Gratitude

Gratitude (n.) is the feeling of thankfulness and appreciation all things in life have contributed to the person you are today;

…therefore, all these things should be included in your gratitude.

Something everyone should strive to express.

A gratitude practice can be a very potent way to steer your mental and physical health in a positive direction and support you along the life journey with life-changing and lasting benefits. We have the natural ability to be content and the capacity for worry and concern. You can learn how to self-regulate to maintain your health to your optimum. With your ability to put yourself into another mindset, you can activate gratitude circuits by evoking new perspectives from a place of gratitude.

It’s evident that gratitude is powerful, and waiting to receive acknowledgement, acceptance, and appreciation can be impractical. You can allow feelings of gratitude, empower yourself, and have the default mindset that will shield your mind from stress.

Here is the summary from Andrew Huberman's Podcast on how to build the most effective gratitude practice so the pro-social versus defensive behaviours can tilt at the little hinge. The brain and nervous systems can change in response to new experiences. These neural circuits start developing a familiarity with your mindful narrative and liberating your mind from outdated emotional reactions.

The attitude of gratitude is a powerful practice for well-being, which could be done literally within one to five minutes throughout the day. Allow yourself to think about the richness of your experience of receiving gratitude. Equally, to feel that someone genuinely appreciates you will activate the neural circuits, positively affecting so many aspects of your physiology.

How to create meaningful and efficient gratitude practice:

Your gratitude practice must be grounded in the here and now, present tense, positive narrative and based on your unique life experience and reflection.

In your story, you receive the thanks given genuinely, or you observe someone expressing gratitude. It’s your time to appreciate moments of appreciation or make new acts of kindness. You could write about the heartfelt state of the person receiving the gratitude and other elements that offer an emotional tone to the story.

When you establish the story for your gratitude practice, write three to five points and read it daily as a cue for your nervous system and spend between one to five minutes feeling into your experience.

Use the mind dial-in technique - see in your mind's eye doing it, feel it in your heart, and you can achieve it!

Story-based approach gratitude practice changes how your brain circuits work and your heart and brain interact. It could change the resting state of functional connectivity in emotion and motivation-related brain regions. Regular gratitude practice reduces the fear and anxiety circuits, increases the efficacy of positive emotions, and strengthens feel-good neural circuits. Enhancing your alertness with deep breathing exercises before your gratitude practice will increase potency with more profound connections, richer understanding and deeper healing of your bodily systems within a daily five minutes block. It is a powerful incentive to use a gratitude practice regularly.

With the practice of awareness here and now, I allow myself to relax, gain strength and achieve mental clarity. I support my mind and body with a regular gratitude practice. I am stronger than I think. I am more capable than I realise. I recognise how far I’ve come. I come into my creativity and determination whenever I need to. I allow myself to ask for help and lean into my support system. I trust good is on its way. I am grateful for my conscious choices. I recognise my progress. I transcend my lessons into blessings.

I've got this.