Blog #163 Are You Filled With Gratitude?
I am so very grateful for my blog and all that I have learned from writing it. I am so honored and thankful for you sharing your incredible stories of how my weekly blog has helped heal you and changed your life just when you needed it most.
Been writing my blog now every week for the past four years with no AI, it’s just me! It has been such a gift!
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 get to learn from it all!
Having gratitude expands our awareness of HAVINGNESS beyond limits, of all the love and abundance that is all around us as a spiritual being, if we can only be aware and notice.
Making a list of our blessings every night is being grateful for all the abundance flowing in.
Blessing and appreciating everything we do, see, hear, taste, touch and feel and especially know is a choice that makes all our lives happier and more joyous.
The more you praise, appreciate and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.
According to the experts, practicing gratitude makes you healthier, smarter and more energetic.
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, appreciation, determination, and energy. Adults who regularly expressed gratitude 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. Gratitude seems to make you smarter, more self-aware, healthier, and joyful.
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 healthy friendships and feel loved and cared for by others. 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. Attitude of Gratitude!
6. Stop the fight-or-flight response. Feelings of appreciation and gratitude result a more balanced body and mind and 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. 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.
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 and on and on. Those who practice gratitude 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.
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 of my sweet boy Kalani taking a nap, who I am so very grateful for every day!