Practice gratitude – increase both happiness and life satisfaction This is a seemingly simple strategy, but I’ve personally found it to make a huge difference. There are lots of ways to practice gratitude, from keeping a journal of things you’re grateful for, sharing three good things that happen each day with a friend or your partner, and going out of your way to show gratitude when others help you. In an experiment where some participants took note of things they were grateful for each day, their moods were improved just from this simple practice: The gratitude-outlook groups exhibited heightened well-being across several, though not all, of the outcome measures across the 3 studies, relative to the comparison groups. The effect on positive affect appeared to be the most robust finding. Results suggest that a conscious focus on blessings may have emotional and interpersonal benefits. The Journal of Happiness studies published a study that used letters of gratitude to test how being grateful can affect our levels of happiness: Participants included 219 men and women who wrote three letters of gratitude over a 3 week period. Results indicated that writing letters of gratitude increased participants’ happiness and life satisfaction, while decreasing depressive symptoms.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 00:02:33 +0000
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