In honor of Thanksgiving, Positive Psychology Daily lists these articles about practicing Gratitude 365 days a year.

Gratitude thoughts:

 

• Thanksgiving as Gratitude Day.

• On the benefits of family and holiday rituals.

• Huddling together during Thanksgiving.

• Gratitude for what you do have.

• Gratitude for the bad things that are avoided.

• Benefits of love, gratitude, and kindness may become even stronger in the limbic system during difficult times.

• “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.”  If you’re proud of someone and you know it, praise their effort.

• Gratitude and its energy and spiritual energy.

• Gratitude helps you live longer - one of the four ingredients of the aging Happy-Well.

• A 7-year-old talks about the power of “Three Good Things” every night.

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Gratitude is the feeling of thankfulness and appreciation. When was the last time you felt this way?

Do you know that having this attitude makes a person happier?

According to the the book of Sonja Lyubomirsky titled The How of Happiness, consistently grateful people

“…tend to be more helpful and empathetic, more spiritual and religious, more forgiving, and less materialistic…[and] less likely to be depressed, anxious, lonely, envious, or neurotic.”

Gratitude is also shown to boost happiness. There were eight reasons for this:

1. promotes the savoring of positive life experiences;
2. bolsters self-worth and self-esteem;
3. helps people cope with stress and trauma;
4. encourages moral behavior;
5. can help build social bonds, strengthen existing relationships and nurture new ones;
6. tends to inhibit comparisons with others;
7. incompatible with negative emotions and may diminish or deter feeling such as anger, bitterness or greed
8. helps prevent hedonistic adaptation.

source

Isn’t it nice to feel happier just by saying thanks? It’s free and makes us feel good.