How to bring more gratitude into your life and improve your mental health as a result

Gratitude 

 

 by Ellen Scott

Gratitude is sometimes used as a stick with which to beat someone down.

‘Try to be grateful for how good your life is’, when thrown at someone talking about their experiences of depression, feels immensely dismissive, while ‘you should be grateful’ (whether that’s for a relationship or a job) can be an attempt to gaslight people into accepting poor treatment.

This isn’t to say gratitude is a bad thing – far from it. But when wielded as a weapon, it gets a bad rap.

Gratitude, viewed properly, as being thankful for the good things in your life, can be a powerful thing.

There’s a wealth of research that points to gratitude – feeling it and expressing it – making us happier and boosting mental wellbeing.

The key is not to ignore issues by sticking gratitude on top as a plaster, but incorporating gratitude more seamlessly into your day-to-day life.

It’s about recognising that things aren’t perfect, but there’s some stuff that’s worth appreciating.

‘Gratitude works to improve our mental health,’ says Counselling Directory member Kirsty Taylor. ‘It’s a really powerful emotion.

‘Gratitude is strongly associated with emotions such as optimism, greater life satisfaction and enjoyment of the moment, an improved ability to handle a crisis situation, increased self esteem, better resilience and increased physical and mental wellbeing.

‘Gratitude, simply, allows us to appreciate situations, people and every day things in a way that increases our happiness and allows us to take grater pleasure in all aspects of life.’

Bringing an attitude of gratitude into your life isn’t as easy as just telling yourself to buck up and be grateful, of course.

It’s a conscious practice, a change to your way of thinking. So, how do you bring more thankfulness into your being?

Make a conscious decision to be grateful

Changing the way you think, feel, and behave isn’t going to happen magically, with no effort on your end. Sorry.

‘It can be hard to cultivate gratitude when the daily grind of life makes it hard for us to do so,’ Kirsty tells Metro.co.uk. ‘People can have stressful environments, jobs, families and life situations that make it especially hard to feel grateful for our lives and our circumstances.

‘However, if we don’t make a place for gratitude in our life, it can be a much darker world that we live in.

‘Gratitude is often a chosen state of mind or being and can be increased by making a conscious decision to try and focus on happiness.’

Retrain your brain to notice the good (Picture: Getty Images)

Practise gratitude in the mornings and evenings

Here’s an easy way to start getting into the grateful mindset. Each morning, before you get out of bed (and perhaps instead of doing your usual doomscrolling) challenge yourself to think of three things you’re grateful for – and spend a moment appreciating how great that thing is.

It’s okay if it’s something that seems teeny-tiny or silly, like ‘I’m grateful that I’m going to get myself a nice hot drink on the way to work’.

Make sure you don’t just rattle through your list and get on with your day. Take time to really dwell on your gratitude for these things, and feel it.

You can do the same thing right before bed.

Dominique Antiglio, a sophrologist at BeSophro, suggests combining this practice with a spot of meditation and physical relaxation.

She recommends: ‘First thing in the morning, stand up, gently shake your entire body, letting go of any tension. Exhale fully all negative anticipation and anxieties you may feel.

‘Then sit down, inhale, tense your body, exhale and relax each part of your body from head to toe. Then in a relaxed state with eyes closed, think about one thing that you are grateful for now or that you are going to experience today.

‘It can be a simple as how comfortable your pyjamas feel in that moment (start simple!) and it will become deeper and more meaningful as you repeat this practice.

‘Last thing in the evening, shake the tension of the day away by moving and breathing, and then close your eyes. Think about one quality or resource that got you through your day i.e. perseverance, connection with a friend, hope, calm etc.

‘Then spend a moment gently activating this word in your body and mind through gentle in-breaths and out-breaths.’

Keep your eyes and mind open to take in the parts of your day that you might normally overlook: how nice it is to walk past the park on the way to work, how tasty your lunch is, how you’re actually really enjoying a new hobby you’ve been trying.

‘Even when it feel tricky to find something to be grateful for, the simple fact that you are starting to look for it is like opening a door to a new world and perspective,’ Dominique explains. ‘When we feel grateful, we are naturally opening up our minds and body, calming our nervous system and shifting our perspective to something more constructive. We are learning to contemplate ourselves, our lives or people around us from a positive place.’

Open your eyes and mind to the positive things in life (Picture: Getty Images)

Reframe challenges

Okay, this is where it gets a little trickier. When you come up against bad times, it’s fine to feel sad, angry, or scared. But can you also take a moment to reframe some small part of what’s happened with gratitude?

‘It can be useful to think of a positive way of reframing each complaint that we might want to make,’ says Kirsty. ‘If someone is rude to you at work, you might want to complain to a friend about them. Instead, you could remind yourself of all the other great colleagues you are fortunate to work with and be grateful that perhaps you aren’t having the same stressful day as a rude colleague.

‘When difficult things happen in life, such as loss and bereavement and relationship breakups, we all can have a tendency to feel very down and depressed and low in mood about such painful life events.

‘It can be very hard to reach for a positive when things feel very difficult, but those who can practise daily gratitude might be able to find a positive in even the darkest situations.

‘Loss reminds us to love those around us, relationship breakups show us that love feels wonderful when it’s going well, and that we can learn something so our next relationship will be different. Bereavement can make us stronger in the long term, can remind us of the precious nature of life and allow us to breathe in our surroundings each and feel grateful for the life we get to live.’

Express gratitude out loud

Don’t just think grateful thoughts – speak them. Comment on how lovely the weather is today, say out loud that you appreciate your body for getting you where you need to go, talk about positive things in your life to balance out any venting.

Tell people you appreciate them

Why keep all that gratitude to yourself? If you’re thankful for someone’s support, their actions, their presence, tell them.

