If you find yourself short-tempered these days, you aren’t alone. In almost the third year of a pandemic and the accompanying upheaval, everyone is experiencing higher stress levels than ever before.
12 Gratitude Exercises for 2022
With 84% of adults reporting feeling emotions related to prolonged stress, now more than ever, we need to begin practicing gratitude exercises.
It’s easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day, to forget all the good amongst the chaos. However, expressing gratitude has been linked with improved mental health. These gratitude exercises can help you get started.
1. Showing Gratitude to Your Partner
Often, we inadvertently take it out on our significant others in times of stress, especially during the holidays when we are busier than ever.
2. Go On a Date
Other than Valentine’s Day or your anniversary, when’s the last time the two of you went out, just the two of you? When we get busy, we tend to push off date night because it isn’t necessary at the moment. But after pushing it back so many times, your partner may not feel appreciated.
If both of you are working high-stress jobs, you may not have the energy to come up with a date idea. The Date Night Flow Chart below can help you quickly arrive at the perfect date night idea to show them how grateful you are for them.
3. Give Them the Night Off
Thank your partner for all the hard work around the house by taking over for them one evening. You don’t have to do this alone; ask the kids to join in where they can! Encourage your partner to do whatever they want while you take over the chores they usually do, like making dinner, helping the kids with homework, or taking the dog for a walk.
They’ll love the chance to relax with a hot beverage in front of the television or their favorite book.
4. Cook Dinner
If your partner always does the cooking, take over one night. Plan the menu, do the grocery shopping, and take care of all the prep and cleanup. Tell your partner to sit down with a glass of wine with their feet up in appreciation for all they do. If you prefer, you could even cook the meal together.
Either way, the point is to show that you don’t expect your partner to always make dinner for you, that you recognize the hard work that goes into meal preparation and want to return the favor.
5. Showing Gratitude to Your Kids
Your kids will learn how to show gratitude from you, so it’s best to spend time teaching them how to be thankful by volunteering in your community and writing thank you cards. But they also need to know you are grateful to them, so try these quick and easy ways to show gratitude.
6. Leave Thank You Tags
More often than not, we often chastise our kids for doing what they shouldn’t be doing rather than praising them for what they did well. Show how much you appreciate them completing their chores by leaving these thank you tags around the house. The best part of the thank you tags is that once you print them, you don’t need to do anything except leave them where your kids will find them, making them an easy way to say thanks, even if you aren’t still awake when they come home at night.
7. Give an Extended Hug
Instead of giving your kid a quick peck on the cheek before they run out the door to school, give them an extended belly hug. These hugs last anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute, and the extended contact reduces blood pressure. To make the hug more gratitude-focused, verbalize why you are thankful for them.
8. Play Gratitude Games
Sometimes, all you need is a conversation starter. The gratitude prompts below encourage conversation related to gratitude, and there are several ways to play. For example, one night, everyone at the table has to answer the same prompt, and another night, everyone can blindly draw a different prompt to focus on. The goal is to make gratitude a natural part of your routine, making it easier to remember to be thankful.
9. Showing Gratitude to Yourself
While we may be great at saying thank you to others when’s the last time you told it to yourself? What about the last time you were hard on yourself for making a mistake? If you’re like most people, you can probably easily recall the latter and struggle to find an answer to the former.
It would help if you were grateful to yourself. No matter how stressful life can be, especially now with ever-mutating COVID variants, work pressures, and remote school, you have much to be grateful for. Here are a few ways you can show gratitude to yourself for not giving up, no matter how challenging life gets.
10. Light a Candle and Breathe
Sometimes we need a moment to stop our busy lives and reflect on what we have to be grateful for. Light a candle, play some music and breathe for a few moments. Think about what you’ve accomplished, no matter how small. Say thank you to yourself.
11. Write Down Your Thoughts
Once a week or so, spend time recording all that you’ve accomplished that week. No item is too small, so be sure to include everything from acing that presentation at work to getting out of bed the other morning when you didn’t feel like it. If it helps, write a thank you note to yourself under the list.
12. Treat Yourself
When you accomplish a goal or overcome a challenge, reward yourself as a thank you. Stop at your favorite coffee shop on your way to work the next day, buy yourself that new gadget you want, or do something good for your body, like getting a massage.
Explore more ways to practice gratitude exercises and more stress-busting techniques to start 2022 off right.
