9 Surprising Benefits of Gratitude and How to Get Them

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There are LOADS of benefits to practicing gratitude. Learn about just a few of them and get some advice on how to start your own practice.

I can’t tell you when I wrote my first list of things that made me feel grateful. (Oprah probably convinced me I needed to do it on one of her shows back in the 90s.) I can tell you when I made it a regular practice, though. 

I began writing daily gratitude journal entries during the most miserable time in my life.

In 2014, I was diagnosed with breast cancer while 34 weeks pregnant with my second child. Overnight, life changed from feeling comfortable, secure, and full of promise, to feeling like it might be over soon.

I’d never really thought too seriously about my mental health before, but when I was sick I had no choice. I started to lose it. I hated my life. I hated my friends and family who all got to go on as normal. I couldn’t stop feeling unbelievably angry.

Then I flipped the script

I made a list of the silver linings of my cancer diagnosis–the good things I’d never have experienced if I hadn’t gotten sick. Included on the list:

• Learning I had a larger, kinder support system than I’d ever imagined
• Having several hours of uninterrupted quiet time every week as I sat in the chemo chair
• Rocking a nether-region as hairless as a porn star’s with no need for a Brazilian wax

And I felt better.

Since then, I’ve made hundreds of gratitude lists. Taking five minutes or so on most days to ‘count my blessings’ has fundamentally changed my life. And I want you to experience all these benefits of gratitude, too.

Ready to start your practice? You can skip the science-y stuff and jump to my tips to get started. Otherwise, read on for some benefits of gratitude journaling.

RELATED: 101 Gratitude Journal Prompts for Moms

9 benefits science says you can expect if you keep a regular gratitude practice

1. Practicing Gratitude Lowers Stress

We live in a high-stress society. We are constantly striving for more and trying to do better. Keeping a gratitude journal forces us to focus on what’s already good, and that can’t help but make us feel calmer. 

In fact, research at UC Davis has linked gratitude journaling with a 23% decrease in the stress hormone cortisol.

Cortisol is your body’s main stress hormone—the one responsible for controlling your body’s fight or flight instinct. You want to have in an emergency, but chronic high levels of cortisol as a result of constant stress can lead to anxiety and a host of other health problems. 

The fact that a few minutes a day of journaling could make your cortisol levels 23% lower is pretty fantastic, right?

2. Practicing Gratitude Makes You Healthier

As mentioned above, we find decreased cortisol levels in the blood of people who regularly practice gratitude. High cortisol levels can cause headaches, heart disease, problems with digestion, trouble sleeping, and weight gain.

Numerous studies have shown other health benefits of gratitude, too—including lower blood pressure, decreased heart rate, and reduced inflammation. 

Amazing.

3. Practicing Gratitude Leads to Better Pain Tolerance

Before giving birth to my first child, I took the Hypnobabies Childbirth Self-Hypnosis Program. Through the process, I learned that our experiences of pain are pretty subjective, and they are definitely affected by the way we feel about the pain. Fear, tension, and expectations of misery make pain feel worse. A calm mind, relaxation, and expectations of a good outcome make pain lessen.

So feeling calmer and less stressed in general already makes pain tolerance better, but gratitude helps you take things a step further. A study at the NIH showed that practicing gratitude activates a dopamine loop in your brain. (Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that your body releases to help you feel good.)

And a gratitude practice doesn’t just cause your brain to produce dopamine. It also causes you to make serotonin. That’s the neurotransmitter that activates the happiness center in your brain and acts as a natural anti-depressant.

Yes, please.

4. Practicing Gratitude Shows You What Is Important in Your Life

Looking over a gratitude list can help you see what you value the most. It can be an important tool to help you make sure your life is in balance.

• Those children that you are so grateful for? Are you making time to connect with them today? 
• Your husband makes it on the gratitude list often. Have you told him how thankful you are that he’s in your life?
• Seeing the sunset makes you happy. How many evenings do you take a few minutes to stop and look?

Writing down what you’re grateful for reinforces what’s important and can assure that your daily actions reflect your priorities.

RELATED: How to Get Motivated When You Don’t Want to ‘Mom’

5. Practicing Gratitude Can Help You Reframe Your Internal Self-Talk

If you’re like most of us, you have a constant narration going on in your head.

• You talk to yourself about what’s happening and how you feel about it.
• You give yourself critiques and congratulations based on things you did.
• You dwell on the past and you worry about a future no one can see.