This can be as small as giving someone a genuine thank you for making you a tea, it can be telling your partner how much you appreciate them, it could be writing your parents a letter to say how grateful you are for all they’ve done.

Spread the wealth – it feels good and does good, too.

Transformational Change

Change 

 Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

 

Girish Borkar

 

 

Resistance to change is one of the biggest barriers one can ever have to cross whether in personal or professional life. It is a well-established fact that change is the only constant. Every moment there is change — we just have to be aware to observe the change. As we move through life’s mundane activities — go to sleep, wake up, go to work, return, go to the gym, watch TV, go to sleep. This drudgery then becomes a part of the life of 90% of the world’s populace. We get so used to the routine that when change is staring us in the face, we cannot recognise it, in fact most of us end up resisting it and end up as losers.

Nowadays yoga and meditation too have become a part of our lifestyle — for some it is a style statement and for others it is something to show-off at gatherings — what do you do? I do yoga and meditation! For the more serious seekers yoga and meditation is the doorway for transformational change. Once a realised Master enters your life, your life does not remain your own, as very subtly the reins are taken from your hands as your life goes on auto-pilot. Your only responsibility, nay duty to your Guru, is to sit and meditate regularly.

Once this becomes a regular feature in your life you will notice that slowly and surely change starts taking place in your life. You observe that you no longer fall sick, your day begins very early and ends by 10pm, throughout the day you do not feel loss of energy, people who come in your vicinity feel good, they start telling you that your face has a kind of radiance, nothing bad happens to you, your material life shows a qualitative change as your inner being becomes calm and quiet. This now reflects on your material life, there is positive change here too — those people who had problems with you suddenly forget those problems and start behaving nicely, those who are not good for you quietly, unknowingly just fade away from your life.

As your transformation takes place, you start vibrating at a higher frequency and only those souls who are in your bandwidth become a part of your life. Your life becomes peaceful and calm, loving and giving and suddenly you find that you are no longer the original ‘you’. The transformation has taken place very subtly because of your Guru’s grace — his Grace follows you at every step — just be aware and grateful for it, don’t let your ego in, remain humble and rooted and enjoy the change that has taken place in your life.

Girish Borkar

Spirituality ... meditation ... insights ... inner peace ... the journey continues... love and gratitude

Girish Borkar Follows

What truly keeps people happy in such unhappy times

Finding Happiness 

 Photo by Bruce Mars on Unsplash

Manu Joseph

When they are lucky, they are happy, and when they are unlucky they are sad, but all arcs of their lives bend towards joy

A new question is in the air. What must you do to find joy in these times? It is a question that presumes you are sad, that even insists you are sad. So it looks you in the eye even if you have not lost someone dear, and you are not enduring the torture of caring for someone, which today could include the task of dragging a bleak, industrial oxygen cylinder. Even if you have been spared for now, there is an assumption that you are slowly sinking in second-order melancholy. After all, there is death all around, and a sense of inevitability.

So, what are people doing to make themselves feel better? Nothing much.

Most people do nothing special to feel happy. They are just happy. When they are lucky, they are happy, and when they are unlucky they are sad, but all arcs of their lives bend towards joy. In happiness they are not amateurs; they don’t over-articulate joy. Their whole lives are built around being happy. So what they now do is stick to a semblance of a routine, and surrender to habits. They work, chat, watch a lot of television, watch T20, read, play badminton on the street assuming it will keep them fit, lament that the gyms are shut as though they used to go every day, and they eat a lot of fast carbs. As before. They did all this more or less the same way before the pandemic. A typical Indian does many things in a single day to be happy in different ways without even knowing the motive. And most people achieve happiness because the bar is so low.

There are others who are happy in a more complex way, which they consider a higher order of happiness, a self-assigned high place in a secret caste hierarchy of living. They don’t need to be entertained by a story, or a piece of news, or by sugar. In not expecting happiness in all three meals a day, or every hour, they imagine they have liberated themselves from animal biology. Thus, when happiness does occur, they feel it more than the others because it is so much rarer. They, too, were exactly like this before the pandemic, and they too have not gone in pursuit of happiness. They too are pros at happiness.

There is an old golden piece of advice in long-distance running. Don’t buy new shoes for the race day. It is the novice who runs a race in new shoes. Seasoned runners don’t do anything different on race day; they stick to everything that is old, including their water bottles and bandanas and watch straps, everything that is deeply familiar to their skin.

Most people who have gotten away from the pandemic so far without being directly struck by tragedy do not feel the obligatory sorrow that the question in the air presumes because they found joy in what is familiar to them, in their habits, and in staying true to who they are. They don’t even ask questions about how to be happy in a pandemic, or at least ask this in a serious way. They are just happy. So where has the question come from?

The question has emanated from people who talk the most about happiness. People who have for long been dejected, long before the pandemic. They have some interest in the answer, but they love questions more than answers. Most people who say, “Have you felt so dark before, so helpless before, so hopeless before," know that the answer is yes, they have felt so sad before, in different circumstances. The articulation of ‘how to be happy’ is often an articulation of sorrow.

The question has also come from psychologists and psychiatrists.This is because they are ‘qualified’ to have answers to such questions, which they then transmit. That is how the question has come to linger in the air.

Not everyone finds joy in bleak times by just being themselves. Some people are donating money to noble causes for the first time. Even people who know that every taxpayer is a philanthropist cannot help donating, because it brings them joy.

Some have decided not to feel the pain of other people, and they read news of the unfolding misery as though it is some kind of realistic fiction happening in another dimension. This form of protection from sorrow is more common than people are ready to admit.

