The Ultimate Gratitude Practice | Mental Health Recovery

This lecture discusses a new technique for practicing gratitude. It is an alternative to the traditional gratitude lists. The physical, emotional, and social benefits of gratitude are discussed. The listener will also learn how gratitude rewires the nervous system to make one less likely to experience negative emotions. Three exercises are offered at the end so the listener can begin a new gratitude practice today!

Transcript

Welcome to ACORN.

This week,

I have the ultimate gratitude practice for you.

My goal is to give you the knowledge and skills to create the most effective gratitude practice possible.

I hope that by starting a habitual gratitude practice,

It will feel more effortless to overcome your negative emotions.

At the end,

I offer the instructions and writing prompts to go along with this lecture so you can begin your own gratitude practice immediately.

When you're someone who struggles with depression,

Anxiety,

Past trauma,

Grief,

Or any other mental health problem,

Feeling happy and joyful can feel very far away.

It can seem that sadness,

Worry,

Or discontent are much easier to fall into.

And I'll be honest,

It does require great effort at times to will yourself into a gratitude practice when you're experiencing these emotions.

Most of my gratitude practices have been focused on creating gratitude lists,

But I dug a little bit deeper into the research and I found something interesting.

I really believe in evidence-based practices.

This means practices that have been thoroughly studied so we know that they are effective.

I will say though that you know yourself best.

So if you found a gratitude practice that works for you,

But it doesn't necessarily align with the research studies I'm going to share,

Always do what works best for you.

But if you found gratitude lists don't quite have the potency that you hope,

I think that you'll find today's lecture very helpful.

I learned that there is evidence that gratitude lists work,

But I found this practice that I'll share with you produces a more powerful feeling of gratitude according to the research and has also been more beneficial.

So these are some of the benefits of a gratitude practice based on some of the most recent neuroscience knowledge that we have.

Much of the positive benefits of a gratitude practice have to do with the way gratitude rewires our brain and nervous system.

Our nervous system has a protective defensive part of its system and it also has an open or prosocial part of its system.

When we are in or when our defensive part of the nervous system is activated,

We may have our arms crossed,

We may be backing away,

We may be sneering,

We may be on guard,

Anxious or fearful.

When the prosocial or open part of our nervous system is active,

We tend to move toward other people.

We take a little bit more healthy risk.

We reveal more of ourselves to others and we have an overall more positive sentiment.

We look at life through rose colored glasses.

As you probably can guess,

Gratitude practices tone the prosocial open part of our nervous system.

Gratitude practices give this part of the nervous system a workout and that's what we are trying to do.

We're trying to build up this prosocial open part of our nervous system.

We're trying to make it stronger and we're trying to disengage somewhat from the overactive defensive part of our nervous system and this part tends to be a lot more active when we're someone who struggles with anxiety or depression or especially trauma.

So these are some of the benefits once we have started to engage this more prosocial open part of our nervous system through gratitude practices.

When this happens,

We are more resilient to past and future trauma.

We have more satisfaction in all our relationships from co-workers to friends to family.

We have an improved relationship with ourselves.

We're more compassionate and more kind to ourselves.

They have even found that inflammation in the body gets reduced when this part of our nervous system is activated and also obviously there is a reduction in the activation of the amygdala or the fear center.

These benefits allow us to use gratitude as a grounding technique during times of extreme emotions.

The ability to ground yourself with gratitude will be directly related to how often you practice.

If you practice regularly during times when you are not stressed,

Gratitude will have a greater ability to calm overwhelming emotions.

Gratitude can really help color our day in a more positive way,

Maybe when we start to notice some of these negative emotions creeping in.

I know that some days I just don't feel like going to work.

There's no real good reason.

It's just laziness,

Pure laziness that makes me not want to go to work.

And I can start to feel very,

Very negative about my job and I can sort of put on those,

I guess you could call them blue colored glasses that makes everything look in a sort of negative way.

But I have found gratitude can pretty quickly turn this around for me.

When I notice this and then I immediately start telling myself I am grateful to have a job,

I'm grateful to have income,

I'm grateful to be able to help other people and to give back and I am grateful that I have such a flexible employer.

