Gratitude

As human beings, worry is a more prevalent feeling in our lives than gratitude, unless we practice it. Being grateful is like running a race. On the first day you run, you get tired very quickly, but over time it becomes increasingly natural.

Recent studies show that practicing gratitude can benefit your well-being, including your sleep:

• A study from the University of Manchester in England¹ had more than 400 people, 40% of whom had insomnia, fill out questionnaires about gratitude, sleep, and thoughts they had before falling asleep. It was found that gratitude helped people fall asleep faster and have more restorative sleep by promoting more positive thoughts, and fewer negative ones, at bedtime.
• Another study² that evaluated the impact on sleep of constructive thinking interventions (Thought Parking), Visualization, and Gratitude, found that writing in a gratitude journal for 15 minutes every night helped participants worry less at bedtime and, consequently, sleep longer and more deeply as a result.

A gratitude journal is a simple tool you can use to keep track of the good things in your life. No matter how difficult life may seem, there is always something to feel grateful for.

How to keep a gratitude journal?

Suggestions:

• Your journal entries can be simple, such as: "family," "the movie I watched yesterday," or even "now I have a good chance of ending my insomnia ;-)".
• You can be grateful for things that happened during your day, your week, your year (e.g., what is better in my life today than a year ago?) or you can also be grateful for things as they are (e.g., which people are you happy to have in your life?)

Express your gratitude!

If you want to go further, one way to intensify the practice of gratitude even more is to use your journal entries to then thank the people around you for whom you are grateful.

After all, as Christopher McCandless (from the movie "Into the Wild") would say:

Happiness is only real when shared