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Mindful Gratitude: A Simple Practice to Improve Your Mental Well-being
Gratitude often gets packaged as toxic positivity when people insist you should just focus on the good things and stop feeling bad. That shallow interpretation misses the point and can make you feel worse when you’re struggling.
Mindful gratitude practice doesn’t ask you to ignore difficult emotions or pretend everything is fine.
At Mind Space Wellness, LLC, in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Caroline Bjorkman, DO, helps patients use mindful gratitude as one tool among many to support mental health treatment — not as a replacement for addressing actual problems.
Your brain gets stuck in threat-scanning mode
Depression and anxiety train your brain to constantly search for what’s wrong. This happens because your nervous system thinks it’s protecting you by staying alert to danger.
The problem is that this threat-scanning becomes automatic. You walk into a room and immediately notice the person who didn’t say hello, rather than the three people who smiled at you. You finish a work project and fixate on the one mistake instead of the many things you did well.
Mindful gratitude helps interrupt this pattern by deliberately noticing the positive things that are also true alongside the difficulties.
Mindful gratitude means noticing without forcing
Mindful gratitude practice doesn’t require you to feel thankful for things that hurt you or to manufacture positive feelings when you’re depressed.
Instead, Dr. Bjorkman teaches you to simply notice moments of relief, comfort, or connection without judgment about whether you should feel more grateful. You might notice:
- A text from someone who checked in
- The comfort of your when you’re exhausted
- Getting through a challenging conversation
- A few minutes without pain or anxiety
The practice works because you’re acknowledging what’s present without dismissing your challenges. Both realities can coexist.
The practice is different from positive thinking
Positive thinking tries to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. Mindful gratitude doesn’t work that way. You’re not arguing with your brain or trying to convince yourself things are better than they feel.
Dr. Bjorkman helps you understand that this practice expands awareness rather than changing how you think. You’re training your attention to include a fuller picture instead of only the threats your anxious brain fixates on.
Research shows that gratitude practices can even lead to better sleep quality, lower risk of depression, and improved cardiovascular health markers. The practice doesn’t cure mental health problems, but it can make symptoms more manageable over time.
Starting small prevents mindful gratitude from becoming another task
Many people abandon gratitude practices because they turn them into one more obligation. You don’t need to write in a journal every day or come up with profound realizations about what you’re thankful for.
Start by noticing just one thing each day. It might happen in 30 seconds while you’re brushing your teeth or waiting for coffee to brew. There’s no minimum standard for what counts.
Ways to keep mindful gratitude manageable
You can build this into moments you already have rather than carving out extra time. Some options that might work for you include:
- Noticing one thing while making breakfast
- Mentally noting something during your commute
- Observing one moment right before bed
- Pausing for 10 seconds after finishing a work task
The key is consistency without perfectionism. Missing days doesn’t mean you failed. Coming back to the practice matters more than never skipping it.
The benefits build slowly with repeated practice
Like most therapeutic techniques, small changes compound over time. Your brain gradually gets better at noticing a wider range of experiences rather than just scanning for threats.
Dr. Bjorkman often combines gratitude practices with other treatments like psychotherapy and medication management because mental health requires multiple approaches working together.
If you’re interested in learning how mindful gratitude might fit into your mental health treatment, contact our offices in Fort Lee, New Jersey, or the Upper West Side of Manhattan to schedule an appointment with Dr. Bjorkman and our team.