Five years ago this weekend we celebrated the first national Thank You Day in the UK. This was a community initiative with activities and events across the country that celebrated those people who did such a lot for local communities during the pandemic. It was a scary, traumatic and uncertain time and yet, it also showed the best of us; our ability to pull together, our capacity for compassion and kindness, and our resilience as local communities.
When we go through a challenging period in life, it is sometimes helpful to reflect on the experience and what we learned from it. The past can sometimes be very helpful in informing both our present and future. One of the key themes we were able to take from the Covid pandemic was the power of gratitude.
The world feels like a difficult place at the moment, and it can feel very hard sometimes to find things to be thankful for; when we are overwhelmed, we have less capacity to notice and reflect on the good things in life. And yet, ironically, proactively creating and cultivating gratitude is one of the things that can actually help us feel less stressed.
Saying thank you is not just something we should encourage our children to do, it is something fundamental for our daily wellbeing. It is not a woolly or ethereal concept or a “nice to have”. And science backs it up.
