Gratitude and happiness are strongly related. Gratitude has many benefits. It moves people to experience positive emotions, positive happenings, improved health, more satisfying relationships, all of which make for a happier and healthier individual. The ingrate is filled with bitterness, jealousy, and unhappiness – all detrimental to health and a life filled with joy. This has been proven in many psychological and medical studies. It is also quite evident to the untrained yet observant non-professional. The answer to Can Gratitude Make You Happier and Healthier is a strong Yes!
5 Ways Gratitude Affects Happiness:
1. Gratitude produces our happiness.
It is not happiness that makes us grateful. It is gratitude that makes us happy. When our hearts and minds recount blessings, we experience a sense of thankfulness. That thankfulness produces happiness – a thankful heart, a ring of joy, a lighter step for even a person with a heavy burden. On every occasion, we must remind ourselves to count our blessings. Live in the moment, in the aura of happiness produced by your grateful spirit.
The ungrateful person, the one who never sees the good things in his/her life, is often looked upon with derision from others. We are endeared toward the person who is grateful for life itself, who sees the beauty in the ordinary, who expresses the overflow of joy from basic blessings. That grateful heart produces joy in one’s heart that spreads to others as well.
2. Gratitude helps us feel more positive emotions.
The expression of gratitude causes our brain to release dopamine and serotonin, the two crucial neurotransmitters responsible for our emotions. This results in our being more optimistic, hopeful, joyful, and energetic.
Positive thinking produces positive results. Start each day with a grateful heart – begin the day by thanking God for life, health, his promises, his presence, your family, bed, food, job, whatever. You will find you are much wealthier and more blessed in every area than you may have thought. That thankfulness will manifest itself in a joyous heart and a better day. Start early in the day. Continue to identify those blessings as you go through the day. Your day will be filled with new opportunities to brighten someone else’s life and to ignite a spark of hope in yet another.
3. Gratitude is known to improve our health.
Anxiety and stress are replaced by a more relaxed and calming nature. Sleep habits are improved. Sleep quality affects our everyday lives in multiple ways. Restful and adequate sleep increase our resilience, allowing us to bounce back from adversity, illness, despondency and all losses with a vigor and a strength beyond what we may think we possess. You may want to follow these 10 resilience steps to overcoming life’s obstacles and hardships.
4. Gratitude makes for better relationships.
This includes our family as well as our work-related interactions. It is also paramount in romantic relationships. A partner who has a grateful spirit and a joyous heart, will shower the relationship with positivity and happiness.
It is impossible to be grateful and live a life of gratitude without sharing that joy and love with the people we love the most. Choose that type of person for your spouse and a happy marriage is on its way. Choose that person who just makes this world a better place. Choose that person who recognizes gifts and blessings, is grateful in spirit, and is extravagant in sharing joy and happiness.
5. Gratitude molds us into stronger people and prepares us to deal with adversity, sorrow, losses, and hardship.
There are difficult events that are inevitable in our life that bring sadness and cause us to worry. We will be called upon to remember “our history” and how we survived past sorrows and trials. That history will include counting our blessings. We are stronger and more prepared for the current downer, remembering how God sustained us in the past and how friends stuck with us.
Building a relationship with God helps us to know that in whatever situation we find ourselves, we can be thankful for his constant presence and help. Be thankful for the promise to all who believe, that promise that he will be with us always. Here lies abiding and abundant peace and joy.
Jesus said that he came that we may have abundant life through our relationship with him. May our grateful hearts be welcoming, and our lives be a conduit of that joy to others. Who is Jesus?
If you would like to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, we invite you to watch the GREAT NEWS FOR YOU Video on this page.
