It can be very easy to get trapped in a negative loop or focus on bad than be grateful for the good. But, you can’t be always complaining about what you don’t have when you truly have a lot of what you need and want in your life.

This attitude can only bring stress and dissatisfaction about life that can affect your mental, emotional as well as physical well-being.

Learn gratitude which is a powerful emotion to suck all negativity out of your life to give an enormous feeling of joy and positivity for what is already yours.

Not only this, benefits of gratitude include a long list and at the end, you’ll see yourself more optimistic, hopeful and positive in all situations.

If you’re looking for some motivation being thankful, read these benefits of gratitude backed by science, convincing enough to start practicing gratitude now:

Release negative emotions

There are few negative emotions out there such as envy, resentment, regret, greed and bitterness to take away our happiness.

Practicing gratitude can get you relief of all of them and clears your mind with the negativity of these emotions.

This is because you can’t regret if you’re grateful. Thankfulness let us experience only good feelings and even see positive in bad memories.

One study published on envy has also concluded that people who are grateful are less likely to feel jealous of others than those who aren’t.

As there are only happy feelings, all the negative emotions don’t trouble you and you’ll stay happy with great positivity!

You feel more optimistic and resilient

Optimism is one of the great benefits of gratitude you can get for a better outlook of your life. Being optimistic means reframing the situation into something positive than seeing only bad about it.

The more gratefulness in focusing positive, the more optimistically we look our future to find more good to be grateful for.

Furthermore, being grateful also makes us resilient to tragic events. It helps us to see the bigger picture of the situation and allows us a quick come back out of it.

Because when we see things positives even in bad events, the tragedies get turn into inspiring stories to grow in hard times.

Gratitude improves relationships

Gratitude itself is a social emotion says Emmons and so has a powerful effect on our relationships as well as social networks.

Saying “thank you” is not only a good manner, but showing appreciation to your partner, friends and family can improve your relationships with them.

As per University of New South Wales study, you can find new friends as giving thanks can be a confirmation for them of quality relationship with you.

Moreover, practicing gratitude can remind yourself of how lucky you’re to have your people in your life. This will create a strong bond between both of you.

Remember, expressing gratitude is different than just thinking. You need to express it and appreciate the good efforts of your loved ones for you to make a relationship better.

Boosts your self-esteem

Reduced self-esteem is a common problem in today’s world where we often compare ourselves with other’s status, job or lifestyle.

Though, with gratitude, you can feel better about your achievements, abilities and circumstances to boost the self-esteem.

Being grateful for everyday blessing you encounter is a perfect way to replace the habit of reviewing past failures and misfortune.  

Practicing gratitude can make you realize how much you have achieved in life and how life is really good for you.

Furthermore, gratefulness allows people to praise the accomplishments of others instead of losing their self-esteem while seeing other’s success.

If you’ve lower self-esteem, a simple act of gratitude can do the trick!

Better sleep at night

It’s pretty obvious that when your brain goes too much on overthinking, it’s hard to fall asleep at night.

One research published in Journal of Psychosomatic Research has concluded that gratitude helps people to sleep quickly as well as improve sleep quality and time.

Here the key is what we have in our mind at the time of bed. If it’s worrying or frustrating, it will keep you awake and interfere with your sleep patterns.

And if it’s about something we are grateful for, it will let you relax and gives a refreshing deep sleep. You can even write down the things you’re grateful for to get better night’s sleep.  

After all, a good quality sleep lead to many health benefits just like benefits of gratitude.

Gratitude lowers depression

While many frightful or unwanted incidents cause depression, how you deal with depression is a big challenge to stay calm in it.

Cultivating daily gratitude helps us cope and process life’s distressing problems and everyday challenges that can spike depression in a healthy way.

Being grateful can draw your attention to positive in everything so you feel no more depressed.

Not only depression, but it also keeps anxiety at the bay so you can enjoy the present moment happily.

With gratitude, you remain positive on what can go right than what can go wrong in the future. So you’ll feel less stressed, more relaxed and live in the moment.

Keeps you physically healthy

In addition to your emotions and personality, benefits of gratitude include improving your overall physical health too.

From boosting energy levels to healthy heart functioning, it’s surprising how practicing gratitude daily makes you a healthy person.

Even studies have reported that people who count their blessings have fewer aches and pains and feel healthier than those who don’t.

Also, gratitude is said to strengthen our immune system to protect against viruses and lower the blood pressure to keep our heart healthy.

Not surprisingly, grateful people want to take care of their health and hence they do more exercises and regular check-ups, which in turn helps them to stay fit and live longer.

Increase performance

Even though your workplace is the place where you least likely to see gratitude, being thankful is necessary to be productive in what you do at the job.

As you know gratitude fills us with positivity and increase the amount of energy, we become more enthusiastic and alert in achieving our goals at work.

Moreover, gratitude easily let you know the purpose of your work so that you accomplish your tasks more effectively throughout your career.

As well as, being grateful makes us more calm and patient, so you can take right and better decisions.

No matter if you’re an employee or employer, gratitude works for both, for employee job satisfaction while for employer more work can get done!

Shape you in calm, patient and empathetic person

With gratitude, you’ll become a more compassionate person because when you focus on your blessings, you naturally feel lucky and become aware of what other people don’t have.

Focusing on what good you have inspires you to act in a prosocial manner and help other people who are less fortunate and spread kindness to them.

For example, when you feel grateful for the house you live in, you eventually realize the sorrow of a homeless person.

Furthermore, gratitude let you embrace the changes and allow you to trust that things are working for the betterment of your life.

This way you enjoy being patient while waiting for the things to work and once you become patient, you’ll be a calm person too to handle sensible decisions.

A leading gratitude researcher Emmons says in his book Thanks!:

“When your cup is overflowing with gratitude and other positive emotions, you are more likely to help others and relieve their suffering.”

Being grateful makes people like us

Being grateful makes you feel loved, appreciated and cared, which in turn, leads you to treat people around you better.

As you have so much positivity and happiness to give around, your family and friends like to see you around them.

Plus, your thanking behavior encourages you to do good for others and keep your loved ones happy.

Besides that, gratefulness also makes you a trustworthy person and increases the chances for you to trust more.

Ultimately, when you’re happy and filled with positive vibes, people like to be around you. So be grateful!

Gives you long-term happiness

Utmost happiness is one of the great benefits of gratitude. To get true happiness it’s not necessary you should have something to be happy for. A little joy of small things can also give you happy smiles.

It can be anything including, watching the sunset from the window, the smell of coffee or sitting in nature.

Gratitude can do this for you. It helps us to notice everything good, even small, in our life than what is bad or what we don’t have.

This type of gratitude practice creates a positive feeling about our life and a path to long-term happiness.

Freaky Thought’s upshot

Seeing good things as gifts in life makes them even more special and you don’t take it for granted. And in gratitude, you actually adapt the habit of seeing positive everywhere.

Yes, there are so many benefits of gratitude and by reading this it may look like must doing for you. However, practicing it takes time and attention to make it lifelong.

If you’ve not started being thankful yet, it’s time to do it to reap all the benefits of gratitude it has to offer!