Three gratitudes: notice the good and give thanks
Research shows that expressing gratitude for three specific things every day for just a week shifts the way your brain perceives the world. Normally your brain scans the world for potential dangers that can compromise your well-being. That’s why it is said that your brain has “negativity bias”. But if you get in a habit of noticing just three good things that happened that day and expressing gratitude for them, your brain develops a pattern of scanning the world for the positive instead. This dramatically changes how you perceive your circumstances, and how you act on them. So this week let’s notice the positive and give thanks.
HOW-TO: Pick a time when you have few minutes of free time consistently (like your morning coffee, for example) and write down three specific good things that happened that day or the day before, and express gratitude for them. Make those things different every day, and they don’t need to be big. You can make it a solitary activity, or you can involve other members of your family by asking them to share their three gratitudes at dinner time, for example. Do it for a week and notice how you feel by Sunday.
When will you do your three gratitudes? Will you do it by yourself or with somebody else? Do you find it challenging or easy?
Obviously Olga, you appear on my gratitude list. Thank you for all of your inspirations. I truly enjoy your practice app and have recommended it to others.
Thank you, that’s so lovely to hear! And thank you for spreading the word about the app! I think we all benefit when more people practice yoga 🙂
One of my goals was to have a gratitude practice, for a year! I did it and now it is second nature to my morning and evening ritual. I sent an email everyday for a year to my husband highlighting all the positive things i noticed. I learnt recently that practicing gratitude is best done with also really FEELING that emotion attached to whatever you are grateful for, and this in turn changes our physiology/ mood. If you can’t think of 3, then just think of 1 thing first thing in the morning, feel it and write it down in… Read more »
Wow, that is wonderful to hear! And thank you for your suggestions Jatinder – they are so useful!
This 3 Gratitudes practice is lovely. I’ve been feeling some negativity lately and can be resistant to shifting it once it gets hold. Despite the fact that I knew I would feel better if i practiced the 3 Gratitudes, I still put it off for a few days. But when I allowed myself to do it, I felt better almost immediately. For me, the secret is to “just do it” even when I would prefer at the moment to stay with my grievances. This works!
This is such a great observation Cathy! I think many of us at one point or another would prefer to “stay with our grievances.” My hope is that the more we do our three gratitudes, the easier it gets 🙂
Since the kids were small, every night before going to bed I’ve been asking them what their positive is for the day. I also give my positive for them and for myself. At the very beginning I used to ask them three things, but it became too much and was taking too long, so after a while we just stick to one. Does it necessarily have to be three to be effective or is this number just one of those things that people decide without any scientific reason? Also I don’t necessarily need to express gratitude as such as I… Read more »
I do not know the scientific basis for making it three things, but to me it sounds like you have a wonderful and meaningful thing going already. And I assume that once we train our brains to scan for the positive in our lives, it becomes a default mode, and gratitude becomes, “embedded” in our views of the world. I think that generally focusing on gratitude has the aspects of both acknowledging AND appreciating the positive in our lives. Thank you for sharing!