How to Practice Gratitude Consistently to Boost Your Health & Happiness

Casey, our dog, is the most grateful creature I know. She's also one of the happiest.

Studies show that it is not that happy people are more grateful.  Rather, people who practice gratitude consistently are happier, and, it turns out, they may be healthier, too.  A study at the University of California San Diego found that keeping a gratitude journal is good for your heart by lowering cardiac inflammation.  Researchers at the University of California Davis Medical Center have found that being grateful and practicing gratitude can boost your immune system, lower your blood pressure, and improve your sleep.  And, sleep is the most healing thing our bodies do every single day!

Practicing gratitude to improve your health does not require you to go to a gym or eat kale or give up anything.  It simply requires you to purposefully focus on what is going well in your life.  Through focusing on what is going well in your life, you then invite in more positive feelings.  And who doesn't want more positive feelings?!  So how do we get this gratitude party started?  Well, there are a couple of simple, easy, doesn't take too much time ways to do this.  

Ways to practice gratitude:

• Keep a gratitude journal.  Keep a notebook on your nightstand.  Every morning or evening, write down three or more things you are grateful for.  They do not have to be major things.  The other day, I wrote in my gratitude journal that I was grateful for broccoli rabe because it's nutritious and delicious!
• Keep a gratitude jar.  I know some families who keep a gratitude jar.  Get a jar and put in a place all family members can access.  Have a pen/markers and scrap pieces of paper next to it.  Anytime someone feels grateful, they write down what they are grateful for and stick it in the jar.  I know some families who do this year round and pick a day of the month to empty the jar and read all the notes of gratitude.  I know other people who do this just for the month of November and read the contents of the jar on Thanksgiving. 
• Commit to handwriting thank you notes.  The act of physically writing something down with a pen helps commit it to memory and wire the brain towards it, research shows.  If you are writing thank you notes, you are wiring your brain for gratitude.  
• Go for a walk and repeat to yourself the mantra, "I am grateful."  It will help wire your brain towards what you are grateful for.  

I am excited to share how gratitude improves your health and how you can easily incorporate it into your day because yes, I want you to be happy.  And I'd love to hear what you are grateful for in the comments below!