What are some benefits of being grateful?

Striffler Family Funeral Homes • July 13, 2020

Exercising gratitude can be an amazingly simple and beneficial task. However, we live in a society that is always on the move, so taking the time to focus on being grateful can sometimes be overlooked. We often end up feeling so busy that we never even stop to think about how lucky we are to have so much in our lives!

More often than not we complain about what is going wrong and yet many of us never really take the time to stop and see why we should be grateful. Taking the time to stop and do some exercises focusing on gratitude can be beneficial and worth one’s time.

Exercising gratitude can improve your physical, mental, and emotional health. This includes giving you more energy and helping to support a healthier sleeping schedule. Having a larger sense of gratitude can increase your overall wellbeing.

Since performing small exercises of gratitude can be so beneficial, we have outlined several exercises that you can do at different times throughout the day. These examples start by going over exercises that are generally practiced in the morning, throughout the day, and lastly before bed. You can decide what exercise and what time works best for you as you try the different options.

 

Start your day with gratitude: Not everyone is a morning person and getting started on a new day can be tough sometimes. Starting your day by focusing on gratitude may help put you in a good mood.

An example of how to put yourself in a gratitude mindset is by thinking of three to five items that you are grateful for from the previous day. If you get stuck, you can always think of something that you are grateful for in general, such as your favorite season. This exercise can be done as you lay in bed, or over your morning cup of coffee. It will soon become a simple addition to your morning routine and may give you something to look forward to every morning when you wake up, and every night when you get ready to go to sleep.

Start a gratitude jar: This is an easy exercise that takes only a jar and some pieces of paper. First, find a jar of any size. Take a small piece of paper and write down something brief that makes you feel grateful. Reflect on what you wrote down, and then put the piece of paper into the jar. Your jar will begin to fill up. Anytime that you are feeling sad, you can take some of the papers out of the jar and reflect on what makes you grateful.

Find a gratitude rock: To do this you first must find a smaller rock. Place the rock somewhere that you will see it such as a desk or nightstand. The rock is meant to be a physical reminder for you to stop and take a moment to focus on your gratitude.

Throughout the day look at the rock and reflect on something that makes you grateful . If you are traveling or even running errands, carry the rock around with you in your pocket. Pull it out from time to time and take a moment to reflect on your gratitude. Keeping the rock around you will help to remind you to always take a moment to be grateful for what you have no matter where you are in life.

Avoid being negative : We all feel the need at times to be negative. Though this release can be helpful now and then, ultimately negativity results in distracting us from focusing on the various tasks. Negativity not only slows us down, but it can worsen our mood as it causes us to focus on the negative rather than positives.

Be less negative in smaller steps. Strive to go one full day without any negativity. Try in one month, for a total of four days, no negativity. The following month try to go three days a week without negativity. Do that for a full month for a total of twelve days with no negativity. The next month take one week out and strive not to be negative at all during that week. Do this twice for a total of fourteen days with no negativity that month. The more that you do this the more that you will begin to shift your mindset and train your brain to not be negative. This may result in you having more time to focus on positives rather than negatives, such as what makes you grateful. Take the time you use on being negative and use it instead to focus on gratitude.

Set a gratitude alarm: Set an alarm for a random time after you are done with work for the day. When the alarm goes off, turn it off and then pause. Think of something that you are grateful for from that day. Reflect on how that made you feel and affected your day. This is a great exercise to use during the evening or early night, while you are winding down.

Four end of day questions : At the end of every day as you are getting ready for bed there are four questions that you can ask yourself to reflect on your day and focus on gratitude.

What touched me spiritually today?

Who or what inspired me today?

Who made me smile today?

What is the best situation that happened today?

Asking these questions and reflecting on the answers may put you in a super mood as you drift off into sleep.

 

There is no right or wrong time for you to do an exercise in gratitude. You should find both an exercise and a time that works well with your daily schedule. If you want to do one a certain day of the week and another on a different day then do so. Usually, they do not take much time but doing a daily gratitude exercise may be greatly beneficial for your overall mindset as well as your levels of productivity.

If you have any comments please feel free to contact us by phone at 412-678-6177 or by email at strifflers@yahoo.com.

For more information about our services, please visit www.strifflerfuneralhomes.com

Jewish Funeral Traditions

By Adam Striffler • June 20, 2024
As we begin to learn more about religious practices outside of our own, it is sometimes surprising to find how much different faiths have in common. Mourners of all faiths understand the power of grief and the comfort of community. So, what happens when a person of the Jewish faith dies, and how can a person outside that faith support a friend or neighbor who is grieving?

Until Death Do Us Part: Losing a Spouse   Three to Six months After Loss

By Adam Striffler • June 12, 2024
By now most of the big stuff is probably done. The thank you notes have been written and mailed. The marker or head stone has been placed or you’ve found a place for the urn. You’ve probably filed for the life insurance, and perhaps you’ve even begun to clean out his closet.

Writing the Thank You Notes

By Adam Striffler • June 12, 2024
Writing thank you notes is usually one of the very first “after the funeral” tasks you will undertake. You may be surprised to find that your brain/hand coordination is not working so well. You sit there with pen in hand and well-formed thoughts in your head, but somehow it all gets lost between the head and the paper.

Dad Died. What Do I Do with the Pills?

By Adam Striffler • June 12, 2024
Prescription medication is expensive. Just that fact can be an understandable motivation for some risky business. When my father died, my mother was asking everyone, “Aren’t you on blood pressure medicine?  You take this heart pill don’t you?  What do you take for depression?” Her plan, no waste.

Mother Died… How Long Do We Keep Her Things?

By Adam Striffler • June 12, 2024
Separating from a loved one’s belongings is one of the more difficult jobs you will have to do after a death. It is amazing how much is collected over a lifetime. You probably won’t get it done in a day and you will probably shed a few tears.

What To Look for When You Are Buying Final Expense Insurance

By Adam Striffler • June 12, 2024
Cost is important, but it’s not the whole story. Take a look at the premium, the amount you will pay each month, how long will you pay that amount?

Too Little Too Late  - A Memorial Gone Wrong

By Adam Striffler • June 12, 2024
Jane knew some people had a fear of planning a service. They don’t know how to or what to plan. They are at a loss. They should have they called the local funeral home for help. The funeral director could have helped them find someone to pull together a brief ceremony at the graveside or in the chapel.

Grief Is Individual

By Adam Striffler • June 12, 2024
Let’s talk about the stages of grief. There is denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I studied them in nursing school, reviewed them when I got divorced and generally found them to be a pretty accurate and helpful bit of knowledge. And then, a family member died. Stages?

What is a Celebration of Life?

By Adam Striffler • June 9, 2024
The celebration of life is the personal or individual aspect of a funeral service. It is about the person who died. It is about their relationships, their loves, their passions, their accomplishments, their beliefs, their talents. It is about what and who they cared about as they lived their own unique life. How did they make a difference?

Preplanning Your Funeral in your 60’s

By Adam Striffler • May 24, 2024
According to a National Funeral Directors Association survey, more than half (62.5%) of us expect to participate in making our own funeral arrangements. And yet, less than a quarter of us have actually acted on that impulse. Not really so surprising since making funeral arrangements can literally be the very last thing we do. We can put it off right up to the end!
More Posts