Laura Jackson RN, BScN, MN is an award-winning healthcare leader and holistic wellness facilitator. She is the Founder of Paradigm Joy Inc, a holistic mental health and wellness service that helps people to relieve stress, recover from trauma, transform limiting beliefs and cultivate self-compassion.
A gratitude practice can bring your attention to the present moment. It can teach you about the value of perspective and can help to shift a negative mindset to one of equanimity, humility, and appreciation. Expressions of gratitude are authentic and should always validate your true feelings and align with your core values. Practicing gratitude is not about fabricating happiness or condoning a situation that no longer serves you. It can help to reframe the challenges you face in life and encourage you to focus on what is truly important. Appreciating the goodness in life is an intentional choice that anyone can learn to make. This article will explore the benefits of gratitude and Three Good Things, a practice that can cultivate gratitude and foster well-being.
The evolution of gratitude
The earliest forms of gratitude were reflected in the responses from acts of altruism and in the reciprocating behavior observed in primates. According to evolutionary scientists, these acts of reciprocal altruism contributed to the evolution and survival of our species by creating social bonds and sustaining communities.
Gratitude as a discipline is reflected in many spiritual and religious traditions. Practicing gratitude can enrich life experiences and deepen your spiritual journey. It can contribute to finding meaning in life when faced with suffering and misgivings and help you to attune to the sources of goodness in life. For some, offering thanks in times of struggle or abundance is a way to abide in faith that things will be ok despite the circumstances. In some traditions, offering thanks to a higher power for your blessings and sharing them with others contributes to the power of devotion and the promise of worship.
Today gratitude is secular and mainstream and it is practiced by many for the benefits that it has on health, well-being, relationships and life satisfaction. Gratitude is broadly defined. It is often described as a moral virtue, a general sense of appreciation and thankfulness or as an attitude towards life. It is also conceptualized as a trait, mood or emotion and it may be influenced by personality, cognition, and social factors.
According to Dr. Emmons and Dr. McCullough (2003), gratitude involves two steps; the awareness of a positive outcome and the awareness that something external to oneself caused the positive outcome. Although the research on gratitude is relatively new, the benefits of integrating a gratitude practice into your self-care routine can be significant.
There are several gratitude practices that you can try, and it may take a bit of research and trial and error before you find one that resonates with you. Gratitude practices have been shown to improve physiological and psychological health. Some gratitude practices have been correlated with improved mental health, sleep, immune function and improved cardiovascular health. Gratitude can help us to see the bigger picture in life, reframe negative experiences and help us to cultivate peace, acceptance and forgiveness.
Related article: 7 Key Signs You’re Going Through A Spiritual Awakening
Shifting perspective
As humans we tend to focus on the negative aspects of things. This tendency, also known as the negativity bias, can contribute to an indulgence in our negative critic and may be why you experience negative events with a higher degree of intensity. Over-identifying with the negative can hold us back from fully engaging in life and it can taint our perspective, even when things are going well. It may impact our relationships, our motivation and view of the world. The negativity bias was an important part of our evolution as a species and contributed to our survival by helping our earliest ancestors adapt to emerging threats and harmful stimuli in the environment. Today the negativity bias still benefits us in certain situations but to a limited extent.
Practicing gratitude often serves as a catalyst for shifting from a negative mindset to a positive one. Gratitude is not about ignoring the suffering in life or suppressing emotions and feelings, and it is not meant to pacify a circumstance that is no longer serving you. In some forms of practice, it may help to reframe a negative experience and provide freedom from the attachment to the negative and closure. When applied in this way, it may help to heal past wounds, act as a protective factor and facilitate self-compassion.
If you are struggling with getting started, try to remember a challenging time in your life and compare it with a time when you were able to persevere to overcome a negative situation. Do any emotions come up when you juxtapose these times in your life? How does reflecting on this comparison make you feel? According to gratitude researcher Dr. Emmons, “the process of remembering how difficult life use to be and how far we have come, sets up an explicit contrast that is a fertile ground for gratefulness.”
Gratitude practices can interrupt a negative thought loop and retrain the brain towards the positive. The more you intentionally practice gratitude and focus on an element of good, overtime it will become the default, shifting your perspective and your life for the better. When things are not going well, or if you are in an unpleasant situation, or experiencing a crisis, it is even more crucial to practice gratitude, it may provide you with the perspective that you need to overcome a situation and help you to start to move forward.
Related article: Is Negativity Bias Holding You Back?
Three good things
Three Good Things is an evidenced based gratitude practice that has been shown to increase happiness and reduce depression. This practice helps to shift your attention to the things that go well in your life and to see the positive. When practiced by healthcare workers it has been associated with reduced burnout, depression, improved work-life balance and well-being.
The practice encourages you to reflect on three positive things that happened during your day. You are encouraged to write them down in a journal and identify what you think caused it to happen. Writing down your reflections helps to increase the benefits of the practice and will provide you with a log of the good things in your life that you can look back on.
Your three good things are subjective and are personal accounts of the things that were meaningful to you during the day. The things or events that you identify as good do not have to be grand, they can be simple, such as; a smile from a friend, something that you accomplished, a note of thanks from a colleague, being cared for, a meaningful conversation or spending time in nature.
It may be challenging to recall three good things at first, however as you practice it will become easier. There should be no element of judgment when you practice. If you find that you become critical or lean towards the negative, take a moment to refocus and come back to what went well. The practice is meant to foster well-being and not be burdensome. If negative thoughts arise, try to let them pass and do not dwell on them. Take a moment to refocus and direct your attention to the next good experience. This may take some practice, however you will eventually learn how to shift from a negative mindset to one of gratitude.
The ideal time to practice is at the end of the day before retiring to bed as you will have a full day to reflect on. You are also encouraged to do it at the same time each day and make it a part of your evening or night routine.
The practice takes approximately five to ten minutes to complete. Try it for a minimum of seven consecutive days to experience the benefits.
How to do it
Choose a time before you go to bed to practice. Select a time when you have a moment to yourself, and when you have time to reflect and concentrate. Take a few deep breaths before starting.
Start by recalling the events of your day. As you reflect on the day, ask yourself, what went well?
When you identify a good thing, write it down.
Savor the moment that has come to your attention.
Write down the details that made an impression on you and try to be as specific as possible. What positive emotions did it foster within you? How did it make you feel? How does it make you feel now looking back on it? Why was it meaningful for you?
With each good thing, identify what you think caused the event. Or how you contributed to it.
After identifying three good things, spend a couple of minutes reflecting on what you have identified.
Choosing gratitude
Starting on a journey towards health and wellness can be daunting. It takes time, patience, and perseverance to achieve a goal and make sustainable lifestyle changes. Taking the time to define clear goals and make a plan is an important step and it is helpful to track your progress along the way. Incorporating a support system into your plan, such as friends, family and health and wellness professionals will increase your chances of success and help you to stay on track.
If you are ready to embark on a gratitude practice and don’t know where to start, or if you are struggling with your mental health, consider working with a licensed mental health professional or a certified coach who can provide you with personalized guidance and support tailored to your specific health challenges and wellness goals.
Read more from Laura Jackson
Laura Jackson, Healthcare Leader & Holistic Wellness Facilitator
Laura Jackson RN, BScN, MN, is certified in psychiatric and mental health nursing with the Canadian Nurses Association and is a Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach with the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching. She is the Founder of Paradigm Joy, a holistic mental health and wellness service where she provides counselling, coaching, education, and retreats. Her approach to wellness is holistic and integrative. With an emphasis on somatic (body-based) interventions, she uses her skills in nervous system co-regulation, therapeutic yoga, meditation, and self-compassion to create an environment of safety and to support people to relieve stress, recover from trauma, transform limiting beliefs, and reach their full potential.
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