How do I Cultivate Gratitude?

Are you a natural pessimist? Take heart: The benefits of gratitude aren’t only available to people with a naturally grateful disposition. Instead, feeling grateful is a skill we can develop with practice, reaping its rewards along the way. Here are some specific, science-based activities for cultivating an attitude of gratitude from our new site Greater Good in Action:

Three Good Things: A way to tune into the positive events in your life.
Gratitude Letter: Write a letter expressing thanks, and deliver it in person.
Mental Subtraction of Positive Events: How to appreciate what you have by imagining your life without it. One variation on this practice is Mental Subtraction of Relationships.
Savoring Walk: How a stroll outside can help build lasting happiness.
Give It Up: Savor something more by taking a break from it.

And here are more of the most effective ways to cultivate gratitude, according to research.

Keep a gratitude journal, recording three to five things for which you’re grateful every day or week. Because some evidence suggests that how we keep a gratitude journal—for instance, how often we write in it or whether we express our gratitude to others—can influence its impact, the GGSC’s Jason Marsh offers these research-based tips for gratitude journaling. Apply these tips through the GGSC’s new and easy-to-use online gratitude journal, Thnx4.org.
Write a “gratitude letter” to an important person in your life whom you’ve never properly thanked. Research suggests gratitude letters provide strong and long-lasting happiness boosts, especially when they’re delivered in person. When participants in her studies write gratitude letters, Sonja Lyubomirsky provides them with these instructions.
Savor the good in your life—don’t just gloss over the beauty and pleasures that come your way. Loyola University psychologist Fred Bryant has identified 10 ways to practice savoring; GGSC advisory board member Rick Hanson has developed his own method for savoring positive emotions and experiences, which he calls “taking in the good.“
Focus on intentions: When you receive a gift, or when something good happens to you in general, consider how someone tried on purpose to bring that goodness into your life, even at a cost to themselves. Research suggests this goes a long way toward cultivating “an attitude of gratitude,“ among children and adults alike.
Teach gratitude to children: Researchers Jeffrey Froh, Giacomo Bono, Katherine Henderson, and colleagues have developed a gratitude curriculum for kids, based on Froh’s work studying gratitude in schools; results suggest it can boost gratitude and happiness for five months. The gratitude journal and gratitude letter exercises have also proven effective with kids, but there are many other gratitude lessons you can try.
Create a grateful school climate by fostering gratitude among staff and working to counter the culture of complaining.
Create a grateful workplace by getting buy-in from leaders, providing lots of opportunities for gratitude, and making sure that everyone gets thanked.
Recognize the positive: The GGSC’s Christine Carter asks her daughters about three good things that happen to them each day—a way to help them appreciate the gifts big and small that come their way.
Get metaphysical: Research suggests that thinking hard about our own mortality makes us more grateful for life; another study found that praying more often increases gratitude.

Content by The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. The Greater Good Science Center studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being, and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society.