Blog #110 Gratitude is Good for the Body & Soul
I am so grateful for my blog and all that I have learned from writing it and all that you have shared with me. Having gratitude and appreciating everything in life changes the way we look at life, day to day and minute to minute. Appreciating the amazing things is easy as well as appreciating what we have learned from the difficult things! We learn from it all!
Having gratitude expands our awareness of HAVINGNESS beyond limits, of all the love and abundance that is in and all around us as a spiritual being, if we can only be aware and own it.
Blessing and appreciating everything we do, see, hear, taste, touch and feel and especially know. It is a choice that makes all our lives happier and more joyous.
According to Dr. Christine Northrup MD, practicing gratitude makes you healthier, smarter and more energetic.
9 Side Effects of Practicing Gratitude
Studies have shown that a regular practice of gratitude produces some beneficial “side effects” that regularly expressing gratitude may help:
1. Cultivate a better attitude. The middle school children who participated in the daily exercise of writing down the things they were grateful for showed higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, and energy. They were also more likely to think about school and their family life favorably. Adults who regularly expressed gratitude also seemed to feel more optimistic and had higher levels of contentment and satisfaction in life.
2. Reach personal and professional goals. Studies show that there is an increased likelihood of reaching your goals, including academic, personal, health-related, and relationship goals. Students who are grateful tend to have higher GPAs and have an easier time socially. In addition, employees who regularly hear words of gratitude from their managers may be motivated to work harder. In this respect, gratitude seems to make you smarter, more self-aware, healthier, and even more personable.
3. Practice a healthy lifestyle. People with grateful dispositions are more likely to adopt a healthy lifestyle, including exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy weight, and doing what they can to support their health.
4. Connect with others. When you’re happy with your own life, you’re more likely to connect with others. The happiest people tend to have strong, complex social networks and are more likely to feel loved and cared for by others. These include not only family and friends but also connections of an altruistic and spiritual nature. Plus, I’ve often said that community equals immunity. The more social connections you have, the more robust your immune system is likely to be.
5. Improve your relationships. Expressing gratitude for your partner or close family members can help you feel more satisfied in your relationships. Gratitude for a partner has been shown to help newlyweds adjust to marital life and to contribute to satisfying long-term marriages.
6. Stop the fight-or-flight response. Feelings of appreciation and gratitude result in cardiac coherence—the beat to beat variability of your heart rate. The result is a more perfect balance between the sympathetic nervous system (foot on the gas) and the parasympathetic nervous system (foot on the brake). When these are in balance, your body stops overproducing cortisol and other stress hormones.
7. Better Sleep. To increase the production of the hormone DHEA, which is a building block for all the other steroid hormones, including estrogen, progesterone, and androgen. People who express gratitude before going to bed tend to sleep better. Because grateful people tend not to worry as much or think negative thoughts and are more likely to think positive thoughts that support sleep quality.
8. Create Overall Health. When your body is in a constant state of panic from stress or dragged down by negative emotions, you are more prone to headaches, muscle aches and pains, a weakened immune system, depression, and poor sleep. Long term, this unabated stress can create cellular inflammation, the root cause of all chronic health conditions, including heart disease. Those who practice gratitude regularly have lower blood pressure and are overall happier in life.
9. Bounce back from setbacks. An attitude of gratitude helps you become more resilient when confronted by life’s inevitable setbacks, big and small. Giving thanks when you feel stressed can even help prevent PTSD.
For me, I find all of these wonderful side effects we get from having gratitude each day are the blessings we are giving to ourselves and others living in the loving state of thankfulness, gratitude and appreciation. It is a choice we can make every day!
Photo I took this week of beautiful Mt. Shasta, CA; where my husband David and I were celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary! So very grateful we found each other in this life!