The Gratitude Diaries
How A Year Of Living Gratefully Changed My Life
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5.0 • 3 Ratings
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
It's easy to look at others and think how lucky they are, and sometimes finding the positives in our own lives can be hard. Success is often measured in tangible ways, and as we strive to achieve more and get more, we forget that it's often the simple things that can bring us the most joy. After reading about how expressing gratitude for the little things can be incredibly powerful and affect our lives in profound ways, Janice Kaplan decided to spend a year living gratefully and find out whether being grateful really does offer a new path to happiness.
Her experiences of living gratefully will be anchored by intriguing research findings, as well as in-depth interviews with real people, those in public life, and neuroscientists and experts in the field, including Dr Martin Seligman and Dr Robert Emmons, the world's leading scientific expert on gratitude.
Recounted with warmth and humour, this story-filled memoir will inspire readers to reflect on the true meaning of gratitude, and provide them with a structure and context for making significant changes in every aspect of their lives. For not only can gratitude make you more honest, courageous and generous; research has shown that it can also improve overall health and reduce stress and depression.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kaplan (I'll See You Again) shares her journey of embracing a lifestyle of gratitude for one year, and the practice's remarkable effects on her physical and mental well-being. Over the course of the year, Kaplan focuses on being thankful for her husband, children, sister, career, and financial status. She keeps a "gratitude journal," adheres to a "gratitude diet," and begins reframing negative situations to accentuate the positive. Kaplan consults a number of experts, asking a social psychologist about privilege and entitlement, a "gratitude guru" about ambition and achievement, and a medical doctor about the stress-relief and immune system regulation components of gratitude. Nonprofit maven Henry Timms discusses "Giving Tuesday," his antithesis to Black Friday, and Kaplan's friend Jackie Hance remarks on crawling out of a bleak depression after the deaths of her three young daughters in an automobile accident. Other topics include teaching kindness and empathy to children as a means of cultivating gratitude, the value of quality experiences over material possessions, and appreciation as a motivating tool in the workplace. Kaplan's study is insightful and loaded with compelling research and solid techniques for positive thinking, and her own example provides the most convincing testament to her ideas.
