5 Benefits of Gratitude

Your thoughts affect your energy

It sounds simple, but it is something that I had gone through many years of my life without truly realizing how powerful our thoughts are.

When I started Gratitude Journaling, it really opened my eyes to how negative my thoughts were. Gratitude Journaling is truly about creating a new habit and a new way of thinking.

It is easy in life to focus on the negative or bad things. But usually when we step back and look, we have some pretty amazing things in our life even if it is something small.

I definitely recommend reading The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon, this will help a lot on your journey to changing your mindset. And he has The Energy Bus for kids too; every kid needs this book in their library!

What is Gratitude Journaling?

Take a few minutes every day (I usually like to do this first thing in the morning or at the end of the day) write down three things that you are thankful for that happened in the last 24 hours... that's it!

I know what you are thinking, "Bailey... that is too easy and I don't see how that will change my life" Give it a try and let me know what happens!

And your gratitudes will not always be BIG AMAZING MOMENTS... it could be something as simple as “I’m so happy and grateful that I heard that song today” or “I’m so happy and grateful that the sun is shining this morning"

Be specific and notice the little things. You will start looking at things differently and reprogram your brain from automatically jumping to a negative thought. Writing my gratitudes was something that pulled me out of a place of grief and sadness. It was a huge step for my mindset and mental health.

So if you are ready to start Gratitude Journaling...

Here are 5 Benefits of Gratitude Journaling that are going to make it worth taking a few minutes to add this to your daily routine

1. Improves mental health:

Multiple studies in the field of positive psychology have shown that gratitude journaling helps people to get rid of negative emotions. Greed. Envy. Regret. And Frustration are often expelled when people take the time to express their gratitude.

2. Increases happiness:

Further studies have shown that daily gratitude journaling has a large impact on increasing happiness and improving self-esteem

3. Helps you sleep better:

With a lower amount of negative emotions and great happiness and feelings of self-worth, many of the things that keep us up at night tossing and turning are gone.

Helping to improve sleep quality and quantity.

4 Improves relationships:

Journaling about your gratitude makes you more aware of what others do for you.

This often leads to improved expression of gratitude to others.

When you express gratitude people want to be around you more because you make them feel good about themselves, regardless of whether you are grateful for someone holding opening the door or giving you a life-changing opportunity.

5. Gratitude increases resilience:

When you are grateful for the good things that have happened in your life, you also become more immune to negative reactions when the bad comes around. Gratitude gives your perspective and helps you realize that no matter how bad things are, “this too shall pass”.

I created a gratitude journal for myself and published it. A regular notebook will work just fine, but I wanted something pretty that I could keep and go back and look at when I needed a reminder of the good things.

And I took it a step further and just released a Couples Gratitude Journal.

Incorporating Gratitude into your relationships is life changing for both you and your spouse.