How to Live With Gratitude for a Happier, Healthier You

It can be so easy to get wrapped up in day-to-day work and home life that you don’t take time to stop and appreciate the things you have. Showing a little gratitude and thankfulness can go a long way in improving your mood and general outlook on life.

Not only will living a life of gratitude make you generally happier, but it also has some awesome health and psychological benefits. And while every day can’t be the best day ever, practicing gratitude on a daily basis will help make it easier for you to face the challenges that life throws you.

To help you get started, I’ve put together a list of benefits of practicing gratitude daily, as well as some simple ways you can get started today.

What is Gratitude?

Gratitude is an appreciation for and acknowledgment of the goodness in life outside of yourself. It helps connect us to something larger than ourselves, like humanity as a whole, our community, and nature. While it does require some self-reflection to achieve, having gratitude is something you can easily work into your day-to-day life.

The word “gratitude” actually comes from the Latin word, Gratia, which means grace or gracefulness. By having grace for ourselves and others while appreciating the little things in life, we can start to live with gratitude.

4 Levels of Gratitude

There are four levels of gratitude that you may experience from day to day:

1. Ungrateful attitude: This can happen when you’re often feeling negative and complaining about things that are happening to you or things you don’t have.

2. Respect for ourselves and each other: When we have respect for ourselves and each other, we express this by extending courtesy to others and being well-mannered.

3. Appreciation: We show appreciation for what we have, whether that be friendship, health, loved ones, nature, or general beauty in the world.

4. Generosity: The ultimate sign of gratitude is showing generosity or placing the needs of others before your own, and giving back without expecting anything in return!

2 Stages of Gratitude

There are 2 general stages that you go through when practicing gratitude:

1. Acknowledgment: The first stage of gratitude is acknowledging the goodness in your life. This requires you to take time to intentionally reflect on your life circumstances and experiences to acknowledge what’s good.

2. Expressing gratitude: Once you’ve acknowledged this goodness, you will express gratitude outside of yourself. This might look like a selfless act of kindness or giving an unconditional gift to someone else.

What does it Mean to Live with Gratitude?

Living with gratitude means taking the time to express your thanks and appreciation for the things you have. This can be something as simple as thanking your friend for getting you a cup of coffee on her way to work or something bigger like taking intentional time to appreciate your good health.

Living with gratitude helps you live a happier, more positive, and more authentic life. There is no right or wrong way to express gratitude. It just requires you to recognize the positive things in your life, consider how they impact you, and express your thankfulness in a way that feels authentic and good to you.

How can Practicing Gratitude Benefit You and Your Health?

It’s probably no surprise that practicing gratitude on a daily basis can provide a number of different benefits for both your psychological and physical health. Here are just a few ways how living a life of gratitude can impact your well-being:

Practicing gratitude can improve mental health.

Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of gratitude is that it can improve your mental health. According to one study, gratitude is linked to an improved mood. Having a positive outlook and connection to something larger than yourself helps you live a happier life even in the face of difficulties and challenges. Plus, you can’t be in a negative space and grateful at the same time.

A recent study also showed that regularly practicing gratitude can even help ease symptoms for those living with anxiety and depression. When done regularly, practicing gratitude can help those with mental health challenges foster more positive feelings in their daily lives.

People who express gratitude regularly are happier.

Positive psychology studies show that people who express gratitude daily are happier than those who don’t. By intentionally thinking about and acknowledging what is going well in your own life, you will feel more positive emotions.

Even though you will still experience negative emotions, as every human does, it becomes easier to handle these negative thoughts in a productive way when you are used to practicing gratitude daily. For example, if you are generally more positive, it’s easier to do things like reframing hard times as opportunities to learn and grow.

Living a life of gratitude can boost the immune system.

Appreciating the small things can even boost your immune system! According to a research review, stress and negative emotions can impact your immune response. When you’re feeling down and getting caught up in the bad things you’re experiencing, your immune system doesn’t work as well, leaving you open to illness.

Whereas when you increase your overall mental and physical well-being, it becomes easier for the body to fight off illness. Since having an attitude of gratitude helps improve your overall well-being through the powers of positivity, it can also help improve your immune system.

Practicing daily gratitude can improve your relationships.

