Expressing gratitude can improve your health. A couple of minutes of thinking grateful thoughts can reduce anxiety dramatically. In turn, less anxiety means lower cortisol, which means healthy hormones. Healthy hormones means a healthier weight, better sleep, and better overall mood, among other things. Not to mention that gratitude can also improve sleep, and better sleep equals better health as well. We talked more about that here.
A friend of mine was told by her therapist to try out a daily gratitude journal. This came about because she was experiencing PTSD from a pretty horrific life event and she had a lot of anxiety. So for the past year she has made a daily FaceBook post about something she is grateful for. Not only has it helped reduce her anxiety, it has inspired and enriched the lives of her friends.
A little gratitude can change far more than you think. Since we have just entered the month dedicated to gratitude I thought I’d share some fun ways to express gratitude.
The Thankful Tree
This clever little idea can be done in many ways. This year ours is made of butcher paper and it is taped to the wall, but I like these 2 better. The rule is that each member of the family puts up at least one leaf everyday during the month of November. Then on Thanksgiving we read them all and try to guess who was grateful for each thing listed.