Appreciation & Gratitude

As the practice’s theme this month is appreciation, I want to take this opportunity to dive deeper into the concept of appreciation, as well as how it intersects with gratitude. Appreciation involves the awareness, recognition, enjoyment, and full sensory understanding of the positive value of something or someone. This definition shows how important mindfulness is when practicing appreciation, because in order to have a full sensory understanding of why you appreciate the value of something, you need to be mindfully present. Appreciation is a skill set that is developed with practice.

Although gratitude and appreciation are often used synonymously, there are differences between the two terms. One of the most defining characteristics of appreciation is that it is a mindful action, felt in your body with sensory awareness. Appreciation is connected to sounds, smells, things we see that we find pleasurable, and the practice of appreciation connects us with this sensory data in our body. Gratitude is a perceptual habit built on the felt sense of appreciation, when practicing gratitude, you are connecting with the felt sense awareness of appreciation in your body and utilizing that to “think” about how to perceive your experience with a grateful lens.

When beginning to develop a conscious relationship with appreciation a great place to start is self-appreciation. If you find that it can be difficult to cultivate appreciation for others, part of that may be due to the need for cultivating self-appreciation. So often appreciation and gratitude are talked about in the context of feeling positive in regard to someone else, or something someone does for you, but those same principles can be applied to yourself. An exercise that can help begin the path of self-appreciation is when you find yourself with a moment to think at the end of the day, ask yourself, “What do I feel proud of today?” and “How do I experience the felt sense of that pride in my body? Is it warm? Tingly? Where is the warmth?”.  Just like self-appreciation, appreciation of others is practiced similarly. Allow yourself some time to think of an event that day involving someone else like, a family member helping with the cooking that day, a friend buying you coffee, or even the bus arriving on time. These are all great calls to cultivate a sense of appreciation. Focus on the sensations of the appreciation, using sight, sound, smell, taste and touch as your guide. Appreciation of others can also be practiced by making it a priority to acknowledge when you feel appreciative of someone in the moment. It is important to remember that this action is a parallel to the personal appreciation exercises in that, highlighting specifics of why you are feeling that appreciation will help foster a deeper and more meaningful relationship with that person.

By regularly practicing appreciation you are allowing yourself to become more connected with what fuels gratitude. Because, once you have a felt sense of appreciation in your body, you can use that to consciously develop the mental habit of using a gratitude framework to pair appreciation with your perception of your experiences, both positive and challenging. Improved understanding of mindful appreciation also benefits your ability to stay connected in the present moment, even in discomfort. When you practice maintaining awareness of what you appreciate in your life you are also building a framework for your brain to stay in the moment and increasing your distress tolerance skills, which can also foster gratitude. Practicing appreciation and developing your understanding of gratitude not only yields benefits of positive feelings and increased optimism within yourself and others, but also has several health enhancing impacts on your mental health as well. Additional benefits related to practicing appreciation include reduced stress levels, increased life satisfaction, lowers the chance of experiencing burnout, improved sleep, lowers levels of cellular inflammation, improves resiliency, increased prosocial behaviors, strengthens relationships, and encourages the development of patience, humility, and wisdom. Ultimately, continuing to develop a conscious connection with appreciation will build a bridge to the practice of gratitude; which can measurably improve your relationship with yourself, your life and with other people.