Some have found comfort in becoming the guardians of appropriate sorrow. They condemn jokes and festivities, and the overt public happiness of the Indian Premier League (IPL). I am confident that they privately do watch Netflix “in these bleak times", but they find other people’s public display of joy disgusting. They are like that grim relative every family has, who expects everyone to be in mournful silence when he is ill. Oddly enough, many of the people who oppose IPL matches as insensitive are surely among those who condemn thugs who enforce homage to a departed politician or actor by closing half a city down. This sanctimony, too—this expectation that everyone should be like you, be as emotional as you—is a way of manufacturing comfort from ambient fear.

But a majority of people find happiness through regular means, like by seeking entertainment, such as the IPL tournament. However, they are wary of the guardians of appropriate sorrow. They fear being perceived as bad people. So they have become secretive even about watching cricket. And when they want to share something good that has happened to them, they break the news with the preface, “In these sad times, finally some good news", without realizing that in ‘bleak times’ the last thing people want to know about is something good happening to other people.

How to Make Your Regrets a Source of Strength | Nate Rifkin in The Ascent

Regrets 

 

Regret begets more regret, but gratitude also begets more gratitude.

 

Ever wish you could go back in time and slap yourself?

I do.

In between my first and second year of college, I languished at my mom’s house like a lump of Jell-O that refused to even wiggle.

Three days per week, I lifted weights at a nearby gym. Every evening, I boiled some spaghetti, dumped it on a plate without tomato sauce or cheese, retreated to my older brother’s former bedroom (because it still had a television), and watched a line-up of The Simpsons, Seinfeld, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and some other shows mixed in between. On weekends, I anguished over what I’d watch without the usual weekday lineup and usually found some mediocre movie.

Why was I wasting my life?

I told myself I was waiting. My goal was to create how-to products about fitness and weight training. First, I decided, I had to get more muscular, which could take a few years, but I had the time. As I waited for my muscles to grow, I figured I didn’t have anything to do but work out, eat plain spaghetti, and wait.

My pasta routine didn’t produce the glamorous body I was anticipating. Years later, I’d think about the wasted potential — the wasted time — and wish I could go back to slap myself silly and awaken some semblance of sensibility.

For most of my late-twenties, I worked as a sign-spinner and stood on the corner of the street in front of a store, waving a sign.

Usually, I wore a smock that looked like a big $100 bill. It got so soaked and caked with exhaust fumes, sweat, and grime that it turned grey, peppered with questionable splotches of black. It looked like a billfold that had been shoved through too many vending machines, waved around at too many strip clubs, and rolled into too many straws for snorting coke.

Once, as I waved my sign wearing the nasty smock, a car rolled by and a woman shouted from inside, “You need to clean your uniform!”

I looked down. She was right. During my break, I said we needed a new smock and, the next morning, someone brought over a fresh one. As I pulled it out of the packaging, I marveled at its sheen, the subtle shades of green, and the detail of Ben Franklin’s face.

I strode outside, proud to look like a hundred bucks. The same car rolled by again. The woman looked at me and gave a thumbs-up.

I didn’t always wear the smock. During the holiday season, I wore a Santa Claus outfit.

One day, a woman with a missing tooth walked by and said, “Do you have any idea how many women want to sit on your lap?”

“How many?” I asked.

“A lot!”

Maybe some guys did too. One man in his sixties slinked beside me near the end of my shift and, as he darted glances back and forth, said, “Just about ready to go in?”

“Yup,” I said.

He said, “We’ve, uh, gotten to know each other pretty well, you know?” (We’d had one exchange a few days before.)

“Uh I guess so.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure,” I said.

“What do you think of sex?” He gestured his hands out, palms up — the kind of motion someone would say while exclaiming picture this.

I had no idea how to respond so I said, “Could you be more specific?”

“Well…”

Our short conversation ended with him moseying onward up the street.

One more story:

I often did my sign-spinning barefoot (earthing, baby!) with my shoes sitting off to the side. For a few months, around two in the afternoon, a parade of junior high school kids shuffled down the sidewalk. They usually said nothing — thank heaven for small favors — but, one time, a kid grabbed one of my shoes.

I lunged toward him and reached to get it back. “Get the f*** off my shoe, kid!”

Just as I got my hand on my footwear, he pulled it to his face, took a giant whiff and said, “That smells good, man!”

He let my shoe go and walked on.

“Thank you,” I said, slack-jawed, and chuckled for the next hour or so.

More than once, I counted how many weird things happened to me during that job. Maybe two hundred. That’s two hundred stories. I made ten dollars and fifty cents an hour — and that was after two raises. I had a business I was trying to grow on the side.

Every week, I managed to scrape together $30 to fund my advertising campaigns. I was also trying — but not particularly hard — to get clients who wanted advertising copy written for their businesses.

Why am I saying all this? Because, just like with my spaghetti-eating phase, I look back on this time and I want to slap myself silly.

I was racking up all these stories…why didn’t I write about them?

I never blogged about my stories. It would have been fun, free, and I could have built up an audience. Every story could tie into a lesson about one’s spiritual path, especially the Daoist path (I’m still trying to figure out how to connect that to the retired guy asking me about sex). I could have been writing about my experiences for the past eight years.

Many times, I’ve thought about this and cringed. I regretted the lost opportunity that I just didn’t see.

Ever have regrets about a time when you could have put in just a little extra effort on a project and, as a result, could have transformed the trajectory of your life?

I thought about such regrets this morning while standing in the backyard of an Airbnb in Seaside, California, doing my daily routine of Daoist meditation. My wife and I had just attended a friend’s wedding.

As I trained, another thought popped into my head.

Would I regret not writing stories as a small child, when I was still learning how to draw the letters A, B, and C?

No.

Why not?

Because I couldn’t write stories. Scrawling out A, B, C was the best I could do. I was learning and working on the perfect things to master at that perfect moment, on a longer journey.

Was my time as a sign-spinner any different? Sure, I could berate myself with a big list of things I should have done. I could mentally roll the list into a tube and smack myself as if it were a newspaper and I’d just piddled on the carpet. But what if my time as a sign-spinner was another A, B, C time of growth?

I could hate myself for the years I spent watching hours of television every day.

I wasted time, my youth, and my health. But I learned to value time and train my body in a way that preserves my feeling of youth and health.

So, what’s the proper way to judge my past? Where are the cosmic compasses I can jab into my decision points, twist to draw circles, and measure my life’s worth? Where’s the AI-driven data-aggregator I can feed my moments of arrogance, awkwardness, and dereliction of duty, so it can produce a report of how I can best disparage myself and measure my worth. Is the AI still in development? Has the start-up behind it gone public? Maybe I can invest.

Until the tech is available as an app, I’ll stick to something provocative.

What if I thought of my life’s trajectory as perfect?

What if I thought that, like a cocooned caterpillar, I was developing perfectly for my next stage?

As I stood barefoot in the backyard of my Airbnb, bits of mulch poking between my toes and sun shining on my face and chest, I thought about timing. If I hadn’t done everything just as I had, what breakthroughs would I have later missed?

I continued my morning practice, rhythmically moving my body and feeling energy go through certain organs in my body. I thought about the three things I cherish today — my wife, the Daoist training I practice, and my (now-published and available here) book that I had been putting the finishing touches on.

What if I hadn’t gone through that multi-year rut as a sign spinner? What if I hadn’t screwed up my life before and, as a result, never needed to take that goofy job? What if I hadn’t cocooned myself in front of the television?

Maybe I wouldn’t have met my wife. Maybe I wouldn’t have met my current teachers. Maybe my book, something I’ve nurtured for the past three years, wouldn’t exist.

Now, my time parked in front of a television set didn’t seem so bad.

What if my biggest regrets today were how I avoided being alone? How I avoided getting lost on my spiritual path? What if they were how I avoided getting stuck with a career or business that drained the life out of me? What if going back and “doing things better” would be my undoing?

As I thought about this, I finished my morning practice, stood still for a minute, then stepped through the mulch to the back door. After I settled in the dining room, I wrote this article.

Think of a regret you have — a big, juicy one that makes you shake your head from the anguish you feel.

Now picture yourself as a child, giggling and drooling as you push one of your arms forward, drag a leg behind you, and make little thumps on the floor as you learn to crawl.

Would you yell at that child for not running full speed? Would you be that cruel? No? Then, why do you punish yourself for what you did — or what you didn’t do — when you were still learning and growing?

You still are learning and growing, by the way.

Now think of three things you cherish in your life, right now.

What if your deepest regrets actually helped you create what you now cherish? Let’s say you could wave a magic wand, re-write the past, and remove your regret. What if that also removed that which you cherish? Would you really want to mess with your past, Marty McFly-style? Maybe the result wouldn’t be as dramatic as making you and your siblings disappear but you might be surprised by what you’d lose.

Maybe this isn’t logical. Because of the way life’s actions ripple and crash into each other, splintering possibilities beyond what we can consciously perceive, we can never know what was best for us. Then again, is it logical to steep yourself in regret? Sure, it’s good to learn from mistakes but when we’re feeling crushed by what could have been, are we in learning mode?

When you’re not chained by regret, it’s like finally being able to push your head above the water’s surface, breathe, and see. You’re more likely to make decisions you’ll be proud of. Regret begets more regret, but gratitude also begets more gratitude. Even about our regrets.

After dropping out of college, Nate Rifkin had dedicated himself to self-help and pursuing his entrepreneurial dreams. Yet he failed to achieve any of his goals. Worse, he spiraled into debt, drank every morning, felt lonely, lost, and hated himself.A few years later – after a brutal bankruptcy and a stint spinning signs on a street corner – Nate Rifkin had quadrupled his income, married the woman of his dreams, and found happiness and contentment. He's published a book on how he did it, titled The Standing Meditation. It's now available here.

The Ascent

A community of storytellers documenting the journey to happiness and fulfillment.

• Personal Development
• Personal Growth
• Self Improvement
• Self-awareness
• Improvement

Written by

Nate Rifkin

Was bankrupt. Now financially free. Was depressed. Now happy and fulfilled. Was figuring out how to change his life. Now writing how he did it.

8 ways to add some joy to your most dreaded chores

How to enjoy mundane tasks 

 

Photo by Scott Umstattd on Unsplash

 

Jan 19, 2021 / Ingrid Fetell Lee 

 

 

This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from people in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

These days, one common complaint that I’ve noticed from friends and on my social media feeds is how much more time we all seem to be spending doing chores. Many meals that were once eaten out or on the go are eaten at home, necessitating more cooking. Being home all day every day, dishes pile up in the sink and everything seems to get dirtier that much quicker.

Like seemingly everyone else right now, I find myself grappling with having to spend more time doing things I dislike. But when the going gets tough, the tough get joyful (that’s the saying, right???) — and so I thought I’d gather some inspiration for ways to make some life’s dullest chores more delightful.

For ideas, I turned to the Joyspotters Society, a free online community I founded that is devoted to finding and creating more joy in daily life. I was overwhelmed by their response. I’ve gathered their tips into themes to make it easier for you to find the strategies that will work for you and added some of my own, as well as ones I’ve come across in my research.

1. Set a timer

Joyspotter Genevieve writes: “I hated emptying the dishwasher (I know, privilege) until I timed myself doing it. It took 4 minutes. Knowing that, it’s no longer a big deal.”

I love this strategy because it creates awareness. What seems like a big, looming task actually turns out to be inconsequential when we look at it.

The other thing about setting a timer is that it can make a task feel like a race, which turns it into a game. Vanessa says that she sets a 17-minute timer for cleaning the bathrooms on Monday mornings. “I always try to beat it! Loooove starting my week with that chore checked off.”

