Gratitude is one of the strengths and virtues that has been most heavily studied and linked to happiness. Gratitude helps you feel more positive emotions, relish positive experiences, enjoy better health, and deal with adversity — all of which play an important role in improving your body, mind and spirit.
This powerful impact on your whole health is reason enough to make gratitude part of your everyday routine. Researchers have found that no matter your current level of gratitude, it can be cultivated and increased with practice.
Get Started on Your Journey to Gratitude – A way to show your gratitude is to write a letter to a friend, family member or colleague that shares how grateful you are to have that person in your life. Not only will this fill you with happiness, but it will spread those good feelings to others and strengthen your relationships. When you're finished with your letter, send it. Make a habit of sending at least one gratitude letter a month.
Express Gratitude Through Actions - Spending time helping others and volunteering out of altruism (selflessness) has been linked to happiness. When you think about it, altruism and gratitude complement one another quite well. One researcher found that students who performed five kind acts per week for six weeks experienced an increase in happiness. Another 2010 study asked participants to perform a daily kind act for 10 days and a second group to try something new. Both groups reported significantly higher life satisfaction scores at the end of only 10 days.
In other words, kindness makes you happy, and happiness makes you kind.
Kind acts and volunteerism don't have to cost a lot of time or money. For example, call a local shelter or connect with a cause that's important to your heart. Pay for the meal of the person behind you in line or bring in your neighbor's trash cans on garbage days. Expressing your gratitude in any way results in the same impact: a big boost for your physical, emotional and spiritual health.
These tips, provided by our research partner, AdventHealth, are available to you and others in the Lake Nona community to help make positive impacts on our health.
Another way you can make a difference is by taking the Lake Nona Life Project survey. We can’t do it alone. We need partners like you. Take the survey today.