Making Gratitude Work

I wanted to take a different approach from the norm today.

I've gotten so many messages from different people and organizations about how they are Thankful today, filled with Gratitude.

It is all good and great, don't get me wrong.

I too have many things to be Grateful for - My Faith, my Family, my clients, my work, my writing, and even you reading this now!

However, I feel that many of these messages are... a bit shallow if I'm going to be honest.

I'm not saying that the words written aren't True - far from it.

I just think there's a different way to go about it that is more Impactful.

So I wanted to share a different type of message.

Instead of just telling you that I'm Grateful, I wanted to demonstrate Gratitude by giving you something more useful in your life.

I wanted to talk a bit about Why Gratitude works, and how to make it work better.

The Science Of Gratitude

Why is Gratitude so potent?

There is actually a deep Science behind it.

It is a combination of Psychology, Neurocardiology, and Neurology that makes it a powerful force in our lives.

For the Psychological side of things, there is something I've said a few times, and will likely say again in the Future.

What we Focus on, we will find more of.

So, when we Focus on Gratitude, we will find more things to be Grateful for in Life.

As we find more things to be Grateful for, we light up our Reward Pathway in our Brain.

This creates a lot of "Feel Good" chemicals in the Brain that can combat things like Anxiety and Depression in our lives.

In Neurocardiology, there are a lot of fascinating things that occur.

There is a trackable change that occurs to our Heart Rhythm when we actively look for Gratitude.

In certain circles they would say that this creates "Heart Coherence".

This will directly Impact and Improve our HRV (Heart Rate Variability) which has many Health Benefits.

It also has a powerful ability to increase our Resilience, making it easier to handle Dis-Stress.

Further, through improved Neurocardiology, we can actually connect with others better, literally, via Electromagnetic Waves our hearts share back and forth.

This can then directly improve Empathy and Compassion leading to great improvements for Emotional Intelligence.

When we go into Neurology, our bodies respond to Gratitude in some amazing ways.

It directly improves our Physical Health, making us less susceptible to a great number of diseases.

Part of this is a factor of increased Resilience, which will then reduce the amount of Oxidative Stress (aka Stress Damage) created, which has been linked to most diseases (though some people believe ALL diseases).

Gratitude has also been shown to reduce blood pressure, improve the immune system, and even reduce aches and pains!

As awesome as all of this is though, there are some things we can do to really make Gratitude continuously work to our benefit!

Making Gratitude Work

So, what are some things that will really help compound the Benefits of Gratitude?

One of the important things to start with is designing a Gratitude Habit.

This can be difficult in our world today with many things that will directly conflict with Gratitude.

The News, unceasing notifications, and the common Dis-Stress we feel in the different aspects of life.

So, we must do 2 things here.

First, we must reduce the things that directly attack our feelings of Gratitude.

Reduce how often we see the News and make it so we only see it when "we" want to know what is happening.

Decrease (or completely eliminate) the notifications we get on our phones.

Plus, reduce Dis-Stress wherever we are able.

Second, we must be Intentional about designing a Gratitude practice.

ONE day of Gratitude, as good as it can be, is not enough.

Ideally, we should have a practice that we do EVERY day.

Whether it is Prayer, a Gratitude Journal, or any other method, we want it to be something that occurs Daily.

Another way to make Gratitude work better is to add practices to our lives to calm our Nervous System.

Some people will use practices like Meditation to accomplish this.

However, we can also use other methods of impacting our Nervous System more directly.

Some people do things like Tapping and Chi Gong to directly touch Nerve Endings which can create a calming effect.

But you can also accomplish similar effects simply by following the Developmental Path of Babies!

This has been something studied and practiced by the Original Strength group.

We can Breathe, Head Nod, Rock, Roll, and even Walk to help us directly improve our Nervous System - I personally would recommend Rolling in this instance!

It may "seem" silly, but there's a reason Babies do these things - it's written into our DNA and Operating System.

You don't need to "train" a Baby to do these things, they Develop and do these on their own!

We can go further though!

I talk about Dis-Stress a lot in my work, but Reducing Dis-Stress is not enough!

All Stress creates Stress Damage, aka Oxidative Stress.

You can improve Resilience which will create "less" Oxidative Stress, and that is great!

But, you also need to Heal the Damage that has already occurred.

If you don't remove the Damage, it will just continue to add up!

The more it adds up, the harder it will be to feel Gratitude as too much Oxidative Stress activates the Survival Instinct in us, pushing us into Survival Mode.

But, if we reduce the Stress Damage, we can make it so that Gratitude comes easier, and the Impacts last longer!

The final thing we can do is to go from Finding Gratitude to Creating Gratitude in our lives.

This is an extension of what we Focus on, we find more of.

However, instead of "just" Focusing on what we are Grateful for, we can begin to also Focus on what "creates" the feeling of Gratitude in our lives.

With that Knowledge, we can create a Virtuous Circle where we do things that Inspire Gratitude in us and the people around us, which Inspires us to do more things that cause Gratitude.

It becomes something that we Cultivate, it grows like a Garden.

As long as we continue to tend to it, it can continue to Grow perpetually.

Gratitude in Perpetuity.