The Healthful Benefits of Gratitude Essay example

Data used in the article retrieved from the Washington Times, Snowden has been called more of a traitor instead of the whistle-blower. The author has written different articles before, and is reliable. Information used in the article does seem a little biased towards the author’s personal point of view

In “Happiness 101,” Harvard professor Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar presents his ideas pertaining to the achievability of happiness. He begins by discussing how individuals must give themselves permission to be human, so that they can feel the negative feelings before they reach the positive feelings. If negative feelings are held back without release, then they only intensify eventually blocking out the positive feelings. Ben-Shahar continues his presentation to the topic of managing stress on the micro, mezza, and macro levels. These levels include the ideas of meditation, sleep, taking time off, vacations, and the “three deep breaths.” Simplifying agendas and practicing quality over quantity has a positive effect on stress levels as well. At the conclusion of his presentation, Ben-Shahar discusses the positive effect of practicing gratitude on health, happiness, and well-being. After listening to Tal Ben-Shahar’s presentation, I completely agree with every point that Ben-Shahar uses over the topics of giving permission to be human, stress management, and practicing gratitude covered throughout his presentation over happiness.

If you would like to live a happy and more so, successful life, it is vital that you learn to express gratitude wherever you go. In order to reach where you would like to be in life, everyone should concentrate on their goals and objectives. Through expressing gratitude, people can learn to show good deeds, and hence be able to receive the same goodness, in return. (Radwan, Msc.) Gratitude refers to the act of being thankful, noticing simple pleasures, counting every little blessing, and acknowledging every good done unto you. In other terms, it can be described as living life as if everything happening in it is a miracle, and being able to continuously acknowledge every much you receive. On the other hand, when people decide to concentrate a lot of energy on bad things in life, it will make them remain in the state of conflict. But by developing gratitude, it will allow someone to focus on positivity and the good things in life. It must be understood that this will allow an individual to always remain optimistic, and with enthusiasm much success can be achieved.

But however, Emmons said that gratitude can leave us during rough time, harsh time take away grateful attitude, we must keep fighting for gratitude to have the power to appreciate life itself  in order to eliminate any negative  mindset or an psychological longevity effects

Showing love and gratitude goes a long way in strengthening relationships and makes us better understands the sacrifices others make on our behalf. In those winter Sundays, Robert Hayden stated a lot with very few words. This was possible due to brilliant use of imagery, metaphor and sound. His striking words invoke thoughts in the mind of the reader of this dedicated father, up alone exposed to the harsh elements who works hard each day to make his family comfortable, however they don 't value his acts of good will, nor did they give him any credit. In many cases, we glance back at one point in our lives with lament. We feel that had it been, what we currently know, we knew back then we would have made different choices, things would

West, Angus. “16 disturbing things Snowden has taught us (so far).” Global Post. Global Post. 17 January 2014. Web. 9 April 2014.

Appreciation is a motivator. It can turn negative situations and thoughts into positive. This is the great thing about appreciation. You have people who knows how to make use of appreciation, while others recognize its meaning and depths. When the word appreciation is used for a person they can carry out any difficult task with low put energy. There are many companies and organizations known for culture of appreciation. The main reason behind happiness of

Also, the ability to think outside the box and see opportunities and possibilities becomes much greater when gratitude is in your life. Your perspective on life changes, and you see the connection between the things that come into your life and where you want your life to go. You are more capable of making decisions that benefit your future, and you avoid making decisions that impact your life negatively.

Orlick (2000) discusses the topic of willful focusing, which basically means that one is fully present in all situations (p. 130). With practice, he says that focusing becomes more natural, and one will automatically focus when “seeing something beautiful in nature or in another person,” (p. 130). My top strength was appreciation of beauty and excellence which means that I might not need as much willful focusing practice as other people! Emmons and McCullough (2004) discuss gratitude and the moral functions it possesses (p. 145). Gratitude was not in the top 10 of my characteristics, but it is definitely something I want to work on. According to Emmons and McCullough (2004), there are “lasting benefits” of gratitude that range from “personal and social development, to individual health and

Research in SWB has provided a foundation for its application in the form of evidence-based interventions to increase SWB. A growing literature has emerged demonstrating how brief experimental manipulations of a number of different activities can increase SWB (Parks & Schueller, 2014; Quoidbach, Mikolajcak, & Gross, 2015). For example, cultivating and expressing gratitude through counting one’s blessings (Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, & Schkade, 2005; Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005) or writing and sharing letters of gratitude (Boehm, Lyubomirsky, & Sheldon, 2011; Lyubomirsky, Dickerhoof, Boehm, & Sheldon, 2011; Seligman et al., 2005) has been shown to increase SWB. Performing acts of kindness fosters similar effects (Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, & Schkade, 2005; Sheldon, Boehm, & Lyubomirsky, 2012).

I agree with the idea that when we are grateful to someone it’s easier to adopt their perspective (pg. 119). I feel that when someone is nice to us it makes us more comfortable. By being more comfortable we are more likely to open our minds to the other person’s perspective. It’s harder to reject someone’s perspective when they are nice to you.

Envy plagues those who cannot afford these so-called “luxuries,” causing people to needlessly divide themselves. These divisions delusion people with the notion that in order to truly feel happy, they too must to buy these goods in order to feel satisfied. Subsequently, these drive people to lose sight of the truly important aspect of life: gratitude. A scientific study performed by Dr. Robert A. Emmons and Dr. Michael E. McCullough found that subjects who wrote what they were thankful for “were more optimistic and felt better about their lives” (“In Praise of Gratitude”). In relation to the materialistic nature society promotes, people become accustomed to focusing on what they do not have instead of what they already possess.

Similarly, the individual on the YouTube video named “An Experiment in Gratitude, The Science of Happiness” stated that psychologists have scientifically verified that one of the greatest contributing factor to overall happiness in one’s life is how much gratitude one

Students did not say they felt “elevated” during their family trips, but they shared memorable moments of happiness, benevolence, and gratification. Algoe and Haidit introduced traditional and recent empirical research on the effects and benefits of gratitude, which provides commentary on the students’ memories with their families. “Recent evidence suggests that gratitude often serves a broader social function, namely, promoting relationships with responsive ones,” (p. 3). “We recently demonstrated that the two most robust predictors of gratitude were the perception that the benefactor was being responsive to the needs and wishes of the recipient (i.e. thoughtful), and liking the benefit,” (3). Again, this goes back to being mindful and practicing mindfulness. Positive psychology focus on positive emotions that included a wide

We are living in a world that seeks answers to everything. We aim for perfection by working on our strengths and weaknesses as human beings. With technological advantages, people aim to live as long as possible with optimal functioning in the body and mind. It has been a goal in human existence to maintain ourselves in any way we can. One way this is done is through gratitude. Gratitude has been regarded as universally valuable, tracing back to the beginning of time. Ever since the 1930s researchers have tried to measure how effectively gratitude helps people of all backgrounds (Bono, Emmons, & McCullough, 2004). Cultures define gratitude based on the way they perceive it. Western society regards gratitude as something that is needed