In the demanding field of healthcare, cultivating a positive mindset is essential for both patient outcomes and professional well-being. By integrating gratitude into daily routines, nurses and other healthcare professionals can enhance resilience, reduce stress, and foster stronger connections with their patients and colleagues. Understanding and applying gratitude practices is becoming increasingly relevant in today’s fast-paced work environment, making this a vital resource for all healthcare professionals.
In a field with a high incidence of burnout and stress, gratitude is a simple yet effective practice that can make a meaningful difference in managing career challenges.
What is Gratitude?
Gratitude is a similar emotion to appreciation, and the American Psychological Association specifically defines gratitude as “a sense of happiness and thankfulness in response to a happenstance or gift.”
This means gratitude can be both a state of being and a positive personality trait — who someone is and what they do. Both of those expressions of gratitude can be of great benefit to nurses and healthcare professionals.
Research shows that gratitude not only boosts moods and life satisfaction, but it can even improve cardiovascular health and longevity. Gratitude decreases stress, which in turn offers mental and physical health benefits. Beyond these personal benefits, gratitude can also foster a positive work environment and improve professional relationships with colleagues and patients.
Simple Habits to Boost Gratitude
The benefits of gratitude are clear, and there are simple and practical ways to develop that quality consistently. Below are a few habits that can help increase gratitude in personal and professional lives, without taking much time or effort. With time, each of them can turn from effort to reflex, making gratitude a more natural response and state of being.
Journaling
Seeing the good can be amplified by writing it down. All nurses and healthcare professionals are at risk of stress and burnout due to the fast-paced and high-need nature of their industry. One 2023 study found that gratitude journaling among healthcare professionals helped in two ways: increased burnout prevention and decreased stress levels. The development of higher gratitude was also associated with reduced exhaustion.
Gratitude journaling has been shown to help increase autonomy, confidence, and optimism. Keeping a gratitude journal can look as simple as writing down three positive parts of a day, or keeping a running note in a phone to list small but positive things that happen.
Gratitude Letters
A gratitude letter can be a simple note or text expressing appreciation to a work colleague or recruiter. This simple notion of noticing someone and recognizing the good they add can be a benefit to both the writer and the recipient. When healthcare workers were specifically observed before and after writing gratitude letters, the results showed improvements in happiness and work-life balance.
Mindfulness and Reflection
Writing a letter naturally helps with another element of gratitude — staying mindful and giving meaningful reflection. Taking moments to really recognize what there is to be grateful for, and slowing down enough to see more and more of those things, is known as a “savoring exercise” or gratitude meditation. This means taking a meaningful pause to really appreciate the good in life.
Community Gratitude
Developing gratitude as a group can be an effective way to improve morale and connect providers. In healthcare, a great way to boost community gratitude is to form small groups where nurses and healthcare workers have an opportunity to share what they’re grateful for during a team meeting. This helps form a real connection while also increasing the skill of viewing things with a positive perspective, for both those who share and those who hear thoughts from others.
Daily Gratitude Routines
When intentional habits are formed to cultivate gratitude, these simple practices will soon become a natural reflex and a default way to view situations and circumstances. Gratitude-focused routines might look like starting a nursing shift with gratitude affirmations, intentionally thanking a colleague or patient every day, or celebrating small successes as a team.
Intentional Interactions
Interactions with coworkers and patients can be completely transformed when gratitude is involved. An intentional focus on ending conversations with gratitude will enhance relationships as well as personal happiness and job satisfaction. This can be as simple as thanking a patient’s family for their caretaking efforts or appreciating a colleague who helps without being asked. When looking for the good, the good will get better — for everyone involved.
Start and End with Purpose
The way things begin and end, whether that’s a day or a work shift or a meeting, can play a big part in the way an experience is remembered. Take a few moments to start the day reflecting with gratitude, or make a habit to start work shifts by recognizing what there is to be grateful for that day. Ending the day or shift with a similar reflection can help to reframe the entire experience in a better light, which will increase overall happiness and life satisfaction.
What Can Make Gratitude a Challenge?
Gratitude can sometimes feel hard to come by, both personally and professionally — life challenges can be heavy at home or work. However, even during challenges, cultivating and increasing gratitude can enhance the ability to cope and increase overall happiness.
Common barriers to practicing gratitude can include stress, burnout, and negativity. But seeking gratitude can overcome each of these through intentional strategies, such as:
- Reframing negative thoughts
- Recognizing small wins
- Outwardly expressing appreciation
- Habit-stacking gratitude practices
- Adjusting expectations
These shifts help generate authentic gratitude. Rather than feeling burdened by the task of becoming more grateful, making these shifts can help lessen the weight of challenges.
SHC is Grateful for Healthcare Professionals
The positive effects of regular appreciation are consistently proven to improve mental and physical health, and increase life satisfaction both personally and professionally. Practicing gratitude is a powerful habit.
When nurses and healthcare professionals develop appreciation and incorporate gratitude-focused habits into their lives, those changes have a positive ripple effect both at home and in the workplace. Aiming for more gratitude benefits not only those intentional individuals but everyone that they interact with.
Starting a gratitude journey is a shift that will show noticeable results. Supplemental Health Care recognizes the value in prioritizing appreciation and sharing gratitude for both healthcare professionals and patient care.
Have you personally experienced the difference gratitude can make? Leave your story or top gratitude tips in the comments, or share the ways gratitude has impacted your career and personal life.
You can also check out the Supplemental Health Care blog for tips for self-care, wellness, and positivity in nursing. Or search our open jobs today if you’re looking for a new position in a supportive work environment!
search content