How to Feel Thankful and Find Calm with a Gratitude Meditation

Even long before I became a mom and felt the pull of a thousand seemingly urgent tasks vying for my attention, I desperately needed a quick way to re-center and flip my perspective to focus on the positive. As a person prone to anxiety and depression, I’ve become intimately familiar with the question, “have you tried meditation?” as I’ve encountered it approximately seven billion times throughout my life. And while I have dabbled in a variety of meditation formats to try and slow down and live in the moment, gratitude meditation specifically has been uniquely effective in helping me appreciate even the most chaotic moments of everyday life.

Research has shown that meditation in general has a long list of documented benefits, including reduced stress, better sleep, improved memory, and many more. Gratitude meditation is no exception—but the act of intentionally recognizing and appreciating even the smallest details of your day-to-day can also improve your ability to regulate your emotions and find the motivation to keep striving for your definition of success. 

While gratitude meditation might feel particularly timely around holidays like Thanksgiving, the practice is a particularly powerful form of meditation you can practice year-round to enhance your well-being. 

What Is Gratitude Meditation?

Gratitude meditation is a type of meditation that serves to manifest and cultivate a feeling of deep appreciation. But just as there is no one single way to meditate, there are a variety of ways to practice meditation for gratitude specifically. 

“Gratitude meditation simply means your one point of focus is specifically centered on everything for which you are grateful,” says Peloton instructor Chelsea Jackson Roberts. “When we practice gratitude meditations, we are creating even more opportunities for abundance and connection.”

And while gratitude itself is the act of feeling and expressing appreciation, the circumstances of your life don’t necessarily have to be ideal in order for you to be grateful. “Gratitude doesn’t mean that things are perfect,” says Peloton instructor Aditi Shah. “Rather, it’s the ability to acknowledge that, in the midst of anything—even heartbreak, isolation, and worry—there is something to say ‘thank you’ for.”

Cultivating a deep appreciation for both big and small aspects of your life can be a potent tool for building greater overall happiness. Regularly focusing on the positive parts of your everyday existence has been shown to support mental and physical health, improve sleep, reduce stress, and more.

“Neuroscience has shown that different types of meditation practices quite literally change your brain,” Aditi says. “Meditation strengthens our ability to be in the moment and to have the space to choose how we respond to life. When we meditate, we are able to allow ourselves to feel whatever we need and, alongside that, cultivate compassion and gratitude. This translates to real life in a way that we can count our blessings and make our blessings count.” 

Benefits of Gratitude Meditation

While all forms of meditation can offer extensive benefits, gratitude meditation has some specific perks that have been well documented by researchers. 

“The benefits include higher energy levels, increased levels of happiness, and feeling more relaxed, happier, and healthier,” says licensed therapist Tessa Gordon. “Gratitude releases dopamine, the ‘feel-good’ neurotransmitter that releases feelings of joy and contentment.” This dopamine boost improves your mood, Gordon says, but it also creates a positive feedback loop and encourages an ongoing gratitude practice—meaning the more you practice gratitude meditation, the more you’ll probably want to keep at it.

In addition to producing a significant dopamine hit, gratitude meditation is associated with a long list of other benefits as well, including: 

While many of us are reminded of the feel-good effects of gratitude during the holiday season, Chelsea says gratitude meditation serves a strong purpose year-round. “Gratitude meditations are great to incorporate on your good days and your challenging days,” she says. “With daily practice, moments of gratitude become a lot easier to recognize because we are strengthening our awareness around gratitude through meditation. When we practice all year long, it makes special occasions like Thanksgiving even more potent because we can even begin and/or end the holiday with a gratitude meditation.”

How to Practice Gratitude Meditation

The simplest way to ensure you’re immersing yourself in a comprehensive guided gratitude meditation is to seek out expert-led classes, like those offered on the Peloton App. “The gratitude meditations I guide are designed to use our gratitude as fuel to remind ourselves that we are worthy of the space and time to slow down, listen, and breathe,” Chelsea says. 

With that in mind, here are a few general tips to keep in mind as you begin or deepen your gratitude meditation practice:

Set Yourself up for Success

Gratitude meditation is unique in that it stems from appreciation and thankfulness, but the foundations will look similar to many other types of meditation. Before beginning a meditation for gratitude, you’ll generally want to follow a few best practices:

Consider Writing About Your Gratitude Before Beginning

This is an optional step, but there are some benefits of putting your gratitude on paper before officially starting your meditation. “Before practicing, try creating a list or freewriting all of the things that you are grateful for for one minute before beginning your meditation,” Chelsea suggests.

You can also practice this step by itself if you don’t have time to combine journaling with your meditation sessions. “A lot of research shows that writing down what you are grateful for is helpful, so starting a gratitude journal or list can be another great option as a gratitude practice,” Gordon says.

Reflect on What You’re Thankful for, As Well As Your Challenges

Meditation for gratitude can center around all the positive things you’re thankful for, whether it’s something large like your family or something seemingly smaller, like “being thankful for the flower you saw on your walk,” Gordon says. But you can also be grateful for the obstacles and tough times you experience and the lessons they teach you, using those to fuel your gratitude. In fact, “gratitude meditations are particularly beneficial when you are experiencing or going through a challenging time,” Chelsea says.

As you breathe in and out during your practice, see what naturally comes to mind when you consider what you’re thankful for—and then anchor your meditation around that gratitude. 

Integrate Gratitude Meditations Into Your Existing Schedule

To make the practice stick, try to find an open window in your routine where you can slot in gratitude meditations. “Find a time of day to practice, set a reminder, and see if you can build a daily habit,” Gordon recommends. “Even better if you can pair this with something you are already doing, such as sipping your morning coffee, watering your plants, walking your dog, or sitting outside as the sun rises.” 

The Takeaway

Practicing gratitude is a powerful way to foster positive thoughts and emotions, which can, in turn, positively influence your overall well-being. Using gratitude as your single point of focus during meditation can be a seriously effective way to create and nurture feelings of deep appreciation and abundance, which can not only improve your outlook on life, but your mental and physical health as well. To practice gratitude meditation, it can be helpful to set yourself up in a peaceful place, just as you would for any other type of meditation practice, close your eyes, pay attention to your breathing, and focus your thoughts on all the things, big and small, that you’re grateful for in life.

While dedicating some time each day to a traditional gratitude meditation practice can help you hone your ability to feel and express appreciation for the big and small parts of life, you can cultivate gratitude any time, anywhere and still reap the benefits. “In a way, gratitude leads the way to generosity, a sort of goodness in the way that we show up in the world,” Aditi says. “When we can acknowledge the goodness in the world, we can open the doors to our own hearts.”