📷: Devin Avery
Counting Your Blessings and Practicing Gratitude
Exercise… love it or hate it, it is something our bodies need. It not only burns off the calories from the fast food we had for lunch, but studies show that there are huge benefits of cardio, weight lifting, and stretching that go well beyond calorie burning. It helps our body work better.
Exercise impacts our physical and mental health in a ton of different ways, but did you know there are other types of exercise that have nothing to do with sweating? (Seriously?! SIGN ME UP! Right?)
Sorry friend, it isn’t that kind of exercise, but it still has HUGE benefits for your physical and mental health.
Brain Exercises
Practicing mindfulness is exercise for the brain, and the more you practice it, the easier it is for your brain to be in the here and now instead of stressing about tomorrow. You can learn more about it here.
Practicing gratitude or counting your blessings is another form of exercising your brain and more and more I am realizing the importance of actively practicing gratitude. It isn’t something that happens naturally for most of us. It takes an effort… (hence, the exercise part).
If you want to run a 5K, you have to build up how far and fast you can run. There are different ways to do that. You may choose a couch to 5K program (my preferred method), or you may just get out there everyday and try to go farther than the day before. Either way, chances are you won’t go from couch potato to marathon runner in one day. If you do, I want to know your secret!
In the same way, practicing gratitude probably won’t become a natural part of you without practice!
Why Should I Practice Gratitude and Count my Blessings?
Gratitude is powerful. It changes your perspective on life. When we practice gratitude it shifts our focus to the positive. Some of the benefits of being grateful such as:
- helps you be more aware of the amazing way God is watching over you and blessing your life
- helps you be generous
- helps you to be happy with what you have
- helps you focus on your own potential instead of being jealous of others
- helps you focus on what really matters in life instead of material possessions
- helps you to be more empathetic and compassionate
- helps you influence others in a positive way
- helps you alleviate depression and stress
So How do I Practice Gratitude?
I’m so glad you asked!
It just so happen that I have a couple great exercises that I use for myself, and with clients that you can tweak to work for you and your family. One of my favorites is journaling. My favorite time to journal is right before bed. This allows me to think through my day and pick out some of my favorite moments. I then write about them. By focusing on the good of my day right before bed I am able to fall asleep more quickly because it gets me in a mindset of peace instead of worrying about tomorrow.
If journaling isn’t an option, I make a point to think of 3 things before bed that I am thankful for. With my clients I have them share their three things with me the next day to hold them accountable. They may be coming up with them in the moment (LOL) but at least they are stopping for a moment to think about the blessings in their lives!
Gratitude Game
I also use the game of Pick up Sticks to practice gratitude. I purchased a game of pick up sticks on amazon that has solid color sticks with 4 colors.This is the one I purchased. (affiliate link)
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To be sure those playing understand the idea of gratitude, it is important to go over what it is to be grateful. For example, we might be grateful for our family, or a friend, our favorite food, or for a favorite game. You can also explain it as blessings. I have even explained it to a client as something she would be sad if she woke up tomorrow without it. It may take some time for them to wrap their minds around what it means to be grateful.
Have the players come up with categories of things they are grateful for and assign each a color
for example:
- foods we are grateful for= green,
- people we are grateful for= blue,
- activities we are grateful for= red,
- players choice of what they are grateful for= yellow.
I write their categories on the dry erase board so everyone can see it throughout the game. Here is an example, but it is in Spanish. Don’t worry, you aren’t missing anything. It says the same thing as the options above.
As the players take turns picking up sticks, they say something they are grateful for, in the category that matches the color of their stick they pick up. We really love this game and I hope you will too!
What are your favorite ways to practice gratitude? I always love new ideas!