I used to do the same thing for my drawing exercises in grad school, allowing only 20 minutes per page. Being “on the clock” focused my attention, giving me an energy boost that helped me power through pages and pages of repetitive warm-up sketches.

2. Dance it out

Many joyspotters rely on a playlist of fun tunes to keep their energy up during unpleasant chores. The most popular genres seem to be top 40 hits from the 80s, 90s, and 00s, but anything with a fast beat and a joyful cadence will do the trick. (A few specific favorites include Spice Girls, B52s, and Hanson. Joyspotter Marike even has a “special vacuuming song” which she kindly shared.)

I’ll attest to the power of good music as a salve for chores; our weekly cleaning sessions became much more fun as soon as my partner Albert discovered this “Cleaning + Organizing” playlist on Spotify.

And if the urge to bust a move in the middle of chores strikes, most joyspotters agree that it’s worth indulging in a dance break. Shelly writes, “I have cordless headphones and a ‘Joy’ playlist with all songs that bring me joy. I hit shuffle and clean and dance away, makes it go so much faster.”

Even if the time spent dancing makes tasks take a little longer, it feels like less time goes by. And if you invest in a pair of washable mop slippers — as recommended by Twila — your dance moves can be as productive as they are joyful!

Music and dancing can also soothe nerves agitated by certain tasks. As our resident designer Linzi points out, “I hate vacuuming because the noise makes me anxious and it takes a long time. I put on my headphones, turn up my music loud, and make myself dance around the apartment while cleaning.”

Linzi’s approach reminded me that some chores are unpleasant not just because they’re tedious or dull, but because they trigger sensitivities (such as to loud noises or harsh smells) or negative emotions (such as disgust). Adding in pleasing sensations can be an important way to ease the negative impact of these triggers.

3. Layer in a guilty pleasure

Let me make one thing clear: I don’t like the term “guilty pleasure.” Unless a pleasure hurts you or someone else, the guilt we attach to it usually stems from external judgments around the value of that enjoyment. Why sabotage our joy by labeling it in a negative way?

That said, the association can be hard to break, and when it comes to pleasures we feel guilty about, TV is often at the top of the list. Decades of criticism have taught us to believe that TV is “chewing gum for the brain”, so even when we enjoy it, we often feel like it’s something we shouldn’t be doing.

But adding a so-called guilty pleasure to a dreaded task seems to redeem them both. Allowing ourselves to watch a favorite TV show while ironing or folding laundry puts boundaries around the indulgent quality of TV watching and makes the task more pleasurable.

As Eveline says, “I love folding laundry! It is one of the few chores you can do while watching television! Which make[s] me feel not so guilty about watching a quick vlog or tv show in the middle of the day.”

4. Harness the power of scent 

One of the things I’ve been finding joyful in cleaning the kitchen has been rediscovering Citrasolv, a potent natural cleaner made from the oil found in orange peel. It cuts grease like nobody’s business, and the citrus scent always perks me up.

Many joyspotters are also fans of incorporating pleasurable scents in household chores. Nandita sprinkles lavender oil on her sheets after she makes the bed, while Mandalynn adds essential oils to her cleaning products to give them a natural, fresh scent.

Others mentioned choosing cleaning products with joyful scents (one favorite brand is The Laundress) or lighting a candle before or after cleaning.

Doing this can turn cleaning into a form of aromatherapy. Lavender is a good hoice because it’s been shown in research to reduce anxiety. Citrus scents might actually help you keep a space cleaner longer — one study found that people were less likely to litter or make a mess in spaces where a citrus scent is present.

5. Document your efforts  

This suggestion comes from joyspotter Nicole, who says, “Sometimes I’m not in the mood to cook… but recently I’ve started making time-lapses of my cooking process and that makes it super fun!”

For her, the fun occurs on two levels: During the process, she knows she has a fun video to look forward to (this stimulates our sense of anticipation, which can be a potent joy enhancer). And after, she gets the reward of watching the video.  

Kerri has a friend who uses this same strategy for cleaning, and points out another benefit: The timelapse occupies your phone so that you don’t get distracted during your cleanup.

If a timelapse feels too challenging, you can use your phone to add joy in other ways. Valeska says, “The other week I made some videos using the Snapchat lenses of me pretending to sing along (lip sync) and being silly while cleaning and shared it with some friends.”

She says it gave her “a good laugh (spreading joy) and really raised my energy levels while doing it.” Another easy suggestion: Take before-and-after pics of your work and text them to a friend.

6. Create a ritual of celebration or gratitude

According to Casper ter Kuile, the author of The Power of Ritual, a ritual is defined by three things: Intention, attention and repetition. A routine might be something you repeat often, but add an intention and focus your attention on it, and you can create a ritual.

Joyspotter Lisa does a pre-cleaning ritual, which involves saying a little blessing for her home and lighting a candle. She says this helps her focus on how she’s creating positive energy by cleaning, making it less a chore than a joyful act of transformation.

Other joyspotters do something similar after cleaning. Jennifer, for example, lights a candle when she’s finished. As she says, “It’s like a finishing touch or celebration, it’s nice!”

Many joyspotters also incorporate elements of mindfulness or gratitude throughout their chores, reflecting on how thankful they are simply to have a home to take care of or clothes to fold. Doing this takes the focus off the task and brings it back onto the broader joys that such objects enable.

7. Surround yourself with things you love

Another way to make chores more joyful? Stop caring for items that you don’t really want or love. As joyspotter Claudie writes, “The other thing that has helped me is making sure I only have things I really like in my house/cupboards/wardrobe. I have bright colors and pretty things about and find them more rewarding to keep tidy. That way I’m not wasting time tidying stuff that irritates me anyway!”

When we buy things, we tend to think about them as simply physical objects. But each item we acquire is also a commitment to a future investment of time: The time spent washing, mending, maintaining or even just seeing that item.

