What Do Gratitude and Mental Health Have in Common?

Most everyone I know is guilty of this. We focus on problems, and therefore get stuck in a loop of looking for solutions. It’s human nature.

We also all go through trials and tribulations. During one turbulent period a few years ago, I was completely and totally emotionally exhausted. Each day I would wake up with anxiety over the impending pressure of what I needed to accomplish that day just to pay the bills and keep things going. And, I hated it. It wasn’t just stress and anxiety; I resented the way things were in my life.

I would wake up in the morning with a pain in my stomach and a weight in my heart full of dread and anxiety. I would stay in my bed as long as I could while trying to convince myself to get up and get going. I didn’t want to deal with all of the chaos that was inevitably coming on all levels from work to family to health, etc.

The thing was that I was already anticipating having to put out fires all day long. I wore the pressure of that on my shoulders and throughout my body. Plus, I felt lost. Who was I in this lifestyle-tornado that I had not only created, but was fully participating in? In short, my life didn’t feel like it belonged to me because I was constantly focused on just trying to get through something.

In short, my life didn’t feel like it belonged to me because I was constantly focused on just trying to get through something.

So, what did I do? As cheesy as this is going to sound, I started a practice of affirmations and gratitude. During my normal routine, I would say my prayers as soon as my alarm went off. Knowing that the law of attraction tells us that what we think is what we become, I decided to implement a new practice.

For starters, I would count everything I was grateful for from the sheets on my bed to the toes on my feet. I would run a mental list of every single thing that I have that I know I would miss if I didn’t have it anymore. Secondly, I would repeat affirmations like “today is going to be a good day” and “what’s the best that could happen” over and over again until I felt some of the heaviness begin to lift from my body and hope began to fill my mental and emotional state. I noticed that between focusing on gratitude and setting a positive tone for the day, that it became much easier for me to get out of bed and I felt more energized.

What do gratitude and mental health have in common?

Let’s be honest; gratitude is something most people take for granted most of the day. When you’re trying to get through the daily grind, one of the last things you might think about is pausing to be grateful for what you have. However, if your mental health is off-balance, one factor might be that you’re overlooking all of the things that you have already.

I get it though. When you’re feeling anxious, lost, confused, depressed, angry, or the like, your mental energy is probably focused on fixing that emotion or perhaps feeling stuck in it. In this deep emotional space, turning on an “attitude of gratitude” can feel like the last thing you have the motivation or energy to do.

Sometimes, it’s the things you want to do the least that offer the most benefit.

In a research article entitled, “How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain,” researchers asked a group of individuals who were seeking mental health counseling (as opposed to “well-functioning people”) to practice of writing letters of gratitude. What they found was that over time, is that not only did the individuals feel better compared to the groups that didn’t write about gratitude, but that their brains actually changed.

“Most interestingly, when we compared those who wrote the gratitude letters with those who didn’t, the gratitude letter writers showed greater activation in the medial prefrontal cortex when they experienced gratitude in the fMRI scanner. This is striking as this effect was found three months after the letter writing began. This indicates that simply expressing gratitude may have lasting effects on the brain.”

“How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain” by Joshua Brown and Joel Wong

Like anything else, you have to make the decision to take the actions and reframe your mindset. So, if gratitude is something you haven’t given much thought to, maybe it’s worth giving it a shot as a part of your mental wellness routine and toolkit. 

Try these gratitude-writing exercises:

1. Make a daily list of the things that you are grateful for. Start the list in the morning and then add to it before bed. The things on the list can overlap day-to-day. It doesn’t matter what you put on there either, as long as it’s something you’re grateful for.
2. Each day, write a thank you note (or text, email, DM) to someone. It can be a different person each day, and you don’t even have to send it.
3. Use positive language. When writing your list or letters, be careful to use uplifting language because it’s been shown that whatever emotion you give your attention to grows. In other words, positivity attracts more positivity and negativity attracts more negativity. Or another way of looking at it is, why would you continue to put all of your focus on the things that make you feel bad?
4. If you’re a Bucket Heads™ member, check out this “Thank It or Release It” worksheet which will help you decide what things you can hold on to with gratitude and which things you want to release and let go of so you can relieve some of the burdens you’re feeling. (Not a Bucket Heads™ member? Click here to try it free for 7 days.)