‘Weightlifting for your brain’: how a gratitude practice can lift your mood, lower stress and anxiety, cultivate resilience – and boost heart health
- Mental health therapists describe benefits of writing down, or recording, things we are grateful for, to bring a balanced perspective and build relationships
- Whether you do it alone or with a friend or family, the more you engage in the practice, the more you will start finding things to be grateful for
Eat more healthily and exercise more. Over the years, this has been the steady drumbeat for many when it comes to making New Year’s resolutions. So consider a new alternative this time: lean into gratitude.
The simple practice holds great promise for improving our well-being – and it is largely free, unlike a gym membership, and easy to start (unlike a diet).
Here is how to take the first step and leverage the power of gratitude in 2024.
“Psychologically, it’s true that we’re kind of hard-wired to pay attention to problems and concerns and what’s not working,” says Anthony Rella, a mental health counsellor in the US state of Washington. He has been a therapist since 2013 and has his own practice working with men, as well as serving the LGBT+ community.
“Especially when we’re experiencing times of stress or a lot of hardship, we tend to start to fixate on [negativity] a little bit too much,” he says.