"I cannot tell you anything that, in a few minutes, will tell you how to be rich. But I can tell you how to feel rich, which is far better, let me tell you firsthand, than being rich. Be grateful…. It's the only totally reliable get-rich-quick scheme."
—Ben Stein, actor, comedian, economist
To be happy, be grateful. –It's science!!
Thanksgiving is coming, but there are benefits to having an "attitude of gratitude" all year. Learn to be grateful—it's not just a Sunday-school platitude. Science shows that inviting thankfulness into your life is one of the most effective ways to increase happiness. Being grateful, science asserts, can make you happier, healthier, and wealthier.
Fortunately, there exists the science of happiness, by now comprising hundreds of experiments run at major universities about what makes people happy—and what makes happiness stick. Among the characteristics of happy people is gratitude. In fact, there is no greater factor in making us happy, according to the authors of The Happiness Equation: 100 Factors That Can Add to or Subtract From Your Happiness.
With a total score equal to 100, they add the maximal 5 points to your happiness score if you are grateful. By contrast, beauty and money add only half a point each, and on the downside, unemployment only takes away two points. "In an Internet sample of over 5,000 adults, gratitude was one of the top five character strengths consistently and robustly associated with life satisfaction," they report.
OK, so research shows that people who actively practice gratefulness are happier. And again, because the studies actually measure happiness quantitatively, they know how much gratefulness adds to our happiness. How much happier are people who add gratitude disciplines to their lives? About 25%.
In fact, practicing gratitude is a very unusual discipline, in that it is impossible to feel gratitude and any negative emotion, such as anger, depression or despair at the same time. The journey to become a grateful person is not necessarily a natural occurrence. It doesn't have to happen accidentally or spontaneously, nor do you have to await some nebulous feeling to begin it. We can take certain actions that cause us to be more grateful, and to exhibit more gratefulness. According to William Y. Smith, CFP Following are the two best ones.
And there was another side effect of gratitude that was discovered accidentally by the researchers. Leaving aside any potential benefits from lower blood pressure, less stresses, and reduced anxiety, get this: in the studies, people who practiced gratefulness began exercising one and a half hours more per week than the control group!
—Ben Stein, actor, comedian, economist
To be happy, be grateful. –It's science!!
Thanksgiving is coming, but there are benefits to having an "attitude of gratitude" all year. Learn to be grateful—it's not just a Sunday-school platitude. Science shows that inviting thankfulness into your life is one of the most effective ways to increase happiness. Being grateful, science asserts, can make you happier, healthier, and wealthier.
Fortunately, there exists the science of happiness, by now comprising hundreds of experiments run at major universities about what makes people happy—and what makes happiness stick. Among the characteristics of happy people is gratitude. In fact, there is no greater factor in making us happy, according to the authors of The Happiness Equation: 100 Factors That Can Add to or Subtract From Your Happiness.
With a total score equal to 100, they add the maximal 5 points to your happiness score if you are grateful. By contrast, beauty and money add only half a point each, and on the downside, unemployment only takes away two points. "In an Internet sample of over 5,000 adults, gratitude was one of the top five character strengths consistently and robustly associated with life satisfaction," they report.
OK, so research shows that people who actively practice gratefulness are happier. And again, because the studies actually measure happiness quantitatively, they know how much gratefulness adds to our happiness. How much happier are people who add gratitude disciplines to their lives? About 25%.
In fact, practicing gratitude is a very unusual discipline, in that it is impossible to feel gratitude and any negative emotion, such as anger, depression or despair at the same time. The journey to become a grateful person is not necessarily a natural occurrence. It doesn't have to happen accidentally or spontaneously, nor do you have to await some nebulous feeling to begin it. We can take certain actions that cause us to be more grateful, and to exhibit more gratefulness. According to William Y. Smith, CFP Following are the two best ones.
- Write a grateful letter. Send a note to someone who has made a positive difference in your life. Maybe you feel indebted to them but have never told them so. It could be the person who hired you for your first job or the one you have now. Your parents. Your favorite client. Your car mechanic. The grateful letter produces at least three moments of feeling of gratitude: yours when you write it, the recipient's when she reads it, and yours, again, when you think about having sent it!
- Start a gratefulness journal. This is one action that has been tested over and over. Buy a small notebook and write down three to five people or circumstances for which you are grateful. Write specific, first-person full sentences, such as: I am grateful that I am healthy. I am grateful for my i-Pod. I am grateful that I have a profession with unlimited potential. I am grateful that I get to work in air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter. Then, a week from now, do the same thing. Interestingly, I have found that if you do it any more often, and it may become rote and therefore less effective.
And there was another side effect of gratitude that was discovered accidentally by the researchers. Leaving aside any potential benefits from lower blood pressure, less stresses, and reduced anxiety, get this: in the studies, people who practiced gratefulness began exercising one and a half hours more per week than the control group!