As Thanksgiving approaches, it can be easy to feel stressed and unsure about different things. Developing a gratitude practice may help you feel more grounded at Thanksgiving and throughout the rest of the year.
Gratitude has been linked in a beneficial way to emotional health, psychological functioning, and social well-being. One option is to try writing a journal that focuses on feeling grateful. All Things Hair features some very useful tips on getting one started. This involves writing regularly about people, events, and things that you feel explicitly grateful for.
Here are a few more ways you can practice gratitude coming up to Thanksgiving.
- Counting blessings: Try making a list of the things for which you’re grateful Aim for around five as this should be more than enough.
- Mental subtraction: Try to imagine life without one or two of the good things.
- Gratitude visits and letters: Find the time to write and deliver letters to people you’ve never thanked before.
- Experimental consumption: It might not be easy but you’re bound to feel better if you make the shift from spending money on things and investing in experiences instead.
- Death reflection: Imagine your death and it’ll help you take stock of the benefits of being alive and appreciate them more.
- Three good things: Think of three things that have gone well and determine the root cause of those positive experiences.