When you have things you don’t like in your space, this time and effort can feel wasted. When you truly love what you’re surrounded by, as Claudie points out, it doesn’t erase the fact that you’re doing chores but your effort feels meaningful and worthwhile.

Having items you truly love can also give you something to focus on while doing unpleasant tasks. For example, Lindsey keeps plants near the sink so that she sees them while she’s washing dishes. Instead of having a blank wall to look at, she surrounds the spaces where work occurs with thethings that bring her joy.

8. Realize that OK is good enough

And lastly, several joyspotters say that sometimes it’s important to lower your standards. “OK is good enough,” writes Hinda, saying that this has become a bit of a mantra for her as someone with a perfectionist streak.

To those of us type-A folks, the idea of lowering standards can sometimes feel like we’re letting ourselves down. But instead, think about it as a form of prioritization.

You can have perfectly clean floors all the time, but is that something that’s going to matter to you when you’re 80? If so, by all means, scrub away.

But for most of us, sacrificing a bit of perfection in our chores can be a conduit to spending more time lingering over a delicious meal, enjoying a sunset or working on a rewarding project.

At the end of the day, chores keep us — and our homes — safe, clean and healthy so that we’re able to do the things that bring us joy. So if having more time for joy means sometimes doing the bare minimum, that seems a worthwhile trade-off to me.

This post was first published on The Aesthetics of Joy site — and go to the original post there to read 6 more tips.

Watch her TED Talk here: 

About the author

Ingrid Fetell Lee is the founder of the blog The Aesthetics of Joy and was formerly design director at the global innovation firm IDEO.

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• Ingrid Fetell Lee

 

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Pete Ryan

 

A choice to be happy

Happiness 

 

 

Photo by Larm Rmah on Unsplash

 

Sergey Faldin

Jan 9

We often complain for the wrong reasons.

We assume there’s something terribly wrong with us. We worry that we don’t have it all figured out when other (more smart) people, get to enjoy life.

We’re just bored.

In times like these, remind yourself of three key truths:

1. Be grateful. (Yes, again.) If you have enough money to buy food and pay the rent, if you have a device that allows you to read these words, you’ve got it good. Real good.

2. Take care of your physical being. Perhaps most of your problems boil down to a lack of sleep, proper food, and fresh air. As Tim Ferriss once joked, “If you think you have an existential crisis, try taking a shower and a nap.”

3. Don’t plan too much. In a world, we don’t understand (COVID and all), keep your zoom to the minimum. 2020 has taught me that planning is irrelevant on a planet that can change in a blink. I now know what I am going to do this week. I have a vague understanding of what I am doing this month. But that’s it.

At the end of the day, happiness – like confidence, love, worry, or guilt – is just a choice.

So make a choice to be happy, regardless of what’s happening.

You owe it – at least, to yourself.

How to Be Grateful

Gratitude 

 

 

Cultivating gratitude can improve your life, rewire your brain, and influence those around you. Here’s how to get started.

Pocket Collections

• Amy Maoz

You might be one “thank you” away from a much better mood. Science (and celebrities—just ask Oprah.) have proven time and again that gratitude may be the closest thing we have to a silver bullet to a better life. Read on to explore how gratitude works, how to make giving thanks a way of life, and why the return on investment is so enormous.

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How Gratitude Works

How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain

Joshua Brown, Joel Wong Greater Good Magazine

Research is starting to explore how gratitude works to improve our mental health.

Save

Choose to Be Grateful. It Will Make You Happier.

Arthur C. Brooks The New York Times

In a nutshell, acting grateful can actually make you grateful.

Save

Two Words That Can Change Your Life [WATCH]

Tanmeet Sethi TEDxRainier

In this thought provoking talk, Tanmeet Sethi shares how the overlooked value of gratitude can have surprising health and medical benefits.

Save

How Cultural Differences Shape Your Gratitude

Kira M. Newman Greater Good

Americans say thanks a lot, but other cultures may have a deeper understanding of gratitude.

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Two Sides of Gratitude

The New York Times

Readers respond to Barbara Ehrenreich’s essay about “gratitude’s rise to self-help celebrity status.”

Save

How To Get Started

How To Make Gratitude a Way of Life

Richard Gunderman Fast Company

Gratitude can be difficult to practice, but you can gain a lot from making it an everyday part of your life.

Save

How to Be Thankful For Your Life by Changing Just One Word

James Clear

This simple switch flips your perspective for the better.

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The Best Wellness, Gratitude, and Happiness Journals, According to Therapists and Journalers

Chloe Anello The Strategist

There’s really no wrong way to journal, according to our experts, but “sometimes a blank page can be really intimidating,

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How to Raise Grateful Kids in an Era of Thankless People

Thomas Lickona Time

If you’ve been trying to make kindness part of your family culture and there’s still a lot of complaining, it’s time to take further steps to teach and practice gratitude.

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Use Gratitude to Counter Stress and Uncertainty

Christopher Littlefield HBR

“Gratitude is an emotion that grounds us and is a great way to balance out the negative mindset that uncertainty engenders.”

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4 Small Ways to Practice Gratitude Every Day

Carolyn L. Todd Self

Now seems like as good a time as any, right?

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Gratitude in the Wild

Column of Light

Larissa Pham Gay Mag

Thoughts on gratitude.

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A.J. Jacobs Thanked One Thousand People For His Morning Coffee—He Likes It That Much

Mary Kaye Schilling Newsweek

the “Great Coffee Gratitude Trail,” a project that has become his sixth book, Thanks a Thousand,

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How Writing 365 Thank-You Notes Helped Me Reconnect with What’s Important in My Life

Gina Hamadey Reader’s Digest

Instead of scrolling through my phone on my commute, I decided to thank people.

