When you think about maintaining a healthy lifestyle, you may think about your diet, staying physically active, sleeping well, or socializing, and while these are crucial factors that help us maintain a healthy lifestyle, there are other ways we can take care of our bodies that we may not have considered. We feel many emotions throughout our day, and we may not realize the impact that these can have on our health. In particular, feeling gratitude has some scientifically proven benefits to our health. Practicing gratitude can be beneficial to our health in many ways. Listed below are seven health benefits of gratitude that Time Health has highlighted:

1. Gratitude can make you more patient. Time Health mentions research done by Northeastern University which found that people who feel grateful for small, everyday things were more patient and made more sensible decisions than those who didn’t.
2. Gratitude might improve your relationship. A study in the Journal of Theoretical Social Psychology found that feeling grateful toward your partner — and vice versa — can improve your relationship. Feeling grateful can help with feelings of connectedness and satisfaction.
3. Gratitude improves self-care. There have been positive correlations between feeling gratitude and eating healthy and exercising. This research demonstrates that being grateful can improve your overall health.
4. Gratitude can help you sleep. According to the Journal of Psychosomatic Research, people who showed gratitude had greater subjective sleep quality and sleep duration and less sleep latency and daytime dysfunction. Gratitude leads to positive thoughts, which soothe the nervous system.
5. Gratitude may stop you from overeating. Scientist Susan Peirce Thompson states that gratitude replenishes willpower. Feelings of gratitude can improve our impulse control which enables us to make better decisions.
6. Gratitude can help ease depression. Appreciating good moments throughout your day can improve depression and overall happiness. When you prompt yourself to think about the good, you start to see the good more often throughout your day.
7. Gratitude gives you happiness that lasts. Taking the time to be grateful results in more satisfaction for a long time because it is something that a person will learn to do more often and can become a good habit that helps you see the positive in your life.

As can be seen, the health benefits of gratitude are continuous and are reason enough to be more grateful. If you wish to see the benefits that gratitude can bring to your health, begin by practicing gratitude in your everyday lives. Remember to practice gratitude for the little things and have patience developing a consistent mindset of gratitude. As you continue to practice gratitude, you will begin to see the health benefits for yourself and those around you.