Welcome back to the Santa Clara Meditation blog! β΅
“How happy a person is depends on the depth of their gratitude.” β John Miller
The reason we need to cultivate a grateful heart is to improve the quality of our lives and live a little happier. A grateful heart can turn our brains positive and actually change our lives.
There is a fascinating experiment conducted by a research team at a domestic university hospital under the theme, “The Effect of a Grateful Heart on the Brain.”
When they let office workers in their 30s listen to words that evoked things they were grateful for over 5 minutes, their heart rates showed stable waveforms, and their expressions became very peaceful. A moment later, when they were made to listen to messages of self-blame and resentment, their heart rates increased as if they were stressed, and their expressions darkened. The reason our heart rates change like this is that our brains constantly change according to our thoughts.
It is said that when our brain feels joy, pleasure, and comfort, a “reward circuit” operates, making us want to do that behavior more. Therefore, if you have a grateful heart, you can become joyful and happy! β¨
π¦ 5 Definite and Easy Tips to Cultivate a Grateful Heart
1. Write a Gratitude Journal π
A gratitude journal is a known and effective method for cultivating a grateful heart. Recalling things you were thankful for and writing them down yourself is like experiencing the grateful event twice. At first, you might not easily think of things to be grateful for, but as you keep writing, you will experience remembering grateful daily moments better and your feelings of gratitude growing.
Right before going to bed, try writing down 1 or 2 things you were grateful for that day for about 10 minutes. If writing a gratitude journal becomes easy, try challenging yourself by gradually increasing it to 3 to 5 things!
Examples of a Gratitude Journal:
- I took a short walk during lunch today, and the weather was so nice, which made me happy.
- It’s really warm when I come home these days. I am truly grateful to have such a cozy home.
- I talked today with a friend I fought with yesterday, and we resolved our misunderstandings. It was a grateful time to grow.
2. Express Gratitude Immediately π£οΈ
Do you express it immediately when you receive help from someone or feel grateful? Just simply conveying your grateful heart lets the other person know that you appreciate them.
When you exchange feelings of gratitude like this, your relationship becomes stronger, and you can form positive relationships. As you continue to say words conveying gratitude, the reward circuit in our brain activates, making you feel grateful even for the little things.
Try saying:
- “I’m really happy when I’m with you. Thank you, my friend.”
- “Thank you for always helping me by my side. It’s all thanks to you.”
3. Find Happiness in Trivial Daily Life β
Perhaps gratitude is an emotion that must be found starting from trivial things. Think about:
- The fact that you are alive.
- The fact that there are people who love you.
- The fact that you can breathe good air.
- The fact that no matter how hard things get, you have a person or a pet by your side.
If you put on the glasses of gratitude and look at the things you thought of as routine and took for granted, you will realize there are truly many things to be grateful for. Try feeling gratitude in the daily life you thought was obvious and had become insensitive to.
4. Help People Around You π€
“Helping others is helping myself.” Engaging in activities that help others increases self-efficacy, giving you a sense of pride.
Seeing the other person’s gratitude makes you feel efficacy and consequently puts you in a good mood. This is called the “Helper’s High,” a phenomenon where more endorphins are released than usual when helping someone. Isn’t it truly fascinating that the very act of helping others heals our minds and lowers our blood pressure? Making others thankful improves your mental health and can serve as an opportunity to feel even more gratitude.
5. Meditate π§ββοΈ
In a busy modern society, there isn’t much time or opportunity to look back on yourself. However, the biggest homework to solve after being born into this world is finding the answer to the question, “What kind of person am I?”
When you meditate, you look back on your life and get to know yourself better. You can discard the dissatisfying parts of your current life and negative minds. Discarding those minds helps you cultivate a grateful heart. Ma-eum Su-ryun (Mind Subtraction) meditation relieves stress and eliminates random thoughts, making it helpful in cultivating a positive and grateful heart.
How to Meditate:
- Sit in a place where your body and mind can be peaceful and relax.
- Organize the events that happened today.
- Look back on the mind and emotions arising right now.
- If emotions and minds arise, try discarding them just as you would throw trash into a trash can.
- Repeat the process.
Today, we explored why it is important to have a grateful heart and 5 easy and effective ways to cultivate it. Just as happiness is not far away but always within our minds, start the methods of cultivating gratitude from the trivial and close things around you! πΈ
