A “Three Good Things” gratitude practice supports well-being and builds resilience, which is key to managing stress and anxiety.

Calming Stress & Anxiety Through Gratitude Video

Calming Stress & Anxiety Through Gratitude Video Content

Can you name three things you’re grateful for? Or better yet, how about three things that you appreciate because they bring you a sense of ease and calm when you’re feeling anxious? I like to add on that additional component for those of us who are working on calm.

“Three Good Things,” or a formal gratitude practice, is an evidence-based way to decrease your stress, boost your wellbeing, and build resilience, all the things that are really important when you’re trying to manage stress and anxiety.

There’s a great book on this topic: Thanks! by Robert Emmons. In the book, he talks about the science behind a gratitude practice.

Why Gratitude Works[1]

A lot of us think that our happiness levels are just a standard set point, that we are a certain level of happiness no matter what happens. It’s just not true.

Intentional Activities & Happiness

There’s actually about 40% of our happiness levels can be attributed to things that are related to our intentional activity. This means we are in control of how we feel. We can choose to engage in activities that boost our happiness, build our resilience, and just overall make us feel better.

Gratitude Counters Our Negativity Bias

A gratitude practice is helpful in countering that negativity bias that I’ve talked about before (here!). We’re predispositioned to focus on things that are negative or that happen to us and that we aren’t happy about. Gratitude helps to counter that natural bias that we all have as humans.

Gratitude Boosts Your Happiness Setpoint

For those who practice gratitude regularly, even if it’s just for a few weeks, it can boost your happiness set point by up to 25%. That’s a lot! That’s some really good evidence for something that requires very little effort and very little time if we do it consistently.

Gratitude Boosts Relationships

One other thing I like about it is that it’s been linked with greater or strengthening relationships, something that I always talk about in terms of longevity and wellbeing. We know our quality of relationships is key to overall health. Gratitude is one more way to work on wellness.

Gratitude Improves Sleep & Energy

Something I didn’t know is that a gratitude practice, when done for just three weeks, can improve your sleep and result in more energy. That’s something I was surprised to hear!

A Tip For Practicing Gratitude

Give it a try this week. One tip I have is to try working your gratitude practice into something you’re already doing. This makes it a self-care practice, a five minute one, that doesn’t have to be one more thing you add to the to-do list.

For example, sometimes I write out three good things in a journal and I do that while I’m sitting on the couch having coffee in the morning. It’s not like I have to find time somewhere throughout the day. I’m already sitting here. I’m already drinking my coffee so I can work it into my normal routine.

I was just giving a talk to other moms who are working on simple wellness strategies and one of the moms shared that she’s been using this “Three Good Things” practice as her and her husband are going to bed. They’re already there, they’re already going to sleep. It’s not one more chore, but it’s just a way that they fall asleep. It’s a really nice way for them to bond, to share something that happened throughout the day, and for them to build this gratitude practice.

So it doesn’t have to be one more thing you have to do if you’re stressed or you’re anxious. It’s a small lifestyle practice that is a proven way to boost your wellbeing, to build your resilience so that you don’t feel so stressed and so anxious, and doesn’t have to take a lot of time.

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In the meantime, give a gratitude, practice a try this week or for a few weeks and see how you feel!

For More Information:

Robert Emmons’ book, thanks! How the new science of gratitude can make you happier: https://a.co/d/4EZBq7R

[1] Emmons, R. A. (2007). thanks! How the new science of gratitude can make you happier. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.