Gratitude Part II, or "How Do I Get That Goodness In Me?!?"(to quote my dear friend)...and a couple of studies actually listed, to give myself some semblance of credibility.

In my previous post, I was very good at listing the benefits one receives from being grateful, but a little cryptic on how to do it (some people already know, but if you don't, I'm about to help you out).

By the way, I'm posting this, not because I am good at any of the techniques, but to motivate myself. When I came home from Education Week, I was all fired up, and I did a family night lesson about it (and my kids all still write in their gratitude journals, so they are more "expert" than I am), but then I let life get in the way, and haven't been writing in mine. I have started again at the "count blessings in my head" level. Which is an excellent level, right?

While listing blessings in your head is a great way to start and will generate some immediate benefits, the studies have found that if you take things just a little bit further, the magnitude of benefits increases. A lot.

There are a myriad of ways to increase gratitude, and they are all good, but it appears that the two most effective gratitude exercises for lasting physical and psychological results (according to a study done by Martin E.P. Seligman, Tracy A. Steen, Nansook Park and Christoper Peterson), are the following:

1. Keep a gratitude journal. Every day (or 3-4 times a week to reap good benefits), list one to three things (or more, if you'd like) you are grateful for. The key is to be specific, and to not list the same thing every day.

So rather than putting "I am thankful for my dog," put, "I am thankful for my dog, Chewy, because he braves the arctic winds and snow to go out and hunt food for our family, keeping us away from death's door."

1a. When you pray, pray about the things you wrote down in your gratitude journal. Thank your Heavenly Father for them. This wasn't listed in the studies, but the lady who spoke at Education Week mentioned it as a good idea. It really is a great idea. It enhances a person's prayers and feelings of gratitude not only for the people/things he listed in the journal, but also for the One Who Gave it All to us.

2. Periodically do a "Gratitude Visit." Write a very specific thank you/gratitude note to someone. Take time in the construction of the note. Think about what you are writing. Make it about a page long. Then, hand deliver it to the person, and read it to them face to face. Apparently, this is a life changing exercise. Positive effects generated by a single visit last a month or more.

A further note about the Gratitude Journal. One of the main studies on journaling was done by Edmonds and McCullough. In this study, subjects were divided into three groups. Those who journaled blessings, those who journaled hassles (negative things that happened in their day), and those who journaled neutral events (ie. "I got up and ate breakfast.").

When I heard about this study, after hearing about the positive effects of gratitude journaling, I thought, "those poor people who had to record their daily hassles! How funny! Here are these people in the blessings group, reaping these great benefits from recording blessings, and the hassles people are probably sitting around, all depressed, and hounded with illnesses...heh, heh, heh."

Then it dawned on me...there are days when all I do are "record" hassles in my brain! I go over them and over them. And let me just say, these days don't usually end up getting labeled as "good." To put it mildly.

So sometimes I participate in the "hassles group" part of the study, but I am hoping that by consciously focusing on increasing my gratitude, I will find myself in the "blessings group" more often!

Will using other methods of increasing feelings of gratitude generate positive mental and physical benefits?

YEP!

Here, I am going to refer to you the Wall Street Journal's article again. Specifically, the little colored insert in the article. You will find it about half way down (if my link doesn't work). Click on it to see it large. This will give you more ideas of ways to increase your gratitude.

You can also find all sorts of ways online and in your head.

One I found in my head a couple weeks ago, that I am going to attempt to implement this year, is the "Gratitude Christmas Tree." I am going to set the tree up, with lights, but leave the ornaments in a box next to the tree. Each day, at some point when everyone is home at the same time (wish me luck with this--it may be at midnight), we will meet by the tree and discuss things we are grateful for from the day. For each "gratitude," we will put one ornament on our tree. (We are also doing small alpine trees-one for each kid- for little acts of service we do throughout the day...yes, I have a bunch of alpine trees, just sitting around...).

Some of you know the blogger at this address. If you click on the link, you will see something they have implemented in their family--a great idea that she found here. So fun!

An idea that the "Gratitude Lady" at Ed. Week had, that she has implemented, is to take a bunch of 3x5 cards and put something like "Thanks, you made my day" on them. Then, as you are out and about, and you see someone being kind to someone else, or someone who helps you in some way, or just needs a "pick me up," you can walk up to them, hand them a card, and tell them what it is for (or I guess you could quickly write down what it is for on the back of the card).

For example, you could hand someone a card and say "I really appreciated the way you didn't yell at your toddler when he was having a meltdown. You are a good mom," and hand them the card.

As I thought about how the "non-yelling mom" would feel to get a card, and know that someone noticed her patience, I got a the best feeling in my gut--an excited feeling. The feeling you get when you know you have the best present to give someone at Christmastime and can hardly wait to give it to them. What a great idea!

One more idea: use your blog (or start one) to motivate you to post your blessings. Here are a few examples: one, two, three. You will notice, these guys actually blog about what they are grateful for, rather than spewing forth evidence on how to be, and why to be grateful. :) There are probably other sites on my blog roll to the right that post blessings on the blog...those three just came to mind quickly.

Now, lest you get overwhelmed with ideas (I hate that feeling), remember that just taking time out during the day to go over blessings in your head will give you noticeable benefits. Start there. I know I am.

I am grateful to you, who managed to read this whole, long post. Hugs!