Hello again everyone:
As Thanksgiving has just passed us by, I want to share an important article with you about gratitude. Not only is it good for your heart and spirit, it turns out that daily embracing and expressing gratitude can have profound and lasting effects on our health.
As you know, our practice focuses on total health improvement as a means of increasing wellness in all areas of our lives, and especially the brain and nervous system. Depression, anxiety, memory, focus and attention, cognitive difficulties, learning and other brain issues have become epidemic in our world. The science is revealing that these brain problems have multiple causes, which means that in order to alleviate them you must address all of these underlying causes. Fortunately, we can usually figure out what these underlying concerns are and construct a comprehensive optimal health program.
Part of these programs, which are all individually designed for your unique needs, includes things like a gratitude journal. I personally write in mine every morning at breakfast, usually 5 things that I am grateful for, and that helps me start the day off right.
Keeping a gratitude journal for as little as three weeks results in:
- regular grateful thinking can increase happiness by as much as 25 percent
- better sleep
- more energy
- exercising more regularly
- feeling better about one’s life as a whole
- more optimistic about the upcoming week
- more likely to make significant progress toward important personal goals
- children have more positive attitudes toward school and their families
- greater amounts of high energy positive moods
- greater sense of feeling connected to others
- Please do not underestimate the long-term benefits of this simple practice. Please check out this link for a bigger picture of what this small daily act can accomplish for you.
http://qz.com/558908/the-psychological-benefits-of-gratitude-closely-mirror-those-of-meditation/
There are many, many books on gratitude and gratefulness with lots of decent scientific research showing the positive benefits. With the world in such a chaotic state, gratitude practices bring peace to the heart and mind. It is worth a few minutes a day, every day, to make the world a better place, especially your corner of the world.
Thanks for your interest in creating an optimal life and a better world.
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