{"id":7444,"date":"2016-10-03T06:01:42","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T10:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/?p=7444"},"modified":"2018-12-29T09:46:49","modified_gmt":"2018-12-29T13:46:49","slug":"use-gratitude-to-be-happier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/7444\/use-gratitude-to-be-happier\/","title":{"rendered":"Use <I>Gratitude<\/I> to Be Happier"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>This article is in our series about\u00a0<strong>increasing happiness<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>life satisfaction<\/strong>. \u00a0Many people with chronic pain can\u2019t\u00a0decrease their pain. \u00a0So another way to live a more enjoyable and fulfilling life \u2013\u00a0perhaps even more\u00a0important \u2013\u00a0is to\u00a0increase the positive. \u00a0That\u2019s what we\u2019ll be looking at in this series.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mainImage accessible nofocus\" tabindex=\"0\" title=\"View source image\" src=\"http:\/\/images.huffingtonpost.com\/2014-11-26-gratitude2.jpg\" alt=\"Image result for gratitude\" width=\"264\" height=\"130\" data-bm=\"14\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The first way we&#8217;ll look at to increase positive emotions is <em><strong>gratitude<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Gratitude is noticing what you are grateful for and saying thanks.\u00a0 It can be for something small:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">a warm, rich cup of coffee<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">your friend forwarding you a funny joke<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">the perfect afternoon temperature for your walk<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And it can be for something big:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>your 20th wedding anniversary, married to your best friend<\/li>\n<li>your kids turning out to be wonderful people<\/li>\n<li>a 2 week vacation in Hawaii<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As we said previously, our brains are wired to\u00a0notice the negative, so we need to make an effort to notice good things.\u00a0 And I&#8217;ve found that when I make an effort to notice positive things, I find more and more things to be positive about!\u00a0 A good cycle!\u00a0\u00a0 Research confirms that practicing gratitude\u00a0makes you happier.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Your assignment:\u00a0 Notice 3 things each day that you&#8217;re grateful for.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Keep a running list all day or spend a few minutes every evening remembering 3 good things from your day.<\/p>\n<p>More info about gratitude:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/1865\/gratitude-for-your-body\/\">Gratitude for your Body<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article is in our series about\u00a0increasing happiness\u00a0and\u00a0life satisfaction. \u00a0Many people with chronic pain can\u2019t\u00a0decrease their pain. \u00a0So another way to live a more enjoyable and fulfilling life \u2013\u00a0perhaps even more\u00a0important \u2013\u00a0is to\u00a0increase the positive. \u00a0That\u2019s what we\u2019ll be looking at in this series. The first way we&#8217;ll look at to increase positive emotions is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7444"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7990,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7444\/revisions\/7990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}