The practice of gratitude, meditation, and deep breathing does wonders for calming your physical and emotional being. When you feel overwhelmed, anxious, or depressed, try a guided gratitude meditation to help ground you. Gratitude is the acceptance and recognition of positive experiences and the understanding of how these benefit your life. It is a state of mind in which we can reflect on the things that we can be grateful for as they are. Feeling grateful triggers positivity that reflects in your subconscious mind influencing your behavior towards people around you.

• One way is to begin journaling about the things in your life that you are grateful for right now.
• To truly enjoy gratitude, try to be present in each moment when you’re with someone or doing something you love.
• Inspiration and motivation work together to support a focus on recovery.
• In recovery, we are given the space to be grateful, but it still takes time to practice and train the mind to notice and cherish the beauty in life.

By cultivating a thankful mindset, individuals in recovery can start to appreciate the good in their lives and find hope and encouragement to continue on the path towards sobriety. Researchers consistently find that a practice of gratitude leads to greater levels of happiness and other positive emotions, improved mental and physical health, and stronger interpersonal relationships. The benefits are for everyone, but for individuals in recovery it they are especially powerful. Gratitude strengthens sobriety, reduces relapses, and provides generally better outcomes after treatment. The benefits of gratitude might sound very nice but what if you don’t feel very grateful? People typically seek help for addiction at a low point in their lives.

How Gratitude Benefits Mental Health and Brain Function

These ideas apply to anyone and everyone—being and feeling grateful just makes life better. You could draw, write, paint, garden, smith, smash pumpkins, whatever. Get in touch with your creative side, especially if you haven’t before. It’s a great way to process tough emotions and trauma, and it’s a whole new language to view and express yourself. Gratitude will help you seek out these connections and communities, find and feel value in them, and share positive, connecting sentiments with people who have earned your trust.

This is not to say negative emotions should be overlooked or ignored, but obsessive or continuous negative thinking is hazardous to a healthy recovery. One of the simplest and most effective ways to practice gratitude is to keep a gratitude journal. Each day, take some time to write down a few things you are grateful for. It can be anything from the big (e.g., “I’m grateful for my sobriety”) to the small (e.g., “I’m grateful for a sunny day”).

Why is Gratitude Important in Recovery?

It’s much better to be sincere and specific, even when thanking someone for something relatively small. A gratitude journal is basically like the intervention used in the study above. Just write down three things https://ecosoberhouse.com/ you felt grateful for that day or that week. The study above asked participants to write once a week for 10 weeks but you can probably speed things up by writing every day for the first couple of weeks.

Especially in early recovery, there are a lot of emotions that surface that are no longer being numbed by drugs or alcohol, and these emotions can sometimes feel overwhelming. No matter what your religious or spiritual beliefs, taking some time each day to say thank you to your Higher Power is a great way to cultivate more things to be grateful for in your life. This multiplies and before you know it your life is beyond your wildest dreams. Get a jar of any kind and when something good happens write it on a strip of paper and put it in the jar. Then each day (once you get some stockpiled) take one out and remember what you have to be happy about. And just as with any other habit, with regular practice, grateful thoughts can become your everyday way of thinking.

What are some ways to cultivate a thankful mindset in addiction recovery?

It’s important to keep in mind that things don’t have to have any significance for you to be grateful for them. The sun could be shining, someone could have wished you a good day, you could have a good book, have woken up happy, or any number of other seemingly insignificant things. Think about little things that make you happy on a day to day basis. For example, the taste of coffee or your favorite dish, your favorite TV show, learning something, a joke.

• We deliver whole-person, comprehensive care and are passionate about transforming the quality, delivery, and accessibility of addiction & mental health treatment.
• An offhand “thanks” is better than nothing but it’s not terribly meaningful.
• If you’re having difficulty staying clean or battling cravings, it might be best to seek help at a reputable drug rehab center.
• Our Certified Recovery Agents specialize in making rehab accessible to anyone with an at-home, concierge recovery approach.
• At Gateway in Chicago, Illinois, we want to support you so you can find a life of gratitude and sobriety.

The entirety of our lives becomes something about which we feel gratitude, thankful that our lives are now firmly rooted in our recovery. Gratitude, referred to as one of the “foundational virtues in the creation of happiness” [3], works at combatting the negative emotions that may be present in recovery. Individuals who are more appreciative of their life, the people in it, and their own strength often feel more in control of their lives and emotions. These feelings are essential during a time when things may feel beyond one’s control.

At its core, gratitude involves feeling thankful for positive experiences or people in one’s life. This active process of recognizing and appreciating what one has, rather than focusing on negativity or lack, can have profound effects on mental health. The quicker you can assume a position of feeling gratitude for being sober, the more likely your recovery will be successful and make a lasting impact on your ability to maintain sobriety.

So, let’s dive deeper into the ways in which gratitude can enhance addiction recovery, and how to make it a part of your daily routine. Research confirms what those in recovery have long known – gratitude leads to a greater sense of well-being, happiness, and life satisfaction1. It is easy to understand why these traits would be important in long-term recovery. While the benefits of gratitude are clear, learning how to cultivate and practice gratitude can be tricky, especially early in recovery. The power of gratitude in addiction recovery lies in its ability to shift the focus of the mind away from negative thoughts and emotions and towards positive ones.

Why Should I Choose a Treatment Center Over Alternative Medicine?

You can choose to do this if you need a structured way to consistently notice what you are thankful for. If you or a loved one are struggling with mental health or substance abuse, we can help. Do what makes you feel good and healthy and positive about the day. The world of mental healthcare and counseling uses various terminologies to describe treatments, mental health conditions‌, and more.

Being able to recognize all those who help us get through life brings a sense of radiance into our everyday demeanor setting an example that paying it forward only leads to prosperity. Having trouble focusing your why is gratitude important in recovery gratitude onto a specific person, place or thing? It’s an attitude of appreciation where we internally acknowledge the blessings that our life already contains, and we shift our focus away from what we lack.

Begin Your Recovery Journey Today

Gratitude is like a run-away train that starts with a single emotion, simply being grateful. Focusing on gratitude makes it much harder to dwell on negative experiences, memories, or emotions. There are a number of ways to improve the quality and quantity of your sleep, including keeping a regular sleep schedule and practicing good sleep hygiene.