Gratitude is a productive emotional training tool. When you are grateful for your life, you can experience the positive and pleasant
feelings associated with happiness, peace, passion, excitement and love. These pleasant emotions can then be catalysts for positive changes in your life.
Why is practicing gratitude important?
● Lower risk of heart disease, diabetes, some cancers and other lifestyle diseases
● Stronger immune system
● Sharper memory and less mental decline with aging
● Higher-quality sleep and less insomnia
● Reduced perception of chronic pain
● Less inflammation in the body
● Better mood and less incidence of depression and anxiety
● Higher self-confidence and fewer feelings of anger, jealousy and envy
● Greater ability to forgive yourself and others
● Better ability to prioritize and manage time
How can you practice gratitude into your everyday life?
1. Establish a practice in which you recite people, places, or things you are grateful for. This could be saying a few things aloud or writing them down.
2. Sharing your gratitude with others. Make a conscious effort to remind the people in your life that you are grateful for them. This could be your wife, son, or even the cashier at the store.
3. Challenge yourself to be grateful in difficult circumstances.
Hailey Kay, ClarkLindsey’s Wellness Intern, collected this information and shared it with residents on 11/14/23. She is a Community Health Student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
The following two articles were sources of information for the tips above. For further information on gratitude, you may want to read the articles in their entirety.