As exam season starts for many students, a certain amount of stress is inevitable. Assignment deadlines start to pile up from multiple classes, study sessions become longer, and all the other usual responsibilities must still be looked after. There is no single activity or strategy that can eliminate stress and help you stay productive in all these different areas. Instead, multiple approaches and actions are necessary, such as time management, prioritizing tasks, and basic self-care activities like sleeping, exercising, eating healthy, and performing necessary chores. But aside from all of these important behaviours, a certain relaxing habit can help you achieve your goals in these other areas: practicing gratitude.
Gratitude might seem like a strange thing to focus on to manage stress and anxiety, as it is yet another task that you have to carry out during an already busy time. But some specific features make it both easy to include in your schedule and effective in improving your productivity and mental well-being. First of all, gratitude exercises are not time-consuming. Five minutes of reflecting and writing about what you are grateful for can help you start the day with a positive and focused attitude or end the day with a peaceful and relaxed state of mind. Secondly, while gratitude exercises are not the same as completely relaxed free time, they are a type of relaxation practice that can help you recharge and rest your mind rather than another tiring responsibility. They fit more in the category of things like sleep and recovery than in the category of work. Finally, there is significant medical and scientific evidence that gratitude is effective for improving a variety of mental and physical aspects, like sleep quality, mood, and even the strength of your immune system (Mayo Clinic). These reasons and many more are great motivators to begin practicing gratitude.
Gratitude activities do not have to be very disciplined or structured, and you do not have to do the same activity every time. For example, one day, you might take five minutes in the morning while you are lying in bed to think of three things you are grateful for and how they make you feel. Another day, you could take a few minutes before bed to think of what parts of your day you are most grateful to have experienced. Or maybe you can take some time while you are petting your cat or dog to think about why you are grateful to have them in your life. Anything that brings to mind positive or meaningful things in your life can be used as a gratitude activity. The important thing is that you find a way to make it a consistent habit. To see a change in how you feel and act, practicing gratitude once every few months is not enough. Taking time to be grateful at least a few times a week is better, and every day is best if you want the maximum effect.
While more relaxed gratitude activities can be a great way to improve your life without getting bored, some people find it helpful to do the same thing every day. A great activity for this is journaling. Writing about what you feel grateful for and about how gratitude makes you feel can help you reflect a bit deeper and gain some knowledge about yourself and your life. A great template to follow is to choose a length that you have to write for, either in space (1⁄2 a page) or time (5 minutes). You can then fill that required length by first listing the things you are grateful for at that time and then describing in more detail why you are grateful for them and how they make you feel. For example, maybe I am feeling grateful about my cat, Ham. I can write about how I am grateful that she makes me feel a sense of responsibility to take care of her and how this makes me take my responsibility of taking care of myself more seriously. I can write that I am grateful for the funny sounds she makes when she wakes me up in the morning to feed her and that she helps me get up before my alarm clock. And then I can write about the emotions this reflection causes, that I feel warm and relaxed thinking about my fuzzy friend, and that she helps me feel like I have someone around all the time.
Of course, this is just an example. Maybe you don’t have a pet or do not feel grateful for your family member’s annoying pet right now. That’s fine. The point of gratitude is not to force yourself to feel grateful for things you don’t like but to focus on the positive things that you are grateful for. Even if you can’t think of anything right away, just sitting down and thinking or writing about the fact that you don’t feel grateful right now can help you take a closer look at your life. The next time you try to practice gratitude, you will probably find that something comes to mind more easily since you have thought more about it. The important thing is to try a little bit each day.
