How to Practice Gratitude - The Ultimate Guide

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Whenever life gets me down, I turn to two things: mindfulness, or gratitude. If things are bad enough that I can’t settle into my mindfulness (and kindfulness) practice, then gratitude works really well for me. It’s easy to do, and it reliably shifts something.

Gratitude practice is simply taking the time, as often as you can, to think, write, talk or draw about what’s going well in your life. It’s saying thank you rather than taking things for granted. And it’s more powerful than you’d probably guess. Here’s why.

Benefits of gratitude practice

Why does spending a few minutes thinking about what you’re grateful for lift your wellbeing? A few reasons:

  • You focus on what’s going well. When you take time to think about what you’re grateful for, you’re pointing attention at the positive. You know about seeing the glass as half full rather than half empty. But have you ever considered that it’s the same glass? The reality is identical. You’re just seeing it in a more helpful way.
  • You put things into perspective. When life gets difficult, it’s easy to pay attention only to the negatives. Considering what’s going your way brings things back into balance. Life is probably not as bad as you think, and there are people out there suffering far more. Spare a thought for them too.
  • You start to notice more positive things. Gratitude tends to snowball. Yesterday I thought about how lucky I am to have work I love. Then I remembered the specific people I’ve met through that work who make me smile. Then the speakers I’ve had the honour of listening to, including the Dalai Lama. One thought pulled a whole chain of others along behind it.
  • You become more mindful. Mindfulness is about noticing what’s happening around you. Reflecting on what’s going well makes you more aware and awake, which is mindfulness. It’s stepping out of your usual ideas and looking around at how fortunate you actually are.
  • You spend less time with circling thoughts. I see a lot of clients who struggle with anxiety, and anxiety involves a great deal of worry. Worry lives in the future, in what could go wrong. Gratitude lives in the present, in what’s already gone right. Time spent in one is time not spent in the other.

How to practise gratitude

There are probably infinite ways to practise gratitude. Here are the most common:

  • Write statements down. This is the one I use most. Spend a few minutes in the morning, the evening, or any time at all, reflecting on what you’re grateful for. Start with three things, and add more as it gets easier.
  • Thank someone. Simple. Text, call, or actually say thank you to a person. Expressing gratitude is more powerful than merely thinking it.
  • Say a prayer or reflection. Some of you pray already. Let your prayers be filled with gratitude rather than focused on asking God for a new Ferrari. Be grateful for your Mini and take things from there.
  • Keep it somewhere you’ll see it. A note in your phone, a shared list with a friend, a jar of scribbled paper on the shelf. The format matters far less than whether you’ll actually open it again.
  • Try a gratitude body scan. If you’re into mindfulness, and I suspect you are, you’ll know the body scan meditation. Adapt it: go through each part of the body and say why you’re grateful for it. I’m sure you’ll have fun doing this with some of your body parts. :)

Here’s a guided gratitude meditation of mine you can do right now, nothing to sign up for:

Examples of gratitude statements

Sometimes it’s hard to think what you’re grateful for. If you’re struggling, here’s a helping hand:

  • Food. There are billions of people who don’t have enough to eat every day. Do you?
  • Shelter. If you have a home to go back to and sleep in, out of the elements, count yourself lucky.
  • Clothing. Most people reading this have at least one set of clothes. That’s something.
  • Family. Do you have family members? Any of whom you like? If so, this is a big one.
  • Friends. If you have even one friend, that’s worth celebrating. Without friendship, life is tricky. So if you have one out there somewhere, meet or call them if you can, and say thank you.
  • Work. Do you have work that pays you? If so, that’s wonderful. Even if you don’t much like it, there’s money coming in.
  • Health. I hope you have some, if not all of it. Health is precious and so easy to take for granted when everything is going lovely jubbly.
  • You’re alive on planet earth. I’m fairly confident you’re alive and on earth. That’s a miracle in itself, don’t you think? What a beautiful planet, with beaches, forests, mountains and lakes. Millions of animals, countless plants, birds and trees.
  • Access to the internet. If you’re online, you’re connected to billions of other people. Amazing, isn’t it?

What the research says about gratitude

One of the best sources on this is Dr Robert Emmons at UC Davis, who has spent a career on it. Across his and others’ work:

  • In Emmons’ journalling studies, people writing weekly about what they were grateful for reported feeling better about their lives and more optimistic about the week ahead than those listing hassles.
  • Gratitude journalling is linked to better progress on personal goals.
  • Daily self-reflective gratitude exercises were associated with greater alertness, enthusiasm, determination and energy.
  • People practising daily gratitude were more likely to report having helped someone else, either practically or with emotional support.
  • In patients recovering from a serious cardiac event, higher gratitude was associated with more physical activity six months on (Huffman et al., Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, 2016). Association, not proof of cause, but a striking place to find it.
  • A small pilot trial found a gratitude exercise before bed improved sleep quality (Digdon & Koble, 2011), and there’s a readable summary of why gratitude may help you sleep.
  • Even children practising gratitude showed a more positive attitude towards school and family life.

One honest caveat, because I’d rather you hear it from me: gratitude research is a mixed field. Effects are usually modest, plenty of studies are small, and some of the more spectacular claims you’ll read online don’t survive a careful look. What’s fair to say is that gratitude practice is cheap, quick, pleasant, and more likely to help than not. That’s a good enough deal for me.

Here’s a lovely short experiment on gratitude that makes the point better than any statistic:

Four gratitude videos worth your time

1. Louie Schwartzberg’s gratitude film. This is simply breathtaking, with narration from Brother David Steindl-Rast. If you watch one thing on this page, make it this one.

2. A Good Day. Similarly beautiful, and it sits right at the meeting point of mindfulness and gratitude. Five minutes very well spent.

3. A properly joyful gratitude song. Grateful, by Nimo Patel and Daniel Nahmod. Try not to smile.

4. The Gratitude Dance. Two men dancing badly around the world, on purpose. It’s ridiculous and it works.

Five gratitude articles worth reading

There’s more than a bunch of articles on gratitude out there. Here’s the cream of the crop:

Where to go next

If you’d like to go deeper, I’ve written a 10-minute guided gratitude meditation, and a ripple of gratitude practice that extends it outwards to other people.

And if gratitude works better for you when somebody else is doing it alongside you, come and sit with us. I guide a live meditation every weekday morning at 7.30am UK time in the Daily Mindfulness Club, and your first 7 days are free.

Got a gratitude practice of your own, or a resource I should add here? Let me know, I do read them all. :)