3 reasons to always be grateful for.

Among this days in which we face so many challenges, including those thanks the global pandemic of the COVID-19 it may seem difficult to find gratefulness and peace in our lives. Nowadays, more than ever we are in need of some solace and happiness in our lives. Did you know that with a sense of gratefulness and by incorporating it into our lives, we could start to develop this feeling of "well being".

Gratefulness can have a profound and observable effect in the brain circuitry.

Research

Recent studies had shown that gratefulness could help immensely to develop this sensation of well being. Studies had showed that the brain of the person practicing gratefulness is stimulated to do a rewire of the neuronal circuitry in the brain (a concept known as neuroplasticity) when practicing gratefulness. Additional studies demonstrate that there are changes in the brain neurochemistry that derives from the very sense of well-being which accompanied with that feeling of gratefulness can be present for a more prolonged time.

How to be grateful You may be thinking "How can I be grateful when I am living this or that situation...?"

Well, there is no easy answer that fits all of our situations, since everyone has a different array of events occurring in our lives. However, there is a way that has worked for me and in some ways I think you may be able to feed off from these and get inspiration to see what better suits you.

Family

No family is perfect, I get that, you see, we don't choose our family, but we have control over how to see through and appreciate the family we've got. There is always a possibility of not having that familiar in this life with us. Think of that person that do not have his brother or sister anymore to be able to share any more moments of this life together, or simply, it is not possible for them to be talking for whatever situation at this particular time. If you consider these, situations it is possible that when you consider your actual one you may feel grateful because is not your exact situation, and yes; I know that there are some of you that unfortunately cannot see the difference from these examples and your actual situation. However, consider different perspectives and please, have in mind that this are guides or examples for you to derive inspiration.

The fact of being alive another day, when contemplated under the right perspective, can give you a profound sense of gratefulness.

Life

Another thing to be grateful always and that it is highly possible that we are not able to appreciate it and cherish it as we should do is your very own and precious, life. As we start our day, just after waking up, sit on your bed, do not spring out of the bed and start "attacking" your everyday thing to do, take a minute (or minutes if hopefully you planned for this and wake up early) to appreciate the things around you, the fact that you are alive, consider that you have another full day ahead of you. No matter your situation, you still have something like a roof above you, clothes, food and other things that sometimes without knowing, we commonly disregard as mundane and therefore do not focus our attention towards them. The fact of the matter is that as we are alive one more day, you have so many new opportunities to reach closer to a goal and maybe even try new exciting things.

Opportunities

Speaking of opportunities, one good practice is to consider what we have achieved, on a daily basis.

Speaking of opportunities, one good practice is to consider what we have achieved, on a daily basis. No matter how small feat it is, raging from finishing that massive clean up in that closet which always seems to be too small to accommodate a pair of additional shoes, to graduating from university with that desired degree that you earned with so much work. The beauty of this particular approach to gratefulness is that you can practice it in the morning, right after waking up, or in the night, just before going to sleep. Each task that you consider as already done in your mind gives you confidence to keep on working towards another goal or completing another task.

Closing

Therefore, there is a lot of potential to turn around the things that we may appreciate sometimes as negative by just looking at them in a different way. Consider some of the techniques here given to begin your journey to a better you, a more grateful verison of yourself. It does not have to be something drastic, ideally it is more effective to start with small steps, only by doing them with consistency we can look up to attain that sense of well being.

I hope that this post motivate you to change that paradigm in your life and begin to practice in a more mindful way gratefulness.

I would like to know what techniques do you apply to integrate gratefulness into your life. Share with other your "tips and tricks" in the comments.