Happiness and Gratitude * *

Modern therapy (and medical science behind it) recognize Gratitude as a requirement for health and specifically, mental health.

Common sense tells us this too - recognizing the good things we already have is a boost to the sense of wellbeing, the feeling that we are safe(er) and heading in the right direction.

Gratitude is awareness that there are blessings in one's daily life, people, things or circumstances. It is not a new idea that we should "count the blessings" but it is harder to keep doing this when exposed to a constant stream of messages that were "not good enough" and "need to get more things" in order to "become complete". These commercial messages delivered to us every day cloud one's ability to remain in the moment and see the big picture of life.

So minimizing the exposure to advertising and consumer mentality is the key. Staying in touch with friends and family is not exclusively domain of social media - humans successfully communicated long before the arrival of modern phone apps.

We can still send and receive messages without Instagram, Facebook and apps that include advertising... We also need some time in calm to be able to recognize the things to be grateful for.

Once there is a trend of catching the blessings, your mind will keep going there more because each time it does, a wave of good hormones (dopamine, endorphin, etc) is released into the blood stream.