And, if I had to guess, I’d say your conversation with yourself is pretty negative.

You might think you have no control over this talk, but you can actually choose whether you want to think about bad things or good things. Forcing yourself to focus on the things you’re grateful for instead of the things that make you angry or sad changes the narration in your brain.

Your brain can’t focus on both negative and positive things at the same time. Which would you rather focus on?

6. Practicing Gratitude Helps You Build a Greater Connection to Others

Research shows that people who are more grateful are more likely to offer emotional support to others or volunteer to help others serve a problem. Those who practice gratitude are also less likely to feel envy for what others have.

This makes sense when you think about it.

When you’re grateful for what you have, you’re not looking for the things that others have that are missing from your life. If you are happy and fulfilled, you have more energy and enthusiasm to look outside yourself to see who needs your help.

7. Practicing Gratitude Leaves You With a List of Things to Reference When Times Get Tough

When you keep a gratitude journal , you’re ready for hard times. You have a concrete list of the things that make your life wonderful. On days when feeling grateful isn’t easy, you can look back at the list of things you’ve already made to help boost your spirits.

8. Practicing Gratitude Builds Resilience and Internal Strength for the Future

Exercising your gratitude muscle helps you to be more objective about life. You realize that you don’t have to accept an experience just as it appears on the surface. You can actively look for the good and make anything that comes up in your life something positive that benefits you.

This helps you immensely in trying times when you wouldn’t naturally choose gratitude. Because you are a gratitude expert, upsetting events won’t crush you. They’ll provide you with an opportunity to look for silver linings and ways to be thankful.

9. You’ll Train Yourself to be a More Positive Person

As I said above, your brain can’t focus on both positive and negative thoughts at the same time. If you mindfully fill it full of positivity, you’ll soon find that the world in general starts to look more positive. You send a message to your subconscious that life is good and that you expect good things.

Focusing on the positive helps these positive experiences to expand and multiply. Before long, you see them everywhere.

How to Start Gratitude Journaling Today

Ok, I’ve shown you the benefits of a gratitude practice. Ready to get started?

There are a million ways to reap the benefits of gratitude. I believe very firmly in choosing something easy and in a format you can stick to.

For you, that might mean getting a physical journal with prompts and suggestions for your practice, and keeping it by the side of your bed where you can see it first thing in the morning and remember to write in it again before you go to sleep. 

If you’re a minimalist like me, it might mean foregoing paper. You could download a PDF journal into a PDF reader or keep your notes in a password-protected diary app like Day One.

Whichever format you choose, make sure you’ll easily be able to practice it regularly.

How Often Should You Write?

Although experts disagree about how frequently to write—some studies suggest a once a week might be better than every day—consistency is key.

There’s a reason we call this a gratitude practice. As I mentioned above, gratitude changes you. The magic happens in the process of exercising your gratitude muscle over and over. Make sure as you’re doing this that you remember the point—to be happier. 

When to write in your Gratitude Journal

1. In the morning: start your day with positivity. Make a short list of things for which you are grateful when you first wake up. Do this before you read the news, check Facebook, or go through your email. If you encounter upsetting, irritating, or stressful information there, your head will already be in the right place for the day.
2. Look for moments throughout the day to be grateful. Practice mindfully going through your day looking for good things or even reframing negative situations as reasons to be thankful. If someone makes your life better, be sure to share a genuine thank you.
3. Set a reminder alarm to help you remember to write in the evening until you’ve established the habit.

Some tips for success for writing in your journal

1. As you sit down to write, don’t just go through the motions. Feel the joy and thankfulness that listing these things brings you. Get out of your head and experience the emotions. This practice should feel GOOD.
2. Describe each item in detail as you write it. Don’t simply make a laundry list of things. Create an evocative description of the things that you are thankful for.
3. Want to repeat an item that you’ve listed before? Try focusing on a different detail of why you are grateful for it.
4. Stumped for what on earth to write about? Grab this free list of 101 gratitude journal prompts.

Look Mama, I know life can be stressful, scary, and just plain hard.

It’s also really beautiful, though. Even if you’re in the trenches of motherhood, with dirty diapers, zero sleep, and bloody nipples. Even if you just lost your job. Even if all you can celebrate is the fact that chemo left you with a little less body hair.

No matter what, having a concrete gratitude practice will make your life better and better. Regarding all these benefits of gratitude, don’t just take my word (or all the scientific data) for it.

Try it yourself.

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