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I Skeptically Tried Practicing Gratitude. It Completely Changed My Life.

Leslie Turnbull The Week

What if “happiness” could be actively learned?

Giving Thanks Does Your Body Good

Thanksgiving

A great reminder to feel grateful!


By Dr Joseph Mercola

Story at-a-glance

• Gratitude involves affirming the good in your life and recognizing its sources. It is the understanding that life owes you nothing, and that the good things in your life are gifts that cannot be taken for granted
• Gratitude is uniquely important to psychological well-being. In teenagers, gratitude has been found to correlate with positive emotions, life satisfaction, social support and prosocial behavior
• Gratitude lowers stress, improves depression and improves emotional resiliency; researchers have suggested gratitude practice can be used as a psychotherapeutic intervention
• One particularly potent strategy is to write a letter of gratitude to someone whom you’ve not properly thanked for their kindness, and to hand deliver the letter to them. This has been shown to result in an immediate and significant increase in happiness that can last for up to a month
• A dozen different strategies are reviewed, all of which can help you build and strengthen your sense of gratitude

Focusing on gratitude has become a growing trend in recent years,¹ and for good reason. There’s a lot of stress, illness and unhappiness in the world, and gratitude is an effective remedy for all of these — and it’s free. For example, research shows that gratitude:^2,3,4,5

Alters your brain in a number of beneficial ways — Examples include triggering release of mood-regulating neurotransmitters6 such as dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine and oxytocin; inhibiting the stress hormone cortisol; and stimulating your hypothalamus (a brain area involved in the regulation of stress) and your ventral tegmental area (part of your brain’s reward circuitry that produces pleasurable feelings)7

Increases happiness and life satisfaction8,9

Lowers stress and emotional distress

Improves emotional resiliency10

Reduces symptoms of depression11,12

Reduces pain

Lowers inflammation by inhibiting inflammatory cytokines

Lowers blood sugar

Improves immune function13

Lowers blood pressure

Improves heart health,14 reducing the likelihood of sudden death in patients with congestive heart failure and coronary artery disease

Lowers risk for heart disease15,16

Improves general health by encouraging self-care17,18

Improves sleep19

Improves interpersonal relationships20

Boosts productivity21

Reduces materialism22 and increases generosity,23 both of which can increase happiness and life satisfaction

Gratitude Defined

As explained by Harvard Medical School:²⁴

“Gratitude is a thankful appreciation for what an individual receives, whether tangible or intangible. With gratitude, people acknowledge the goodness in their lives.

In the process, people usually recognize that the source of that goodness lies at least partially outside themselves. As a result, gratitude also helps people connect to something larger than themselves as individuals — whether to other people, nature, or a higher power.”

According to one study,²⁵ gratitude is “uniquely important to psychological well-being.” In teenagers, gratitude has been found to correlate with “positive affect, global and domain specific life satisfaction, optimism, social support and prosocial behavior.”²⁶ It’s even been suggested that gratitude practice and cultivation can be used as a psychotherapeutic intervention with positive effect.²⁷

Finding What Works

As psychologist Laurie Santos, who teaches the science of happiness at Yale, told NPR,²⁸ "It's one of the practices that really wins out from the field of positive psychology, because it takes very little time, and the benefits are so powerful."
As noted by Harvard,²⁹ there are many ways to feel and express gratitude, and all are equally valid. You can think back to positive memories, for example, applying gratitude for past blessings.
Feeling and expressing gratitude in the present helps remind you to not take good fortune for granted. Applied to the future, it becomes an expression of hope and optimism that everything will work out for the best, even if you cannot see the road ahead.
For best results, the key is to find a method that feels meaningful to you. For some, writing a gratitude list first thing in the morning might do the trick. For others, quietly contemplating what you’re grateful for — past, present or future — at the end of each day works better.
One particularly potent strategy is to write a letter of gratitude to someone whom you’ve not properly thanked for their kindness, and to hand deliver the letter to them. In one study,^30,31 doing this resulted in an immediate and significant increase in happiness score that lasted for an entire month.

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When Gratitude Is a Struggle

Depending on circumstances, gratitude can sometimes be a struggle. Researchers say the best way to overcome this hurdle (which can trigger even more pessimism or guilt) is to find one tiny little thing to be grateful for, and to focus on that one thing.
Maybe you’ve lost your job and your car was repossessed but — thankfully — there’s a bus stop within easy walking distance. Over time, you’ll find it becomes easier to identify additional things to be thankful for.³²
Another way to flex your gratitude muscle when life events leave you uninspired is to identify and express gratitude for seemingly “useless” or insignificant things. It could be a certain smell in the air, the color of a flower, your child’s freckles or the curvature of a stone. Over time, you’ll find that doing this will help home your ability to identify “good” things in your life.

Materialism and Entitlement — Two Common Blocks to Gratitude

According to Robert Emmons, one of the leading scientific experts on gratitude,³³ materialism and entitlement are two common stumbling blocks to gratitude, so if you cannot find anything to be thankful for, consider whether you might have fallen into one of these traps. As explained in a newsletter by Greater Good Science Center:³⁴

“Seen through the lens of buying and selling, relationships as well as things are viewed as disposable, and gratitude cannot survive this … Research has proven that gratitude is essential for happiness, but modern times have regressed gratitude into a mere feeling instead of retaining its historic value, a virtue that leads to action …

[G]ratitude is an action of returning a favor and is not just a sentiment. By the same token, ingratitude is the failure to both acknowledge receiving a favor and refusing to return or repay the favor … If we fail to choose [gratitude], by default we choose ingratitude …

Provision, whether supernatural or natural, becomes so commonplace that it is easily accepted for granted. We believe the universe owes us a living. We do not want to be beholden. Losing sight of protection, favors, benefits and blessings renders a person spiritually and morally bankrupt …

People who are ungrateful tend to be characterized by an excessive sense of self-importance, arrogance, vanity and an unquenchable need for admiration and approval.

