Your Student Life: Gratitude

November 19, 2024

This is a good time of year to pause and ask yourself, “What am I thankful for?”

Your answer can be as deep as the love of friends and family or as fleeting as a few days away from classes, but the important thing is to take a moment to practice gratitude.

Thanksgiving is a good week to address thankfulness, but it ought to be a year-round exercise. It should be part of your daily life. 

Research professor Dr. Brené Brown with the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work perhaps said it best, “I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness—it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.” 

Study after study has found that gratitude is an integral part of wellness. Here are just some of the findings, as compiled at Student Life’s Student Wellness Center:

·         The practice of gratitude (counting blessings) is linked to fewer physical symptoms, more optimistic life appraisals, and more time exercising and improved well-being and optimal functioning (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

·         Grateful individuals report higher positive mood, optimism, life satisfaction, vitality, religiousness and spirituality, and less depression and envy than less grateful individuals (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002).

·         Grateful people tend to be more helpful, supportive, forgiving, empathic, and agreeable (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002).Across occupations, curiosity, zest, hope, gratitude, and spirituality are the Big 5 strengths associated with work satisfaction (Peterson et al., 2010).

·         The strengths of the “heart” (e.g., love, gratitude) are more strongly associated with well-being than are strengths of the “head” (e.g., creativity, open-mindedness/judgment, appreciation of beauty and excellence; Park & Peterson, 2008b; Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2004).

If you’d like to get started, here are some ideas. Write a gratitude letter to someone, and read it to them. Go to kind.osu.edu and send kudos to someone. Savor the good things in your life, big and small, and then write them down in a gratitude journal. Go beyond the obvious when considering what you are thankful for, since good comes even in adversity.  

Gratitude for things in your life not only helps you appreciate where you have been, it also helps ensure that you will have things to be thankful for in your future.

And that’s worthy of gratitude.  

 

Office of Student Life