New year new you? Gratitude is a feeling as well as a practice. We practice gratitude by finding gratitude and creating gratitude in our life. As a result, we feel more gratitude.

Gratitude is scientifically proven to change the brain, increase positive thinking, and reduce stress. It is said that gratitude is the attitude in recovery and that those who find and act on an attitude of gratitude will be sober for a lifetime.

Developing a gratitude practice takes time. Starting on the development of a gratitude practice in January opens up an entire year of trying different forms of gratitude. Some men in recovery keep a gratitude journal, but there are many ways to bring more gratitude into your life. Here are four ways:

• Keep a gratitude journal: Starting off a gratitude practice can be a little uncomfortable since your brain is not used to regularly thinking in terms of gratefulness. Keeping a gratitude journal helps you list the little things you can find gratitude for during the course of a day. Whether it is a hot dog or your sobriety, you can find at least one thing to be grateful for. Try to start with 3, grow to five, and watch your gratefulness expand.

• Write gratitude letters: Writing in a journal to yourself is one way to practice gratitude. Writing letters of gratitude to others is another way. We can journal about how grateful we are for who people are and what they do in our lives. Personally, we know how special it is when someone goes out of their way to say something nice to us. Writing a letter of gratitude helps us help others, let others know how they have positively impacted our lives, and makes us feel good in the process.

• Focus gratitude on your life: By the very nature of our existence, we are self-centered beings. At first, finding gratitude might be easiest by focusing on our own life. We can choose a different area of our life to put our gratitude toward, like the fact that we are clean and sober in recovery.

• Focus gratitude on others: Once we get familiar with gratitude and can recognize where we can be grateful for ourselves, we can find gratitude in others. Our friends, family members, coworkers, and even strangers on the street each have at least one thing about them for which we can find gratitude.

Life is full of possibilities for adventure because life is an adventure. Tree House Recovery is a men’s treatment program located in Portland, Oregon. Our program pulls inspiration from the magnificent nature of the Pacific Northwest to help men find freedom from addiction. Creating sustainable recovery through sustainable change, our programs help men learn how to live sober with adventurous lives. Call us today for information: (503) 850-2474