotions can lead to other negative things which can spiral downwards, except this time you’re creating a positive spiral that can have a big impact on your whole life and ultimately make you happier…after all isn’t that what we all really want?

More info of research on practicing gratitude can be found here.  And if you’d like to share your own experiences or tips on gratitude we’d love to know what you think in the comments below 🙂