You know,

I really start to feel a lot better and more positive.

And these simple things really can take those blue colored glasses off and help me put on my rose colored glasses to where I start to see everything in a more positive light.

So the ultimate gratitude practice from the research,

This is it.

Perhaps the most important part is commitment.

Whether you choose to try this new practice or you maintain what has been working for you,

The research shows a minimum of once per week as needed.

But three to four times per week is ideal.

Another important aspect of the ultimate gratitude practice is don't lie to yourself.

We can't trick ourselves into thinking we like something that we hate.

For instance by saying something like,

Oh I'm so grateful that I get to call the airline and wait on hold for an hour.

This is not going to be an enjoyable activity and it's more beneficial to be honest with yourself about that rather than to make some sort of phony kind of statement.

Our deep down our brains know that we don't like it.

So it's important to have gratitude for that which you genuinely appreciate.

The next part of our ultimate practice,

So it's not that gratitude lists don't work,

But the research has found something that works better.

And what they found that works better are stories.

A 2015 study found how stories of survival dramatically increased gratitude in participants.

Another interesting study found that people felt gratitude more powerfully when others expressed gratitude for them,

Such as coworkers writing each other gratitude letters.

So watching inspiring stories of people being helped to overcome major challenges or recalling a time when someone expressed gratitude for you have been found to be the most powerful ways to experience gratitude.

Another option to heighten the experience of gratitude even more is to tap into the sympathetic nervous system.

This is the part of the nervous system that is used for alertness and being very aware of things.

And often when the system is activated,

We feel emotions more intensely.

So you can accomplish activating the sympathetic nervous system through very intense breathing exercises,

Breathing practices like the breath of fire.

You could do it through cold showers or my favorite way coffee,

Caffeine will also help increase this alertness system.

So the goal is to increase alertness,

Activate the sympathetic nervous system,

And then go into the gratitude practice.

And when we do this,

It increases the intensity of gratitude and it helps you remember how impactful the practice was.

So in summary,

The gratitude must be genuine.

It must be done regularly.

It must be focused on a time when someone expressed gratitude to you or focused on an inspiring story of someone being helped to overcome a great difficulty.

And if you really want to,

You can add in the optional activation of the sympathetic nervous system before the practice.

Okay,

Now I'm going to share the instructions and writing prompts with you to complete these exercises.

Option one,

Find a story.

Can be a book,

Article,

Podcast,

Or movie.

Find a story of a person being helped to overcome a great challenge.

It should be inspiring and emotionally positive for you.

After engaging with this story,

Answer the following questions on a piece of paper to which you can return.

How did this story impact you emotionally?

What was most inspiring about this story?

In what ways did this story give you hope?

Once you have written this down,

Your daily gratitude practice will include revisiting your questions for contemplation or meditation for at least one to five minutes.

In your contemplation,

Re-experience how the story impacted you and how it inspired you.

Option two,

Recall a time when someone expressed gratitude to you and answer the following questions.

How did you help them during their time of need?

For what did they express their gratitude?

How did this offering impact you emotionally?

How did you feel differently after their expression of gratitude?

Once you have written this down,

Your daily gratitude practice will include revisiting your questions for contemplation or meditation for at least one to five minutes.

In your contemplation,

Re-experience how the person's expression impacted you and how it inspired you.

Option three,

Recall a time when someone helped you overcome something very difficult and answer the following questions.

What was your struggle?

How did they help you?

How did this impact you emotionally?

How did this positively impact your life overall?

Once you have written this down,

Your daily gratitude practice will include revisiting your questions for contemplation or meditation for one to five minutes.

In your contemplation,

Re-experience how this person's help impacted you and how it inspired you.

Use any of the three options discussed.

You can mix and match or you can just stick with one.

Just be sure to complete your gratitude practice regularly at least one time a week,

But ideally three to four times a week.

That is all for now.

I will see you next time.

Take care.

Reviews

Thanking you kindly 🙏🐦🤗

yippee, points me in the direction of www.gratefulness.org, ahimsa