The Habit That Can Help You Beat Seasonal Depression
Today, let’s talk about a simple yet powerful habit that can help you manage seasonal depression and create lasting happiness. It doesn’t require expensive treatments, new supplements, or complicated routines. Instead, it’s something that’s always available to you: gratitude.
By making gratitude a daily practice, you start to notice the beauty in everyday moments. Since life is made up of these small moments, appreciating them can completely shift your perspective and bring more joy into your life.
Why Gratitude Matters
You’ve probably heard about gratitude before. Maybe you’ve even kept a gratitude journal or tried to remind yourself to be thankful. But in today’s fast-paced world, everything seems designed to pull us into our thoughts and away from our present experience. We constantly overthink: Am I making the right choice? What do people think of me? Am I good enough?
This cycle of overanalyzing can cause stress and anxiety, making us feel disconnected from ourselves. But when we shift our focus to gratitude, we bring our attention back to the present moment and reconnect with what truly matters.
Seeing the World Through a Child’s Eyes
Think about how children see the world. They live in the moment, filled with wonder and curiosity. They play, explore, and dream without fear of failure. They follow what excites them and embrace life with joy.
As we grow up, we’re taught to rely more on logic and reason, often at the expense of creativity and presence. While critical thinking is important, it shouldn’t disconnect us from the joy of simply being.
Practicing gratitude helps us return to this childlike perspective, allowing us to experience life with more appreciation and openness.
Simple Ways to Practice Gratitude
A great way to start is by taking a moment to recognize five things you’re grateful for right now. Try this:
1. Pause whatever you’re doing.
2. Take a deep breath and look around.
3. Identify five things you appreciate in this moment.
It could be something as simple as the warmth of your morning coffee, a text from a friend, the sound of birds outside, or the fact that you have a safe place to be. This practice shifts your focus from what’s missing to what’s already present, training your brain to find positivity in everyday life.
Simple. Yes? Did you notice how your shoulders dropped a little, how your face relaxed? Maybe you leaned back a little? Maybe you started to breathe a little more deeply? Those are all the positive side effects – the somatic benefits – of practicing gratitude.
The Science Behind Gratitude
Studies show that practicing gratitude can:
- Improve mood and increase happiness
- Reduce stress and anxiety
- Improve sleep quality
- Strengthen the immune system
- Enhance overall well-being
When you focus on gratitude, your brain releases dopamine and serotonin—neurotransmitters that promote happiness. You can’t feel truly worried and grateful at the same time. That’s the power of shifting your perspective.
How Gratitude Changes Your Life
Gratitude helps us see how far we’ve come. Often, we don’t appreciate our progress because we’re so focused on the next goal. But when we take a moment to reflect, we realize that many things we have now—whether relationships, accomplishments, or personal growth—were once just dreams.
By practicing gratitude, we train ourselves to celebrate our journey rather than constantly chasing the next achievement.
A Life Grounded in Gratitude: The Inspirited Living Becoming You Course
To help you build a gratitude practice and reconnect with your heart, I created the Inspirited Living Becoming You course. This program is designed to help you shift your mindset, find joy in everyday moments, and develop habits that bring lasting happiness.
Join a Supportive Community
In addition to the course, we have an online community of people from around the world who are also on this journey. When you join, you’ll receive daily reflection prompts called Introspectives—simple moments of reflection to help you start your day with intention and gratitude.
A Life Grounded in Gratitude: Beachwood Integrative Equine Therapy
At Beachwood Integrative Equine Therapy, we help people who are struggling to make that shift to feeling gratitude. Sometimes we get stuck in the fight, flight, freeze part of our brain and don’t realized that we are living our lives in hyper-vigilance. If you are unable to take the first step towards gratitude, you may want to work with Beachwood’s horses and Integrative Equine Therapy protocol to help you refocus.
Some clients at Beachwood come for two sessions the first day (90 minutes each) and then come once every week for a few months. Other Beachwood clients come for an Immersive Experience to work with the horses over a few days. Beachwood’s Intensives can help when you know you have some trauma and anxiety work to do before you can start appreciating and noticing what you are gratefu
Call Beachwood at 1-877-788-4325 to find out more.
Learning to Appreciate Life’s Messy Beauty
If teachers and parents had the time to see children as the unique individuals they are, there would be so much more joy in the world. Instead of trying to fit into rigid expectations, children thrive when they are allowed to be themselves.
The same goes for us. Sometimes, life may look messy from the outside—our path may not be straightforward, and our dreams may take time to unfold. But when we choose gratitude, we start seeing beauty in the chaos, recognizing that growth and creativity often come from life’s unpredictable moments.
Gratitude helps us embrace life as it is rather than constantly wishing for something different. It reminds us to trust in the process and find peace in the present.
Start Your Gratitude Journey Today
As the founder of Beachwood Integrative Equine Therapy and Inspirited Living, I designed the *30-day Becoming You* course to help you reconnect with the part of yourself that sees the world with curiosity and appreciation. Through this course, you’ll learn how to:
- Shift from stress to gratitude
- Develop daily habits that promote happiness
- Strengthen your connection with yourself and others
- Find joy in everyday moments
When you join the Inspirited Living community, you’ll be surrounded by people who are also choosing to live with gratitude and intention. Click the link in our bio to start your journey today.
Final Thoughts
Gratitude isn’t just a habit—it’s a way of experiencing the world. By focusing on what’s good, we learn to appreciate life as it is, rather than always searching for something more.
No matter where you are in life, take a moment to pause, breathe, and notice the small blessings around you. Let gratitude guide you back to joy, peace, and fulfillment.
Join us at Beachwood for an immersive experience in self-discovery, and become part of the Inspirited Living community today. Start your journey back to your heart.
The Science Behind Gratitude:
- “Giving thanks can make you happier“ – Harvard Health Publishing
- How gratitude is consistently linked to greater happiness, helping individuals experience positive emotions and build strong relationships.
- “How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain“ – Greater Good Science Center, UC Berkeley
- Research indicates that practicing gratitude can lead to increased happiness and reduced depression by altering brain function.
- “The Science of Gratitude“ – Mindful.org
- This article delves into how gratitude supports greater health, happiness, and wisdom, backed by scientific research.
- “The Neuroscience of Gratitude and Effects on the Brain“ – PositivePsychology.com
- Research indicates that gratitude changes neural structures in the brain, enhancing feelings of happiness and contentment.
- “Gratitude and Well Being: The Benefits of Appreciation” – National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
- Research indicates that gratitude is associated with enhanced personal well-being.
- “The effects of gratitude interventions: a systematic review and meta-analysis” – National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
- Research indicates that gratitude interventions can lead to increased feelings of gratitude, improved mental health, and reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression.