Holiday celebrations may look different this year, but gratitude may run deeper than ever
Every year, Thanksgiving is noted for what that name implies: giving thanks. We gather friends and family, celebrate our blessings and time together with a feast, and take a moment to reflect on what being thankful means.
Although this year will look very different for most families, and the feasts will be smaller and less attended, we can still see Thanksgiving as the traditional kickoff to the holiday season. Most of all, we can cultivate an even deeper sense of gratitude than ever before, because now we have an idea of what we may have taken for granted in the past. We can see this holiday season not as an exception to the norm, but as an opportunity instead—to explore gratitude itself and develop a practice that matters.
At UG2, we’ve been focusing on gratitude for the past several months and have developed a challenge¨ for employees that takes only minutes a day but resonates for much longer. For example, here are seven prompts you can try, with one per day as your own gratitude practice:
- Growth: How have you grown over the past year? Or how have you seen someone or something else grow?
- Knowledge: Is there knowledge you’ve gained this year for which you’re particularly grateful? What resources or connections have you tapped into that have increased your knowledge?
- Love: How do you share love in your life? How do you accept it? How does it make you feel when think of the word “love”?
- Music: What kind of music do you enjoy most? What songs make you feel uplifted and energized? What song are you most thankful for right now?
- Nature: What is inspiring or beautiful about nature? What elements of nature do you most connect with? What element of the natural world are you most grateful for experiencing?
- Creativity: What have you created recently, and how did it make you feel? What would you like to create more of?
- Memory: What’s a treasured memory from your past, and what was wonderful about it? How do you feel when you think about it?
Taking the time to pause and reflect on questions like these—making every day into a mini-Thanksgiving, in a way—isn’t just a nice practice, research has shown it has demonstratable health benefits.
Research from the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California Berkeley found that those who adopted a regular gratitude practice had lower levels of stress and anxiety, and brain scans showed they even had more activity in parts of the brain associated with learning and decision-making.
A study published in Psychiatry found those who had higher levels of gratitude reported a greater sense of well-being overall—and that feeling has a ripple effect on other health markers, such as blood pressure, sleep quality, nutritional choices, and immune system function.
This year, those type of benefits are more important than ever before, as we work to keep ourselves and our families healthy and safe. Let’s not confine Thanksgiving to just the traditional holiday, but instead, see it as a chance to be more grateful, every day.