Friday Feature: Gratitude

Week one of the semester is over and I'm tired, but grateful. In part, it's because of my students (and the fact that I had a reasonably successful week), but it's also because I've got gratitude on the brain.

One of the courses I'm teaching this semester is Positive Psychology and, each week, one of the things I assign is a positive psychology exercise. Next week's is "Three Blessings," a gratitude exercise, so I spent some time this afternoon looking for supplemental readings that feature Dr. Robert Emmons, often cited as the world's leading scientific expert on gratitude. After clicking around for awhile, I finally settled on this one from the Harvard Business Review, in part because it includes some good questions for those who want to be grateful, but find it to be a struggle, especially now.

A close contender was this article from New Harbinger Publications blog that focused on some of the specifics (besides the obvious) of why we can find gratitude so difficult under trying circumstances but, in the end, The HBR article ticked a few more boxes for me. 

The act of being grateful is at once so simple and so powerful and it's something that not only becomes easier with practice, but yields enormous benefits, including better sleep and better physical health as well. 

What are you grateful for today?

Your brain on gratitude
Photo by Glenn Fox via Big Think