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Just 15 Minutes of Gratitude a Day Can Make You Significantly Happier

Inc. Life by Jessica Stillman

If you lift heavy weights daily, you will soon find it easier to lift them. Similarly, research shows that if you look for the positive in life, you will soon find it easier to see the positive. Just as physical exercise alters our muscles, practising gratitude alters our brain to make optimism easier. And optimism, a range of studies show, will likely make you a happier and more successful person.

Which raises an obvious point. If you want weightlifting to make a difference in your life, you must put in significant time and weather significant discomfort. It doesn't work unless you sweat and strain. Is the same true of gratitude? 

Recent studies show that just 15 minutes a day of dead simple gratitude exercises is enough to change your mental well-being significantly.

15 minutes a day leads to 6 months of benefits

This happy insight comes from a team of Dutch researchers who recently recruited 200 volunteers for a study. The participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The control group did nothing different. Another group focused on performing acts of self-kindness like taking a bubble bath or buying themselves a treat. A final group was asked to do a gratitude exercise for 10 to 15 minutes daily.

After six weeks, how did the three groups fare? While just 13 per cent of the control group and 19 per cent of the self-care group reported greater well-being after six weeks, a third of those practising gratitude felt better. Even more impressively, the grateful group still felt the exercises' positive effects six months later.

Putting these findings into practice

If you have 15 minutes and some pen and paper, you can use these findings to improve your mental health.

15 minutes each day focusing on the positive through exercises like:

Journaling about things you are grateful for.

Listing three things you're grateful for each day.

Writing a letter to someone expressing your gratitude.

Using mindfulness meditation to focus on what you are grateful for. 

Practising saying "thank you" in a sincere and meaningful way.

Engaging in these simple interventions shouldn't cause you to break a sweat. Instead, they should bring a smile to your face today — and may strengthen your brain's ability to see the sunny side for months to come.