Gratitude Journal: A Step Towards Healthy Mindfulness
Gratitude is something that we all recognize as bringing joy to our lives but have you ever wondered why? The truth is that there are a multitude of benefits to keeping a gratitude journal.
Author, Robert Brault said, “Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”
Gratitude is something so many of us simply take for granted. I suffer from this, as so many of us do. So I created my Gratitude Journal for Teachers. A simple, yet effective tool to help us all move a step closer toward a healthy mindfulness.
How often do we overlook those little moments we could be grateful for, but get sidetracked by those million and one things that pull our attention away? Too often.
A gratitude journal helps you to regain that focus on the important positive things that happen every day. It pushes those negative thoughts and feelings away to make room for all that you are grateful for.
And when this happens, a fantastic change occurs within you and your outlook, your attitude and your overall happiness becomes greater.
How It Works
A gratitude journal isn’t complex. It doesn’t require a degree in analytical psychology. You don’t need to break down your day into a minute by minute narrative to make it work.
Simply, open the journal, write the date (my journal pages are not dated so you can reuse them year after year) then simply jot down two or three things you are grateful for from that day.
Easy right?
You do this every day at the end of the day, just before you go to sleep. Just take a few moments, relax and consider your day and anything that pops out as something worthy of your gratitude needs to be written down.
Be consistent, be regular, be habitual about it and you will soon begin to feel a shift in how you perceive things. You will notice that you’re happier, a bit more relaxed and your stress levels will have dropped. You will see more and more people smiling back at your smiling face and that gives you one more thing to add to your gratitude journal.
The Benefits of Gratitude Journaling
Dr’s, Joel Wong and Joshua Brown, published an article in Greater Good Magazine called, How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain. It details some of the research which has been done and gives an interesting account of those changes.
Some of the things mentioned were:
- Gratitude unshackles us from those toxic emotions.
Especially when writing it down.
- Gratitude has lasting effects on the brain.
Just 3 months after beginning to write down what people were grateful for, scans showed a change in people's brain activity participating in the study.
Another great article appearing on PositivePsycology.com called, The Neuroscience of Gratitude and How it Affects Anxiety and Grief discusses this in greater detail.
Its author, Madhuleena Roy Chowdhury, states:
- gratitude brings happiness. In part to how gratitude improves our interpersonal relationships with others.
- Gratitude enhances our mood and our overall well being.
She goes on to say that with the expression of gratitude we improve our own health. This is because the positive expression of gratitude causes a reduction in stress and in turn enables us to sleep better as we continually build on our emotional awareness.
So you can see how simply expressing gratitude is a benefit in and of itself.
There is also confirmation from, Psychologist Karen Young, at HeySigmund.com, in her article, The Science of Gratitude. She writes:
- Gratitude reinforces generous behaviour.
- Increases feelings of security.
- And It helps with depression.
As you can see these benefits are all interconnected in one way or another. In each of the studies mentioned, they state that just by writing down what you are grateful for, in a Gratitude Journal, perhaps, you increase the effects that much more. The benefits of gratitude journaling are totally worth it!
So Let’s Get Writing
Don’t waste any more time. Start writing in your gratitude journal tonight. Make it habitual and make it a goal. Many people find it works best to keep your thoughts in one place rather than through multiple notebooks and random pieces of paper.
Get yourself a notebook or gratitude journal to begin your journey to the benefits of gratitude journaling and a healthy mindfulness. Drop me a message to let me know how you are getting on with it. I would love to hear from you.
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