Practicing Gratitude: How To Manage Stress Through The Holidays (And Through The Rest Of The Year)
As we approach the holiday season, we get busy with family, friends, shopping, parties, and everything else that goes along with Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and any other holidays that fall in there. It’s easy to get wrapped up in it, focusing only on what you have to do. The holiday season, as fun as it is, can also be incredibly stressful.
Learning to manage that stress is essential to getting through the holidays (and the rest of life as well).
Practicing gratitude is an easy way to help manage stress, while also helping you focus more on the things that matter and less on the things that don’t.
What Is Gratitude?
Gratitude, in general, is the act of recognizing or reflecting on the good in your life. Some examples include:
An event, like a fun outing with friends or family, a good thing that happened at work, etc.
Someone in your life, like a spouse, a child, a friend, a coworker, etc.
Something in your life, like your car, your new shoes, your favorite hoodie, your bed, etc.
Something small, like that cool leaf you saw on your walk today
What Are the Benefits of Practicing Gratitude?
When our lives are filled with so much negativity (think news, politics, many online interactions, etc.), it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the negatives and only focus on those things. This can increase stress, which has many negative effects on our health and well-being.
Practicing gratitude is periodically taking time out of your busy schedule to recognize the best parts of your life. It sounds easy. It sounds cheesy. But research suggests that even though it is relatively easy, it can change your outlook on life, help you manage stress, and even improve your physical health.
Some specific benefits include:
Improved Mental Health - Practicing gratitude regularly increases happiness and life satisfaction, while decreasing overall stress and symptoms of depression.
Better Relationships - Gratitude can help you build stronger relationships by increasing your sociability. Saying “thank you” for things and generally being positive can also improve relationships and open the door for new ones to grow.
Improved Self-Esteem - By making us focus on everything that we have, instead of what we don’t, gratitude helps us feel better about ourselves and our situations, increasing our self-esteem while making us less jealous and resentful.
Increased Resilience - Mental resilience is described as our ability to cope with stressful and significant life events. Research done post-9/11 found that patients who practiced gratitude or focused on the good things in their life exhibited less dysfunction and experienced fewer PTSD symptoms and other issues from the event.
Improved Sleep - By decreasing stress and calming you down, practicing gratitude can improve the quality of your sleep. Sleep is critically important for mental health, cognitive function, and maintaining a normal weight.
Improved Cardiovascular Health - Stress can be tough on your heart. Practicing gratitude can have a positive impact on your heart health, either by helping to prevent heart disease if you don’t yet have it, or by making you more functional if you do already have heart disease.
Increased Immune Function - Stress decreases how well your immune system functions, so it’s easier to get sick. Decreasing stress and practicing gratitude can increase immune function, keeping you healthier.
Decreased Pain - Some research has found that people who practice gratitude experience fewer daily aches and pains, while also decreasing various inflammatory markers.
How Can I Practice Gratitude?
There are many ways to practice gratitude. Which one to choose simply depends on what you will enjoy and continue to do (because if you only do it for a few days and then quit, you probably won’t see many benefits).
Here are some options:
Gratitude Journaling - This is one of the most popular forms of practicing gratitude. All it takes is a pen and a notebook or some sheets of paper. What you put on the paper is up to you! Some ideas to get you started might be a daily list of 3-5 things you appreciate that day, a short paragraph about something or someone good in your life, or a note about something that made you smile today.
Gratitude Jars - This is similar to journaling, but instead you just jot down something you’re grateful for on a scrap of paper, then drop it into a jar, vase, or another container (even Tupperware could work). How often you do this is up to you. You can put something in every day, many times a day, a few times a week, or whenever something comes to mind. Then, periodically or when you need a pick-me-up, you can go back and look at the good parts of your life. Some people will fill up a container over the course of the year, then look back to see everything that’s happened in that year.
Gratitude Mapping - This is for those of you who are visual and/or artistic people. Gratitude mapping involves making a posterboard, collage, or mind map of all the things you’re grateful for. You can connect them, randomly slap them on, organize them, color code them, whatever you want. This map option can be a bit more of a process than the others, but if it’s how you’ll practice consistently, that’s great! You can update this daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. Just keep it somewhere where you’ll look at it and remember to reflect on the good things.
Gratitude Meditation - Meditation comes in many forms, and very few of them involve sitting cross-legged on the ground chanting like we often picture. Gratitude meditation is a form of meditation focusing on taking a few minutes to pause, breathe, and remember the things you’re lucky to have. This may be easier to do than the others since it can be done anywhere and at any time. A guided meditation (like this or one of the other million you could find by searching “gratitude meditation” on YouTube) can be easy, since someone is talking you through what you should be doing/thinking about in that moment. But, you can also just set aside a few minutes for yourself to sit in silence and breathe.
Prayer & Spiritual Practice - This is very similar to a gratitude meditation, but with a more spiritual or religious spin on it. If this is how you can practice gratitude, then great! This will also help with your spiritual well-being, which is an important aspect of your overall health.
Say Thank You - Periodically, whether that’s daily, weekly, or monthly, carve out some time to specifically thank someone for something they’ve done or for just being themselves! This can be with a thank you card you drop in the mail, a phone call, a text, or even in person! Additionally in this vein, remember to say thank you to the employees who help you at stores, restaurants, etc., as well as to the strangers who hold doors and do other nice things for you in public.
Volunteering - One way to express gratitude is by giving back, especially if you have spare time in your week or month. Find a local charity or cause near you, and carve out some time to spend helping them out! Some places to look could include food shelves, churches, youth and high school sports clubs/boosters, and hospice or senior care facilities.
Some general tips for practicing gratitude include:
Be specific - Being specific really makes you think and consider what you’re grateful for. Anyone can write a quick list that says “family, friends, job” everyday, and that’s probably better than nothing. But if you take a little more time, you can get more benefits and maybe some deeper thoughts as well. Consider, “What specifically am I grateful for in my family today? What exactly about my friends is making me feel grateful? What makes me happy about my job today?".
Focus on people - Research has suggested that focusing on people creates more benefits than focusing on things. That said, sometimes you’re really grateful for an object or a thing in your life, and there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that!
Don’t overdo it - There’s a point where you can practice gratitude too much. Not that this will have a significant negative effect, but you can burn yourself out if you’re doing it too often. 3-5 times a week appears to be enough to create the benefits we’re looking for, but that number varies from person to person. Experiment and see what makes you feel the best!
Closing Thoughts
The holidays are fun, but they’re also stressful. It’s important to take the time you need to keep yourself happy and healthy.
Gratitude - however you choose to practice it - can be easy to incorporate into your day, while also providing significant health benefits.
If your stress is creating physical symptoms or undue emotional distress, it’s time to get it figured out. If you have physical pain or other symptoms causing you stress, it’s time to address those as well.
You can reach out to us by phone or text, or schedule an appointment online, and we can discuss your best next steps. That might be entering into care with us, or it might be referring you to someone who is specialized in dealing with stress. Whatever your goals are, we’re here to support you and help you get there.
Wishing you a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season,
Dr. Nicholas Carlson
Northbound Chiropractic
Serving Delano, MN, Maple Plain, and the rest of Wright and West Hennepin Counties
*These recommendations do not replace advice given by your healthcare provider. Always consult your healthcare provider for personalized medical advice. Recommendations and Information provided are designed for informational purposes only, they are not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease.