Why you really should count your blessings

January 14, 2012

Guest Blog by Jo Middleton

Christmas this year for us was very much the standard schedule – up first thing to open stocking presents, eat bagels and smoked salmon and drink bucks fizz, then a short break for showers before we move on to the next pile of gifts. It feels like we have different family and friends visiting for days on end, each bringing more and more presents.

Understandably, by the end of all this excess my nine year old has rather lost perspective.

To try and ensure she doesn’t turn into Veruca Salt, one of her presents this year was a diary. “It isn’t for you to list your complaints in,” I warned her, “this is a special kind of diary. This is a gratitude diary.”

“What’s that then?” she asked, looking sceptical.

“Well, every day you make a list of things you’re grateful for. They don’t have to be big things.”

“Like what?” she asked, still not looking convinced.

“Maybe you could be grateful for having your own lovely bedroom, or getting a penguin bar in your lunchbox, or having such a fabulous Mummy?” I suggested.

She raised her eyebrows, but smiled, and started to decorate the front with star shaped stickers.

Of all the self-help style techniques that promise a more positive attitude to life, the gratitude journal has some of the best evidence behind it. Repeated studies have shown that the act of being grateful, particularly when written down, can have numerous emotional and physical health benefits. People who keep a gratitude journal have been shown to feel better about their lives as a whole, feel more positive about the future, get more sleep and even have a reduced risk of heart attack.

Now that’s something to be grateful for isn’t it?

Filed under: Baby & Toddler