The How of Happiness<\/a> to learn more about Lyubomirsky’s research around expressing gratitude and to give the other activities she suggests a try!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019ve poked around Pinterest or Instagram, I’m sure you’ve seen bullet journal gratitude logs — and maybe you have one yourself! They’re very popular pages to add to your BUJO and there’s a reason why. Did you know that expressing gratitude is proven to help make you a happier person? In this post, I’d love to share some interesting research that backs this up and my own ideas and tips for expressing gratitude in your bullet journal! One of my favorite “how-to” books backed by science is The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want by professor Sonja Lyubomirsky. Based on years of research into how to actually cultivate more happiness, the book’s premise is that we can control about 40% of our own happiness. According to Lyubomirsky, the other 60% of our happiness comes from circumstances (only 10%) and a “set point” of happiness which is genetic (50%). That’s right: our circumstances only affect 10% of our happiness. I don’t know about you, but this really gives me hope about achieving a higher level of happiness in spite of major stress or a chronic illness. When I first read Lyubomirsky book 10 years ago, I was incredibly intrigued by her stories of the study participants and the results she was seeing. I was excited, actually! I decided to give her “Happiness Activities” a try. What are the “Happiness Activities”? Let’s take a peek at those and then we’ll focus on the very first item on her list: Expressing Gratitude. The Happiness Activities First, a small disclaimer: I highly recommend reading the book to get the full context of the activities. The book has much more insight around both the activities and how to practice them, so I really recommend picking it up if you want to learn more. #1 Expressing Gratitude #2 Cultivating Optimism #3 Avoiding Overthinking and Social Comparison #4 Practicing Acts of Kindness #5 Nurturing Social Relationships #6 Developing Strategies for Coping #7 Learning to Forgive #8 Increasing Flow Activities #9 Savoring Life\u2019s Joys #10 Committing to Your Goals #11 Practicing Religion and Spirituality #12 Taking Care of Your Body \u2013 Meditation, Physical Activity, and Acting Like a Happy Person If you’d like a printable of these happiness activities to add to your bullet journal or planner, head over to the Free Printables Library and join the newsletter to get access! A Gratitude Log Helps You Feel Good Professor Lyubomirsky describes research that shows how expressing gratitude can not only bolster positive emotion and happiness, but it can also have health benefits. Sounds like a win-win to me! She explains how simply thinking about what we’re grateful for just isn’t enough. We’ve got to express it to get the full benefits! Writing about what I’m grateful for each day is a simple activity and it’s delightful to set aside time in my bullet journal to intentionally and mindfully express my gratitude. And I’ve found that regularly focusing on what I am grateful for does indeed help me feel happier. I also feel more affection and warm feelings towards my husband and family since many of my gratitude entries revolve around them.\ud83d\udc9c Expressing Gratitude in Creative Ways I’ve tried different ways of expressing my gratitude, which also helps feed my creativity. I am spending much more time being mindful within the space of gratitude, which feels more meaningful. I recommend trying different methods to see what works best for you! The most popular gratitude page in the bullet journal community is a “gratitude log” and usually consists of writing one line each day (in fact, it can often be referred to as “one line a day”). This is really nice because it only takes a moment. But after really thinking about it more, I’ve wondered if this is the best way to reflect in the moment about what you’re grateful for? I decided that this bullet-list format is best suited for: Days when I am tired or not feeling well, but I still want to capture something I’m grateful for. It takes very little time to write something down. Great for tracking and reflecting \u2014 it’s easy to scan the list later to see how I felt over the month and get a quick look at many reasons to be grateful. Could be great to read again on “down days”. I’ve also experimented with writing around a theme — focusing on one area in my life I’m grateful for. For example, last March I decided to think about what happened that month that made me feel grateful. Since Spring is one of my favorite times of the year, I chose to write about why I love Spring so much. This long-form intentional writing exercise felt amazing because I could just write out what I was feeling with less constraints and just get lost in the exercise. I also spent some time drawing in my journal to illustrate one of my favorite things about Spring (sandhill cranes returning) and I found this to be very soothing and peaceful. More Bullet Journal Gratitude Ideas! My expression of gratitude has now grown to include several more pages that I use every single month. Next to my gratitude page lives a new page called “Celebrations”. This page is not just for “big wins” but for small things, as well. It holds everything from job promotions to my dog learning not to bark at the mailman (we’re making progress, so that’s a win!). Another page I’ve been using is something I title “love story” and it revolves around my marriage. This page is sort of a mash-up of moments I’m grateful for and memories I want to remember. I can often be found gushing about how much I love my husband, which I honestly did not know how to express before I added this to my BUJO. I know it sounds a little too “sweet” but it’s really true — this page has helped me recognize all of the amazing things about my husband and our marriage. How do you express gratitude or count your blessings inside your bullet journal? I hope this has given you some ideas or motivation on how important this activity can be, especially if you are feeling low or suffer from chronic pain or other symptoms regularly. I encourage you to read The How of Happiness to learn more about Lyubomirsky’s research around expressing gratitude and to give the other activities she suggests a try!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1635,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,102],"tags":[17],"yoast_head":"\n
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They’re very popular pages to add to your BUJO and there’s a reason why. Did you know that expressing gratitude is proven to help make you a happier person? In this post, I’d…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineconepapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineconepapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineconepapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineconepapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineconepapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1617"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pineconepapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1707,"href":"https:\/\/pineconepapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617\/revisions\/1707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineconepapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineconepapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineconepapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineconepapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"bullet](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pineconepapers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/bullet-journal-gratitude-happiness-activities.jpg?resize=1024%2C647&ssl=1\")
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