November is National Gratitude Month, and tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Lidia Zylowska is a psychiatrist at the University of Minnesota Medical School and M Health Fairview.

Jill Riley: It's one thing to be thankful for something, but gratitude seems like it's a practice. It's an exercise. It's something that can really benefit someone. There's a lot of buzz around this word, “gratitude,” and [its] importance. So why is that?

Lidia Zylowska: We've all been through so much in this past year and half with a pandemic, with political polarization, illness or financial difficulty. So there's been a lot of stress, and we know that mental health symptoms are on the rise. More people have depression and anxiety. I think we all are realizing that there's just so much negative focus in our lives, and it's so important to rebalance that.

Gratitude practice is the way to rebalance our attention to things that are going well in our lives. For example, bringing attention to the fact that [you are] having a nice cup of coffee, savoring those moments. Or, being grateful for sunlight. Those moments of connecting to gratitude, to appreciation, to something positive can have health benefits, can have mental health benefits, can also lead to more resilience.

Alright, so the practice of gratitude: how do you do it? I mean, I've been working on it, but it can feel very unnatural. There are times where I have to make myself feel grateful for something because some days, I'm just not in the right mood. I'm not in the right state of mind. But then other days, I can take a walk down a street in the fall and just have this wonderful feeling; I can be really present. But sometimes it feels really unnatural. So how can somebody get into the practice who might be new to this way of thinking?

One thing will be to notice those spontaneous moments: really take it in and savor it. Oftentimes, [when] something positive happens, we go past it. You know, we're on the go or we're busy. So actually noticing how these positive moments of appreciation come up for you spontaneously could be one way to start.

Another way to start is to make an intentional practice a bit of a commitment that “Every day, I will practice connecting with things that I can be grateful for.” And there are things that can help you with that. So typically, we talk about [a] gratitude journal: writing, let's say, three things that happened during the course of a day that you can be thankful for, or that you have appreciation for. Nowadays, we have apps that can help you do that with little prompts and questions. It could be something creative, like having a gratitude jar and writing little notes. And then maybe at the end of the year, reviewing those notes to yourself, so then you can [be] literally counting your blessings.

When you're reviewing all the positive things that happened throughout the year, writing a thank you note - or it could be a thank you e-mail or text - is a way to express gratitude to others. That can have really a nice effect on feeling more connected to others, having kind of a positive shift when thinking about the relationship. You can even write a letter to yourself; that's an interesting twist, directing gratitude or appreciation towards yourself.

Have a reminder to practice gratitude, whether it's quotes, a picture, or some people do photography. And of course, meditation practice, like mindfulness practice, can be a way to connect to gratitude - as well as spiritual practice [such as] prayer, or maybe coming together at meal time. You know, giving grace.

Every Wednesday morning at 8:30 CST, Jill Riley connects with experts and local personalities for some real talk about keeping our minds and bodies healthy — from staying safe in the music scene, to exercising during a pandemic, to voting and civic engagement. Looking for more resources and support? Visit our friends at Call to Mind, MPR's initiative to foster new conversations about mental health. Subscribe to Wellness Wednesday as a podcast on Spotify, Apple, RSS, Radio Public, Stitcher, or Amazon Music.

Wellness Wednesday is hosted by Jill Riley, and produced by Christy Taylor and Jay Gabler. Our theme music is a portion of the song "F.B. One Number 2" by Christian Bjoerklund under the Non Commercial Share Alike 3.0 International License.