Practising daily gratitude is a well known stress reducer, in fact it has holistic benefits for mental and physical wellbeing as you can find out in our previous blog. One of the most helpful books we have read about relieving stress is The Stress Solution by Dr Rangan Chatterjee. As part of this Dr Rangan shares a simple gratitude practice - practising the 3 P’s - that focuses your mind on gratitude in order to reduce your stress levels.
Dr Rangan encourages you to try this practice in the evening as it can be a particularly effective way to lower stress, enabling you to switch off more easily and sleep more deeply.
Practising the 3 P’s goes beyond simply saying thank you; it encourages you to go beyond thankfulness into practising loving kindness. It takes the gratitude you feel and projects it towards person, pleasure and promise.
Take a few minutes now, where you are, and give it a go.
Person
Think of a person you feel grateful for today and using all the power you can muster, focus on wishing them gratitude.
Pleasure
Think of a pleasure you have experienced today. It might be a really tasty meal or a new memory that you have made. Relive the memory in your imagination and allow a powerful feeling of gratitude to flood your body, mind and soul.
Promise
To finish off, think about something that popped up today that has held some promise for the future. It could be plans to meet a friend for coffee later in the week, the arrival of a new pair of shoes you have ordered in a couple of days or the holiday plans you have booked in later in the month. Imagine that thing happening and focus powerfully on feeling gratitude for the hope that it is giving to you.
To make the practice more powerful, Dr Rangan suggests writing these things down.
How did you find doing this?
Do you think it is a practice you will continue?
For some people this will really resonate as a way to practise gratitude. For others it won’t feel right. Sometimes it takes having a few goes to work out if a gratitude practice fits. It’s important to remember that there is no ‘one way’ to practise gratitude and it’s something that can be creatively expressed.
This is just one of three different ways of expressing gratitude that we’ll be sharing over the next week. Look out for our next simple gratitude practice tomorrow from Lydia at Works for Me Coaching.