Summary
World Gratitude Day is celebrated every year on September 21st and is a great opportunity to take a moment to spread it in your workplace.
World Gratitude Day, established by the UN in the seventies and celebrated each year on September 21st, is around to remind us how being mindful, showing compassion to oneself and others, and practicing gratitude daily does wonders for not only your mental health, but that of your family, friends, and coworkers too.
Healthy Gratitude
Studies have shown that practicing more gratitude is associated with positive mental and physical benefits, such as greater happiness, more positive emotions, fewer aches and pains, better sleep, and improved self-esteem. The person receiving gratitude also gains similar benefits. Focusing on what we are grateful for, it would seem, is a universal path to happiness and fulfillment, which is what makes World Gratitude Day a golden opportunity in troubling times.
5 Tips for Daily Practice
Although gratitude can be a portal to better mental health, it can be difficult for people to show and practice gratitude more regularly for a slew of complex psychological reasons. But that doesn’t mean we cannot make it a more regular habit. Here are 5 tips you can use in the workplace to show appreciation on World Gratitude Day and beyond:
- Gratitude Lists – Most people never take the time to define exactly what they are grateful for. At the end of the day or in your downtime, make a quick list of ten things you are grateful for. Jotting down these gratitude lists helps you slow down, identify, and appreciate what you feel thankful for, in addition to training the mind to focus on positive thoughts.
- Meditation – There is no shortage of guided meditation apps and books, many of them with special modules and scripts specifically tailored to strengthening a sense of gratitude and appreciation. Meditation is a beautiful practice because there is no wrong way to do it; even taking five minutes out of each day to focus on mindfulness can do wonders for keeping a resilient mental constitution.
- Consistent Practice—However you show gratitude, make it a consistent practice every day until it becomes automatic. According to science, it takes about two months of consistent behavior until something becomes a muscle-memorized habit. It may feel gritty and even a bit strange at first, but pushing through those first two months of awkwardness opens a portal to more consistent personal fulfillment.
- Volunteering—Actively practicing gratitude in a service context is arguably the most impactful way to go about it. Not only does it offer a humbling experience that can give our lives fresh perspectives, but it also provides essential services and aids the most vulnerable.
- Appreciate Everything – It can be challenging to appreciate anything when the world gets you down, and nothing goes right. On days like those, it’s most important to find reasons to be grateful and remain open to appreciating everything, no matter how small it may seem. Even on our worst days, there is gratitude to be found, if only by appreciating the fact that all bad days must come to an end.
No Downside
Expressing gratitude has no downside, and sharing it with others costs nothing. World Gratitude Day is a great opportunity to be mindful and spread gratitude in your workplace, home, or wherever you may find yourself.
