Gratitude means recognising the things that others have done for you, as well as what you have, rather than focusing on what you don’t.

For a quick and easy boost to your wellbeing, a moment of reflecting on things that you are grateful for is a simple strategy.

Showing gratitude can help your wellbeing in a number of ways, such as:

• help build new relationships or boost current ones
  
• help you forgive yourself and others
  
• reduce anger and increase empathy
  
• help you sleep better, give you energy and boost self-esteem
  
• make you appreciate what you have.
  
• It can also give you feelings of happiness and appreciation, which in turn has an effect on your wellbeing.

Add gratitude into your daily life

Through acts of kindness

One easy way to bring some gratitude into your life is through simple acts of kindness. These can be small and may only take a moment, like texting a family member or friend to wish them a nice day. Whilst not a daily event, giving blood can also help you feel more grateful.

By showing gratitude to others

Showing gratitude can provide a boost to your mental health. Make an effort to say a genuine ‘thank you’ to others, such as checkout staff. This can inspire them to do the same for someone else.

Expressing gratitude to your friends or family can often feel more difficult to do. Rather than a simple ‘thank you’, you can tell someone that you’re grateful for them doing something specific and what that means to you. This helps you be grateful for the thing they’ve done and also the person themselves, growing your sense of gratitude.

Create a gratitude board

A gratitude board is a physical space where you place visual representations of the things you’re grateful for. These could be in the form of photos, words, and objects of the people, things and experiences you’re grateful to have in your life. It can provide an excellent visual reminder of all the things you have to be grateful for.

Use a daily journal

Another exercise is to end your day by writing down a list of the things you’re grateful for. It can be as simple as two or three things that happened in your day and may include people, places or things. For example, you may write down that you’re grateful for a friend for sending a nice message, or a teacher who gave you helpful advice.

A daily gratitude journal can help you to see exactly what you’re grateful for, giving you a better state of mind before sleep, readying you for the next day.

Being mindful and practicing mindfulness is one way to help be more grateful.

http://headspace.org.au;

Probably more about kindness than gratitude!

Self-control is about being able to control your actions or behaviour. For some people, self-control is easy, but for others, it takes practise to have self-control. Similar to self-control are self-regulation and self-managment and one strategy that teachers can use to help their students is the “Zones of Regulation”. This helps students to be aware of their reactions and behaviour and helping to regulate and take control of behaviour. Use of mindfulness and the Stop, Think and Breath strategy is helpful.

Self-control explained

The word “resist” is connected to self-control in this clip!

The marshmellow test – what would you do? Do you think you’d have the self control to wait and get two?

Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus – can you identify the zones of regulation of the pigeon?

There is lots going on at Barwon Heads PS and this post shares a snapshot of what is happening in our world of PosEd.

Teamwork comes under the Relationships arm of the BHPS wellbeing model which means; I accept, understand and empathise with others.

We can also relate teamwork to Voice and Agency because being part of a team means working “for the good of the whole“.

The VIA Institute says of those who have, or aspire to have, teamwork as one of their character strengths: “I am a helpful and contributing group and team member, and feel responsible for helping the team reach its goals.”

An oldie but a goodie!

Swimmy is about a group of ingenious little fish who come together, literally to solve a problem!

The Grizzly Bear who lost his GRRR

Just because everyone loves a meercat!