6 Ways Gratitude Jou als Boost Your Happiness Factor

Spiritual traditions have long embraced the power of gratitude as a devotional tool and an integral element of wholeness.

Science is now confirming what perennial wisdom has touted for ages: a gratitude practice, and specifically a gratitude journal, will boost your happiness and sense of well being. A gratitude journal, and the experience of gratitude, changes your focus from what’s wrong with your life to what’s right with it.

Robert Emmons, a professor at the University of Califo ia, Davis, and one of the worlds’s leading experts on the science of gratitude, shares these tips for reaping the greatest rewards from your gratitude journal:

1. Choose Happiness. Research suggests that jou aling is more effective if you first make the conscious decision to become happier and more grateful. “Motivation to become happier plays a role in the efficacy of jou aling,” says Emmons.

2. Invoke the Gift of Gratitude. Don’t just go through the motions, hurry through, and list the things you’re grateful for. Experience each item on your list as a gift. Linger in the experience and remember how it feels to be grateful.

3. People Matter Most. Focus on people for whom you are grateful rather than focusing on things for which you are grateful. It has a greater impact.

4. Get Specific and Personal. It’s better to share deeply about three things you’re grateful for, than to make a list of 20 items. Elaborate and give plenty of details. Instead of “I’m grateful for my writing” try “I’m grateful for my writing because it gives me the opportunity to creatively express my thoughts and feelings and share what matters most with my readers.”

5. Less is more. Writing 1-2 times a week seems to be better than daily jou aling. In one study, people who wrote in their gratitude jou als once a week for six weeks reported boosts in happiness afterward; people who wrote three times a week didn’t. “We adapt to positive events quickly, especially if we constantly focus on them,” says Emmons. “It seems counter-intuitive, but it is how the mind works.”

6. Savor surprises. Try to record events that were unexpected or surprising. These tend to elicit stronger levels of gratitude.

A gratitude journal uses the power of writing to translate thoughts into concrete language. It makes you more aware and creates a deeper emotional impact.

“Writing helps to organize thoughts, facilitate integration, and helps you accept your own experiences and put them in context... “In essence, it allows you to see the meaning of events going on around you and create meaning in your own life.”

According to Emmons, it doesn’t matter whether you journal in the morning or the evening, or whether you journal in a fancy notebook. The important thing is to get in the habit of paying attention to gratitude inspiring events.