Gratitude encourages brain health and fights brain illness by amplifying the good in your life, including the good in your relationships, in your coping ability, your thinking skills and your overall health and wellbeing. Now that is something to be grateful for.

Gratitude is the feeling of appreciation, gratefulness, or graciousness. To be grateful is to be aware of and thankful for the good things that happen. It involves taking time to recognize and express thanks, acknowledging receipt of something of value – a gift, a favor, a blessing – to feel thankful for it and, then, to be inclined to give kindness in return.

Gratitude Boosts Brain Health and Fights Brain Illness

It may sound simplistic, even corny, but the research clearly demonstrates that you would be happier, experience greater outcomes in health, well-being, and flourishing if you cultivated an attitude of gratitude.

— Grateful thinking promotes the savoring of positive life experiences.
— Expressing gratitude bolsters self-worth and self-esteem.
— Gratitude helps people cope with stress and trauma.
— The expression of gratitude encourages moral behavior.
— Gratitude can help build social bonds.
— Expressing gratitude tends to inhibit invidious comparisons with others.
— The practice of gratitude is incompatible with negative emotions.

Practicing Gratitude

From the research data, experiencing and expressing gratitude are some of the best strategies (right up there with physical activity) to enhance your brain health and fight brain illness through supporting your emotional well-being, managing negative thoughts, engaging in meaning-filled positive relationships and eating brain healthy food.

It is important to note, however, that feeling grateful and expressing gratitude are distinct. To get maximum brain health reward, you will want to do both. You can remind yourself to feel grateful; you may have to learn and try out different ways of expressing it. The only impediment is the common tendency to take for granted the gifts and blessings that we receive.

First, what do you have to be grateful for? 

It is just so easy to take everything for granted. And having a thanksgiving feast once a year is not going to be enough to increase your brain health and happiness.

How about being alive for starters? That you can breathe deeply. That you have a mind for thinking and a body for doing. The sun freely gives you light, warmth, and the energy that makes your food. If you happen to watch the sunrise or the sunset, that might be a good occasion to feel grateful. Do you have a roof over your head? Food in the fridge? A smile to share?

Gratitude can both be cultivated.

Gratitude Meditation. Gratitude meditation encourages people to ask themselves, what did I receive? What did I give? And, what troubles and difficulties did I cause to others? This brings our expectations and actuality more into awareness, which allows for further learning to appreciate blessings.

Gratitude Journal. Gratitude journals can redirect an individual’s focus on negative or neutral life events to positive aspects of one’s life. Make a habit of writing down the things you’re grateful for. It doesn’t have to be a long list, but if you regularly challenge yourself to identify and name your gratitude, you may begin to notice improvement in your emotional well-being.

Gratitude Visit. The expression of gratitude may be particularly effective when done directly-by phone, letter or face-to face to another person.

Click to listen to songs of gratitude, appreciation and gracefulness.