Century Park Blog

Practicing gratitude has far reaching effects, from improving our mental health to boosting our relationships with others. One of the most powerful ways to rewire your brain for more joy and less stress is to focus on gratitude.

Here are 10 simple ways to become more grateful:

1. Keep a gratitude journal. Establish a daily practice where you remind yourself of the gifts, grace, benefits, and good things that you enjoy. Recalling moments of gratitude associated with ordinary events helps establish a theme of gratefulness in your life.

2. Remember the bad. To be grateful in your current state, it is helpful to remember the hard times that you once experienced.

3. Ask yourself three questions. Meditate on your relationships with family, friends and work associates using these three questions: “What have I received from ____?, “What have I given to ____?”, and “What troubles and difficulty have I caused?”

4. Share your gratitude with others. Research has found that expressing gratitude can strengthen relationships.

5. Come to your senses. Through our senses – the ability to see, touch, taste, smell and hear – we gain an appreciation of what it means to be human and what an incredible miracle it is to be alive.

6. Use visual reminders. Because forgetfulness is a primary obstacle to gratefulness, visual reminders can serve as cues to trigger thoughts of gratitude.

7. Make a vow to practice gratitude. Research shows that making a commitment to perform a behavior increases the likelihood that the action will be executed.

8. Watch your language. Grateful people have a particular linguistic style that uses the language of gifts, givers, blessings, blessed, and fortunate.

9. Go through the motions. Grateful motions include smiling, saying thank you, and writing letters of gratitude. By "going through the motions," you will trigger the emotion of gratitude more often.

10. Think outside the box. If you want to make the most of opportunities to flex your gratitude muscles, look for new situations and circumstances in which to feel grateful.