Thanksgiving offers us the opportunity to count our blessings. But beyond thinking about what makes us thankful, writing about it can be even more beneficial. Try a Thirty Day Thankfulness Challenge and see how putting your gratitude in writing can improve your wellbeing and even bless others in the process. Here are several ideas for expressing your thankfulness over the next month. Any way you write it, there’s bound to be a positive result.
Gratitude Journal
Thirty Days of Thankfulness
A variety of scientific studies show that writing down our gratitudes can increase happiness and optimism and decrease stress and even inflammation.
Consider keeping a gratitude journal for the month of November. Buy a brand new journal for the project or add to a journal you’ve already started. There is no right or wrong way to practice gratefulness journaling. You could choose one gratitude a day and write a page about why you’re thankful. If you’re less inclined to wax poetic, you could use colored pencils, markers or gel pens to express your gratitude. You could even choose to add three to five items each day to a running list.
If you struggle to identify blessings, remember that gratitude can extend from big picture categories like freedom and health all the way down to the minutiae of any given moment, like the reading glasses that help you read this page.
Thank You Notes
Bring Back the Tradition
The Emily Post Institute declares that handwritten thank you notes accomplish more than “fulfilling bare-minimum social obligations.” Rather, they are an “opportunity for us to connect to the people in our lives in a meaningful way.” And beyond the message itself, a handwritten note shows that you care enough to invest your time and energy into acknowledging another person.
Even Harvard University has chimed in on the topic of sending and receiving thank you notes, reporting that it can have positive psychological effects for both the sender and recipient.
Rather than saving thank yous for gifts given, consider writing one thank you note each day leading up to Thanksgiving to people in your family, professional and friend group who make a positive impact in your life. Mail your sentiments to those who won’t be with you and use folded notes as place cards for those who will be at your table.
Get the Family Involved
Blessing Boards, Joy Jars and M&Ms
Get your children, grandchildren and other family members aboard the thankfulness train with an activity for ages 4 through 104.
-Use a chalkboard, dry erase board or even a piece of poster paper to create a Blessing Board. Write “Thankful” in the center and give everyone the opportunity to add two or three items that make them grateful.
-All you need is an empty jar, cut-up slips of paper and a pen to create a Joy Jar. Set a period of time, whether it’s all month or a couple of hours, and encourage others to write down what makes them thankful. Read out the slips of paper at Thanksgiving dinner.
-For a fun game that involves no writing, pass around a bowl of M&Ms or other small candies. Have everyone take a handful, anywhere from one to ten candies. Then go around the room or the table and have everyone name one gratitude for each of the candies in their hands.