When you practice gratitude daily in your personal relationships, you may start to notice that your relationships with these people become stronger and closer. One study showed that partners who demonstrate gratitude toward one another report increased satisfaction with their relationship, as well as increased happiness the next day. 

A small sign of appreciation and gratitude toward a partner, friend, family member, or colleague can go a long way. In fact, gratitude can be contagious (in a good way), so when you reap the benefits of practicing gratitude, your friends and family will as well.

Not only will practicing gratitude help strengthen the relationships you already have, but it opens the door to new relationships. According to another study, thanking a new acquaintance makes them more likely to seek an ongoing relationship with you. That means small acts of gratitude like thanking a stranger for holding the door for you or showing appreciation for something kind a new acquaintance has said can lead to a beautiful new friendship.

Grateful people generally have higher self-esteem.

People who practice gratitude regularly often have higher self-esteem. It makes sense that since grateful people take time to recognize their own accomplishments, they have an overall higher opinion of themselves, which is an important component of self-esteem.

Studies also confirm that practicing gratitude helps improve self-esteem by reducing social comparison. When you are thankful for what you have, you no longer have any need to compare yourself to others or become resentful toward those who have more. You can instead appreciate the accomplishments of others without diminishing your own.

Expressing gratitude can help you stress less.

Practicing and expressing gratitude regularly can help lower cortisol, your body’s main stress hormone. When you learn to appreciate what you have, you tend to stop stressing out about what you don’t have. You also learn to be more mindful of the present, which allows you to stress less.

By lowering your stress levels, gratitude helps you avoid a range of negative health issues that can be caused or exacerbated by stress, such as heart disease, depression and anxiety, gastrointestinal problems, obesity, diabetes, and even headaches.

People who incorporate gratitude into their everyday life sleep better.

Practicing gratitude daily can help you get a better night’s rest. In fact, a study in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research found that feeling grateful can help you sleep better and longer. If you take time to journal on what you’re grateful for or think about your blessings before bed, your mind is calm and peaceful, making it easier to fall and stay asleep.

Psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough did a study with people who had neuromuscular disorders, asking them to make a list of things they were grateful for before bed. And after 3 weeks, participants (40% of which had sleep disorders) found that they were getting longer, more refreshing sleep. So there’s something to practicing your daily gratitude right before bed!

5 Ways to Live with More Gratitude in Your Daily Life

If you’re looking for ways to live with more gratitude in your daily life, there are a few practices and exercises you can incorporate into your everyday routine to experience the benefits

1. Intentionally choose an attitude of gratitude.

Living with gratitude in your daily life requires you to intentionally choose gratitude each and every day. Starting a gratitude ritual that you can practice every morning, like journaling or a guided meditation, can help you start your day with gratitude and set the pace for the rest of the day.

2. Take time to appreciate the little things.

Set aside just 5-10 minutes every day to think about, reflect on, and appreciate all the little things that you are grateful for. This is not only a great way to make sure you’re practicing gratitude each day, but it’s also an exercise that will make it easier for you to appreciate the little things even when you’re experiencing challenges.

3. Express your feelings of gratitude to loved ones.

Taking time to express your appreciation and gratitude to loved ones not only makes you feel good, but it will make them feel good too. When you make a habit of it, you’ll start to see your relationships with others improve and strengthen over time.

4. Spend time doing things that make you happy.

The more time you spend doing things that make you happy, the more you will have to be grateful for. Expressing gratitude regularly becomes easier and more natural if you are often doing things you enjoy, even if it’s something small like getting outside for 10 minutes every day or reading a bit after breakfast.

5. Keep a daily gratitude journal.

Keeping a daily gratitude journal is a quick and easy thing you can do to get into the habit of practicing gratitude daily. It doesn’t have to be profound, you can simply write down a few things you’re grateful for in the morning before you start your day or at night before you go to bed. Feel free to elaborate more when you feel like it.

What are You Grateful for Today?

Now that you know how to live with gratitude and the benefits of making an effort to practice it in your daily life, I want to give you a little exercise to try today:

Before you go to sleep, think of the positive things that happened to you during the day, and when you wake up, write down 3 things that you are grateful for before getting out of bed.

Remember to focus on what you have, not what you don’t have!