Narcissists reject the ties that bind people into relationships of reciprocity. They expect special favors and feel no need to pay back or pay forward … Without empathy, they cannot appreciate an altruistic gift because they cannot identify with the mental state of the gift-giver.”

If entitlement is the hallmark of narcissism, then humility is the antidote and the answer when you struggle with gratitude. As noted by Emmons, “The humble person says that life is a gift to be grateful for, not a right to be claimed. Humility ushers in a grateful response to life.”³⁵
So, gratitude isn’t a response to receiving “your due,” but rather the recognition that life owes you nothing, yet provided you with everything you have anyway — a place to live, family, friends, work, your eyesight, your breath, indeed your very life. When you start seeing everything as a gift, opposed to things you’ve deserved (for better or worse), your sense of gratitude will begin to swell.

How to Build and Strengthen Gratitude

While keeping a daily gratitude journal is highly recommended, there are many other ways to practice gratitude. I’ve compiled suggestions from various experts below. The key is to stay consistent. Find a way to incorporate your chosen method into each week, and stick with it.

Write thank-you notes36 — When thanking someone, be specific and acknowledge the effort and/or cost involved.

Say grace at each meal — Adopting the ritual of saying grace at each meal is a great way to flex your gratitude muscle on a daily basis,37 and will also foster a deeper connection to your food. While this can be a perfect opportunity to honor a spiritual connection with the divine, you don’t have to turn it into a religious speech if you don’t want to. You could simply say, “I am grateful for this food, and appreciate all the time and hard work that went into its production, transportation and preparation.”

Change your perception — Disappointment can be a major source of stress, which is known to have far-reaching effects on your health and longevity. In fact, centenarians overwhelmingly cite stress as the most important thing to avoid if you want to live a long and healthy life. Since stress is virtually unavoidable, the key is to develop and strengthen your ability to manage your stress so that it doesn’t wear you down over time. Rather than dwelling on negative events, most centenarians figured out how to let things go, and you can do that too. It takes practice, though. It’s a skill that must be honed daily, or however often you’re triggered. A foundational principle to let go of negativity is the realization that the way you feel has little to do with the event itself, and everything to do with your perception of it. Wisdom of the ancients dictate that events are neither good nor bad in and of themselves. It is your belief about the event that upsets you, not the fact that it happened. As noted by Ryan Holiday, author of “The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance and the Art of Living,”38 “The Stoics are saying, ‘This happened to me,’ is not the same as, ‘This happened to me and that’s bad.’ They’re saying if you stop at the first part, you will be much more resilient and much more able to make some good out of anything that happens.” And, once you can see the good, you’re more apt to feel gratitude.

Be mindful of your nonverbal actions — Smiling and hugging are both ways of expressing gratitude, encouragement, excitement, empathy and support. These physical actions also help strengthen your inner experience of positive emotions of all kinds.

Give praise — Research39 shows using “other-praising” phrases are far more effective than “self-beneficial” phrases. For example, praising a partner saying, “thank you for going out of your way to do this,” is more powerful than a compliment framed in terms of how you benefited, such as “it makes me happy when you do that.” The former resulted in the partner feeling happier and more loving toward the person giving the praise. Also, be mindful of your delivery — say it like you mean it. Establishing eye contact is another tactic that helps you show your sincerity.

Prayer and/or mindfulness meditation — Expressing thanks during prayer or meditation is another way to cultivate gratitude. Practicing "mindfulness" means that you're actively paying attention to the moment you're in right now. A mantra is sometimes used to help maintain focus, but you can also focus on something that you're grateful for, such as a pleasant smell, a cool breeze or a lovely memory.

Create a nightly gratitude ritual — One suggestion is to create a gratitude jar,40 into which the entire family can add notes of gratitude on a daily basis. Any jar or container will do. Simply write a quick note on a small slip of paper and put it into the jar. Some make an annual (or biannual or even monthly) event out of going through the whole jar, reading each slip out loud.

Spend money on activities instead of things — According to research,41 spending money on experiences not only generates more gratitude than material consumption, it also motivates greater generosity. As noted by co-author Amit Kumar, postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Chicago, “People feel fortunate, and because it’s a diffuse, untargeted type of gratitude, they’re motivated to give back to people in general.”42

Embrace the idea of having “enough” — According to many who have embraced a more minimalist lifestyle, the key to happiness is learning to appreciate and be grateful for having “enough.” Financial hardship and work stress are two significant contributors to depression and anxiety. The answer is to buy less and appreciate more. Instead of trying to keep up with the Joneses, practice being grateful for the things you already have, and release yourself from the iron grip of advertising, which tells you there’s lack in your life. Many who have adopted the minimalist lifestyle claim they’ve been able to reduce the amount of time they have to work to pay their bills, freeing up time for volunteer work, creative pursuits and taking care of their personal health, thereby dramatically raising their happiness and life satisfaction. The key here is deciding what “enough” is. Consumption itself is not the problem; unchecked and unnecessary shopping is. Many times, accumulation of material goods is a symptom that you may be trying to fill a void in your life, yet that void can never be filled by material things. More often than not, the void is silently asking for more love, personal connection, or experiences that bring purpose and passionate engagement. So, make an effort to identify your real, authentic emotional and spiritual needs, and then focus on fulfilling them in ways that does not involve shopping.

Tapping — The Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is a helpful tool for a number of emotional challenges, including lack of gratitude. EFT is a form of psychological acupressure based on the energy meridians used in acupuncture that can quickly restore inner balance and healing, and helps rid your mind of negative thoughts and emotions. In the video below, EFT practitioner Julie Schiffman demonstrates how to tap for gratitude.