You know that gratitude is important, but did you know you can incorporate it into your meditation practice? Meditation is an incredibly powerful practice that can improve focus, memory, and even your physical health by lowering blood pressure and stress. If you practice meditation, you probably do it the way most people do – relaxed, in a quiet place with your eyes closed, focused on a concept for a set period of time. You might also do an unfocused practice, like mindfulness meditation, where you allow your mind to stray and then gently coax it back to focus on your breathing. Truthfully there are many ways to meditate, but let’s dive into how gratitude and meditation can be powerful tools for your well-being.
Gratitude meditation is a powerful tool to align your goals with your mood, and simply feel good about your life in general. It’s very easy to autopilot through our days without thinking of all the great stuff that has to go right for us to get home safely in the evening. Whether we’re thankful for our mobility, our vocation, families, home, or any specific aspect of our lives, focusing on that gratitude can have a profound effect on our outlook.
Gratitude meditation is the process of expressing our thankfulness in a direct, intentional way. Once you start, you’ll truly see how good it can make you feel and how much it can improve your focus, determination, and success in life.
What does gratitude meditation mean?
The first thing to understand is that gratitude in this context means more than just being happy and thankful for all the great things you have. It’s easy to think “yeah, my job rocks and my car is nice, and I’m thankful for that”, but that’s not really helpful. Gratitude in this instance is about being thankful for your entire life; the good, bad, and ugly.
Why be thankful for being sick, or missing the bus? I admit it does seem silly to try and find something to be thankful for in the day-to-day stresses and setbacks we all experience, but that’s the point of this exercise. Missing the bus can be an exercise in patience, which will be better for you later on in life. Perhaps getting sick now will prevent you from being sicker later on by boosting your immune response. Maybe you’re just thankful that you’re here to get sick at all, when so many others aren’t, which is admittedly grim, but the point is to be thankful for your life and that does include all of it.
This kind of “radical gratitude” can help you by lowering your stress response to frustration and making you more appreciative of the things you already have (including people, situations, jobs, and so on). Having an attitude of gratitude (that hurt to write just as much as it does to read, I assure you) really does affect your outlook, no matter how corny it sounds.
There’s actually science to back this up:
- A gratitude mindset (which can be cultivated through gratitude meditation) can improve symptoms of depression
- Gratitude meditation has been shown to improve mental well-being and sleep and lowers stress levels by inhibiting your automatic stress response (or lowering it)
- Daily reflection on gratitude improves your mood, and for many people, starting the day in a good mood means better outcomes in personal, vocational, and creative endeavors
Okay, so gratitude is great, but how do we combine it with meditation? While you absolutely can do classic meditation and sit in a relaxed space by yourself, eyes closed, and be thankful for your life, gratitude meditation is a bit different. You can engage with this practice in a variety of ways that aren’t necessarily as time-consuming as classic mindfulness meditation.
Practicing gratitude meditation
One method for practicing gratitude meditation is to simply take time while you’re doing something else to reflect and be thankful for something in your life. If you’re making coffee, taking a shower, or printing something at work, focus your mind on something that you’re thankful for and show gratitude. This works really well as a form of mindfulness as well, because these are all activities we do quite mindlessly, and by honing in on gratitude, we pull ourselves fully into the moment.
It is important to note, however, that you should avoid doing this meditation while doing a more active chore, like driving. While there’s obviously a distraction aspect to this we want to avoid, you’re also simply not going to be able to focus in a way that’s beneficial.
Gratitude journaling
Another way to approach gratitude meditation is through journaling. Many very successful people keep a gratitude journal and write in it when they wake up and when they go to bed. This keeps this thankful mindset always within reach and it frames your day. This is a quick and simple way to meditate that is also a healthy habit to cultivate, and good habits often led to other good habits.
You can use a gratitude journal in addition to meditation which is more conventional. These two habits reinforce each other, and both work towards a more constant state of mindfulness.
Finally, practicing gratitude requires you to grow emotionally, and most people could do with more emotional development. Being able to stop and think about what you’re grateful for or learning- even in the most unfavorable situations – forces you to think differently. It might take you from despair to actually being able to move forward.
Benefits of gratitude meditation
When you feel good about your life, you tend to be in a better mood. Most people who feel grateful – even for something small – get a little boost of happiness and fulfillment that spreads to other people. So one immediate benefit of gratitude is simply how good it makes you feel, and how it can affect your everyday life.
Scientific studies indicate that meditation in general is a powerful stress reliever and reduces blood pressure. Some studies even indicate that practicing gratitude protects against major setbacks, like illness, catastrophic loss, or disaster (fire or floods, for instance). While it obviously doesn’t protect against physical damage or fallout, it can help you better cope and handle the changes that come from negative events like these.
Gratitude awareness also makes people more satisfied with their lives and promotes a greater sense of well-being in general. Better sleep, blood pressure, lower stress, and greater feelings of well-being are only a small slice of the benefits of practicing gratitude.
Developing gratitude can improve your entire life
The benefits of meditation are well-studied and fairly evident, and gratitude meditation is no different. You might not need to lock yourself in a dark room for a half hour at a time but that doesn’t mean that this form of meditation isn’t helpful. On the contrary, one of the benefits of gratitude meditation is that it doesn’t need to take a long time to be helpful.
Gratitude meditation can be practiced as traditional meditation, through focused, conscious sessions or while you are doing something else. You can reflect on the things you’re thankful for while you brew coffee, make copies, or walk to the office.
Keeping a journal is another simple method to meditate on gratitude. Pen down a few things you’re thankful for in the morning and at night, and use this in partnership with your regular meditative practice.
Gratitude meditation is a powerful, simple tool that can be used alongside traditional meditation or entirely on its own. It doesn’t take a tremendous amount of time and the benefits are astounding. You already have so much to be thankful for in your life, and when you take the time to observe it actively, it will have an incredible impact on how you feel and see the world.