It’s Day 7 of the 26-day boost for Klaudia Mitura’s new book, “The Alphabet of Happiness”! Today’s letter is G for Gratitude.
Klaudia shares her personal struggle with adopting gratitude and explains how our brains are wired for negativity—but gratitude can rewire them for happiness. Practicing gratitude daily boosts optimism, calm, sleep, and relationships, making it a true happiness superpower.
Get involved:
⭐ Get a quick summary of each happiness principle—follow along as we reveal a new letter every day!
🏆 Join the competition: Share your thoughts on each principle, tag me (@Klaudia Mitura on LinkedIn / @thehappinesschallenge_klaudia on Instagram), and tag a friend for a chance to win one of three signed copies of The Alphabet of Happiness!
Hello happiness seekers, welcome back. My name is Klaudia Mitura. I'm a work psychologist and certified chief Happiness officer.
And to celebrate my brand new book, the Alphabet of Happiness, I have launched this 26 day boost packed with science backed happiness habits, one for every letter from A to Z. So I'm really excited that each day I'm able to bring you simple uplifting tip that you can use in under five minutes.
This is also our joyful countdown to the big book launch party at the Science museum London on October 31.
If you are based in the UK, based in London or maybe passing via London during that time, I would love for you to be part of it and you can reserve your spot@thehealthinesschallenge.co.uk book and today's letter is G and that of course stands for gratitude. So nothing unexpected here.
And even though I know from research that gratitude is one of the most powerful happiness habits of of all, it was really the most difficult one for me to implement. Because for years my brain was very quick to list things that I should worry about.
And in the face of difficult, challenging situations in life, it really felt fake for me to feel grateful. On many occasions in life, my first thought was what on earth should I be grateful for? Which is really sad frankly.
But I also took comfort in understanding that our brain evolved to be like that. So our brain evolved to concentrate on negative aspects of our human existence simply to ensure survival. This is known as negativity bias.
And the great news here is that gratitude is a very powerful antidote to that.
This means that the moment we start concentrating on things we are grateful for, doesn't matter how small, we encourage our brain to produce feel good chemicals. And therefore we encourage our brain, or almost force our brain to start looking for positive events in our life and start memorizing them.
And if we repeat this practice daily, no matter in what format, we are able to strengthen these neural pathways and start shaping our brain to create a positive bias instead. So as I say, gratitude is a super powerful emotion that truly unlocks the door to happiness.
If you can't, if you don't want to, or cannot, or decide not to implement any other happiness boosting habits, good gratitude is the one, at least the one to really concentrate on. And in fact, we know that gratitude is able to boost our happiness by 25%. And as a result, we are becoming more optimistic.
We'll be feeling calmer, sleeping better, and will be able to enjoy more positive relationships at work and home. In the Alphabet of happiness, I specifically looked into key obstacles that prevent us from feeling grateful. And I look how can we overcome this?
But today action is very simple. I'm really daring you to pause to feel grateful.
And noticing positive events and feeling grateful absolutely gets easier if we take time to really cherish those moments. So pausing and enjoying the moment helps the brain store it more vividly as well and remember it more sharply.
So today really try to pause and when you experiencing a moment you particularly grateful for, take a mental snapshot of what's happening, engage your full concentration, focus on crucial details and really involve all your senses to create long lasting memories. And I also know that often when we think about gratitude, we think about writing down what we feel grateful for.
But also gratitude is really good and really incredible powerful habit when it comes to our relationships. So why don't you express your gratitude, your thanks to at least three people today.
It could be a quick text message, could be an email, could be calling someone, could be having a conversation. Express your gratitude to other people. It's also a very powerful way to boost our happiness, but also spread that joy among others.
Now if you want to be extra grateful and maybe think, you know what, I have someone who I'm really grateful for, you can spread some joy. Tag a friend in your post about the Alphabet of Happiness for a chance for them to win one of the three signed copies of my book.
Remember also to tag me at Claudia Mitura on LinkedIn and @The Happiness ChallengeClaudia on Instagram.
And if you just like, well, I just want to get a call copy or I just want to get a copy for someone as a gift, you can absolutely order the book from all the key retailers. So see you tomorrow at the next letter. And I hope you having wonderful day full of gratitude.
