Dr Sunita Kumari
Krtajnosmi Tad-BuddhvaYasyaprasadat (I am grateful, knowing that all is given by the Divine) —(Bhagavad Gita, 9.27)
The word “gratitude” comes from the Latin word gratia, which means thankfulness, gratefulness, grace or graciousness. Gratitude means thankfully acknowledging and appreciating for the goodness in our lives.Gratitude is also the reverse of our undesirable damaging inner voice. It breaks the negativity and creates an opportunity to concentrate on all the virtuous in one’s life.
World Gratitude Day is celebrated annually on September 21st. It’s a global observance that encourages individuals to express appreciation and gratitude for the good things in their lives. This special day was founded in 1965 by the United Nations Meditation Group, with the goal of promoting a sense of global unity and recognition of the benefits of gratitude. Practicing gratitude necessitates a thorough fortitude to look differently at ourselves, the world, and others, as well as to act differently.The purpose of this article is to explore the profound and powerful health effects of practicing gratitude as well as to provide certain tips on how to incorporate this habit in our everyday lives and thereby to contribute to a more positive and appreciative societal mindset.
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Amazing life perfections can stem from the practice of gratitude:
- Positive impact on mental well-being:
Mayyeva Mana AdhatsvaMayiBhuddhimNivesaya (Fix your mind on me, and place your intellect in me)- (Bhagavad Gita, 12.8)
Gratitude expands psychological healthand lessens heavy emotions, like envy, rage, jealousy, anger, resentment, regret, depression and frustration as well as triggers positive emotions by release of serotonin and dopamine (also called as “happy hormones” or “feel-good hormones”), powerful brain chemicals associated with happiness and pleasure, making people more optimistic even in the face of challenges. As a result, people are more expected to adopt behaviors that are advantageous to a better tomorrow. Practice of gratitude has a strong correlation with greater feelings of cheerfulness, enhanced life satisfaction and being more at peace. It helps people improve work-life balance, relish good experiences, deal with uncomfortable sensations and negative emotions, improve their health and build strong relationships. Gratitude can change the way we look at our own worth. It enhances confidence, patience, humility and wisdom. - Gratitude enhances our ability to handle stress:
Practicing gratitude brings about reduction in the level of stress hormone, cortisol. It also leads to better cardiac functioning and more flexibility to emotional setbacks and undesirable damaging experiences. Just by acknowledging and appreciating the little things in life, we renovate the brain to deal with the disagreeable circumstances with better awareness and broader perception. Because of its mood stabilizing effect gratitude can be a part of broader treatment plan for stress, anxiety, depression and other mood disorders. - Gratitude brings happiness that lasts:
Benevolence gladdens constantly the grateful; the ungrateful, however, but once. – Seneca.
Conscious practice of gratitude every day brings sustainable form of happiness.Regular practice of gratitude may lead to lasting changes in the neuronal connections in the brain, priming the person to be further grateful in future.Cultivation of gratitude is linked with strengthening of neural pathways that creates a long lasting grateful and positive nature within ourselves. Additionally, cultivating gratitude has been linked to neural activity associated with honest reasoning and fairness. - Powerful physical health benefits:
“Gratitude blocks toxic emotions, such as envy, resentment, regret, and depression, which can destroy our happiness.” – Robert Emmons
Gratitude also brings about certain physiological changes in our body that ultimately lead to activation of the parasympathetic division of autonomic nervous system, the part of the nervous system that helps us rest and digest. Gratitude and the changes that it produces in the body, improve sleep, help bring down our heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing to help with overall relaxation. Grateful people are more likely to take care of themselves, eat a healthier diet, exercise more often, get fewer aches and pains, and have stronger self-control leading to discipline and focus. Being grateful can help prevent disease and can even help us live longer (delays ageing) contributing to greater physical health and longevity. - Gratitude facilitates social well-being: Gratitude enhances empathy and reduces aggression leading to better control over emotions. Grateful people have betterrelationships because expression of thankfulness and appreciation opens the door for more constructive interactions.
- Professional life benefits: Gratitude increases our emotional intelligence and makes us communicative, adaptive, empathetic, and compassionate, the soft skills that make us humans and are important to thrive at the workplace. Another way of gratitude that can help us further our goals is by acknowledging the achievements and realizing how far we have already come. Credit needs to be given to our own self for successfully conquering every hinderance all along the way.
- Gratitude makes us less materialistic: Gratitude makes the people to appreciate and focus on what they already have instead of what is lacking in their life. Therefore, gratitude shifts our attention from what we lack in our lives to the abundance that is already present. Obstacles to feeing gratitude: Some people have grateful disposition and as a result gratitude comes naturally which makes them relish all the good in life where as certain personality traits and mood disorders act as barriers to the practice of gratitude. Factors like materialism, cynicism, envy, narcissism, stress, depression etc make us take things for granted. But fortunately, just like muscle, gratitude can be built stronger with practice. There are exercises and interventions to cultivate and integrate more gratitude in our life:
Writing it down: We can take time either in the morning or at night to write down something that went well. We can also dedicate a journal or a notebook to gratitude so we can reflect and remind ourself of those moments. Make brief entries of the stuff that you are grateful for.
Gratitude Jar: Write down the things you are thankful for on small paper slips and put them in the jar or box. Read them whenever you need a boost or at the end of the week.
Hitting pause: Sometimes we reflexively say, “thanks” often. In future if we hear ourselves saying it, we need to stop and think precisely what we are thankful for (e g “good coffee” instead of “coffee”).
Connect with Nature: Spend some time outdoors daily (be it 5 to 10 minutes). Appreciate the wonder and beauty of nature (sights, sounds, birds and animals around).
Redirecting your thoughts: At times we may feel frustrated or unfulfilled. When this happens, we should step back and shift our focus to a positive facet of the situation.
Mental Subtraction: It means Imagining our lives without any good things and then again coming back to reality and appreciating whatever good thing are there in our lives.
Death Reflection: Means imagining our own death and then appreciating the profits of being alive. This helps us gain a bigger indebtedness to the beautiful world and the people around.
Sharing our gratitude, gratitude letters and visits: Sometimes we should send a quick note to someone telling her/him why we are thankful for them or encourage our family to speak out something they’re grateful for every evening at dinner. Incorporate gratitude into your daily life by sending thank you notes, creating gratitude rituals and starting a meeting or giving closing remarks with a statement of gratitude.
Count your blessings: Choose a time as per your convenience at least once a week and think about your blessings. First write down 4 to 5 things that you are grateful for and then gradually keep on increasing. Try to recall the sensations and the feelings you got when something good happened to you.
Gratitude Meditation: Meditation prevents us from ruminating our thoughts, pulls away from worrying and helps to focus on the present moment without judgement, better enabling us to recall the things and moments that we are grateful for (e.g. nice people around, respectful job, pleasant weather etc.). Calming exercises in more structured meditation helps us incorporate both mindfulness as well as gratitude in life. The best thing about gratitude meditation is that it can be practiced anywhere at any time.
Bedtime gratitude: Thinking grateful each night before bed helps in calming the mind and enables better sleep. May be less well known but it is an effective means of reducing the sleep disturbances and increasing the time span of restful sleep.
To conclude, gratitude is a simple yet powerful habit that can transform our lives. Just by appreciating the things and people in our lives, we can improve our relationships, health and well-being, and overall happiness. When we train ourselves to look at life through the lens of gratitude rather than disappointment, we actually find ourselves.
In short, we can strengthen our physiology through attitude of gratitude. Let’s start incorporating gratitude in our everyday life rightfrom today onwards and see the great magic happen.
(The Writer is Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology AIIMS Vijaypur Jammu).
