A Key to Optimum Wellness : Gratitude

An attitude of gratitude promotes wellness. Research shows those who are grateful for their life heal faster, have stronger immune systems, less stress and greater. This week before you begin your day's "busyness" stop and write down at least three things you are grateful for in your life in your gratitude journal.

This exercise will promote a day of increased awareness of good, a sense of peace and fulfillment. Remember, what we hold in our mind creates our outer world. Begin with gratitude and experience more gratefulness all day long.

Written by Dr. James http://www.9news.com/optimum/gratitude.htm

Realize there is an opportunity in every experience.

There are no accidents in life. You are the creator of all of it. Health, joy, and freedom are actually natural and part of your true nature, regardless of what your life may look like at this moment.

Whenever you are not experiencing health, joy, and freedom, or if your peace is disturbed in any other way, it is helpful to remind yourself “I do not know what this means. I don’t know how to respond to this, but I am willing to see the opportunity here. What is the opportunity here?” and then, see it and act on it, whatever it is.

If you try this, and make this practice a habit, your life will literally transform itself into a wonderful series of opportunities for greater health, joy, and freedom.

With gratitude from The Secrets of My Success at ZenChill.com http://zenchillcom.blogspot.com/2006/06/secrets-of-my-success.html

Gratitude disables your inner brat and boosts positive feelings

This article is by Pauline Wallin, Ph.D.Author, "Taming Your Inner Brat: A Guide to Transforming Self-defeating Behavior" http://www.innerbrat.com

As I gave my dog a small morsel of toast the other day, I reflected on how grateful a creature she is. Abby is just as thrilled to receive a crumb as she is to get a huge bone. She never complains that the crumb is too small, or too cold or too moldy even! She always wants more, but if I don't offer it she gets over it quickly. No sulking around for what she didn't get.

Wouldn't it be nice if more people were that way? Not that people are never grateful, but most of the time it's after an accident or a disaster. For example, after a fire you’ll often hear the victims say, "We lost everything. But at least we're alive and still have each other." People are also grateful when they're frightened, hurt or down on their luck, and someone comes to their aid. Being on the receiving end of kindness when you need it most, always evokes feelings of gratitude.

When you're in a grateful state of mind, your inner brat is essentially disabled. Your mind is open and receptive. You feel connected to the world.

Being grateful for what you have is not just a more pleasant state of mind for the moment. There are lasting benefits, both mental and physical. Dr. Robert Emmons, a psychologist who specializes in research on gratitude, found that:

* People who kept a daily "gratitude journal" reported higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm and energy, than those who journaled about hassles or neutral events. This was the case even among people with neuromuscular disease.

* Grateful people report higher levels of life satisfaction and optimism.

* They also are more likely to share their possessions and to help others in need, thereby increasing their feelings of involvement and being appreciated themselves.

* They are less envious, less resentful, less bitter, and less neurotic. They are also less materialistic.

* Grateful people do not ignore problems. If anything, they may be somewhat more cynical than average. While they may anticipate more difficulties, they are also thankful when other people help make their life easier.

Besides feelings of well-being, an appreciative attitude can also have physical health benefits. One study showed that people who were instructed to focus on appreciation for five minutes had better heart rhythms, than did those who were told to think about anger for the same five minutes.

If this doesn't get you enthused, consider the following research finding: In a study of 180 nuns over time, those who wrote about being positive and appreciative early in life, lived on average 6-9 years longer than those who were pessimistic and negative.

Even if you have a good number of years behind you, it is not too late to expand your gratitude and appreciation. When you do, your inner brat will instantly recede to the background.

But gratitude doesn't just reduce negative feelings. It also increases positive ones. Instead of feeling angry, empty or victimized, you will experience contentment and perhaps even joy. You'll start to notice more beauty in the world, despite the stresses and difficulties you're facing.

The More you Appreciate, the More You Get!

When you are in the Gratitude mindset, you will recognise lots of things to be grateful for.

These can include everyday things you take for granted (Examples – enjoying the sunshine, having a hot shower, sleeping in a comfortable bed, are all pleasures that most of us don’t appreciate anymore), as well as all the new ‘goodies’ you are attracting to yourself.

Last week, in 3 days, for example, a friend took myself, my partner and my son to dinner – and paid for all of us. The next night, I was given tickets to dinner and a show by another friend. AND I entered a competition to win tickets to see a show, and – you guessed it, I won them.

The spiralling effect of gratitude is awesome - the more you appreciate, the more you get!

The Law of Attraction

Focussing on, and feeling gratitude for what we have, attracts more of the same. This is one of the rules of the Universe (or whatever name you want to call it).

Every time you feel grateful for something or someone, you will attract to yourself another thing to be grateful for. It’s a spiralling effect, of give and take. Give gratitude, take the rewards.

As soon as you stop feeling grateful and start taking things for granted again, the flow will also stop.

This happened to me, because I became cocky about all the good things that I was receiving into my life and thought I didn't need a gratitude diary anymore. I thought I would automatically continue to feel grateful for everything. BUT I didn't. Little things would go wrong, and I became more and more negative, more and more stressed. I forgot to be grateful. and the more negative I was, the more negative things I received. Again, a spiralling effect.

A gratitude diary can reverse this if this is the situation you're in.

Have a look in the July 9th entry of this blog for instructions on How a Gratitude Diary Works.

A major key to contentment is gratitude.

Being thankful for what you have leads to contentment, while continually wanting more and more leaves us feeling empty and unfulfilled. Having MORE does not, alas, make us more content over the long run - the initial high about the new car, the new wardrobe, or the vacation quickly fades. No matter what our former economic status, we become accustomed to the new level and soon it isn't enough either.

It is human to want MORE, and while that motivates us to keep moving, seldom do we have any sustained sense of ENOUGH. To be content, we need to slip out of the well-worn rut of wanting more, more, more and just experience that, right now, in this moment, we have enough.

A Gratitude diary helps contentment, by getting you to appreciate what you have, the people around you, your circumstances, and events. It is difficult to take things for granted when you have to come up with 5 new things to be grateful for each day.

Don’t like writing? Can’t read your own handwriting?

Don’t let that stop you from creating your own gratitude diary.

You could type it instead, into a document.
Or do it online. Go to http://www.simpleabundance.com/gratitude.html and type in your reasons to be grateful, then print it out.

5 minutes a day, that's all it takes. The good things you will attract to you will absolutely amaze you.

Happiness is a State of Mind

Keep in mind that happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our status or the state of our bank account. Barring extreme circumstances, our level of well being is determined by what we choose to focus on (the full or the empty part of the glass) and by our interpretation of external events.

For example, do we view failure as catastrophic, or do we see it as a learning opportunity?

When we receive an electricity bill, do we curse, or do we feel gratitude for all the comforts and conveniences that electricity provides?

Keeping a gratitude diary will not only help focus you on the positives in your life, it will bring more positive things into your life as well.

As an example, just this week, 2 different lots of friends invited me out for dinner and a show, and paid for me, AND I won tickets valued at $140 to see an international drumming/martial ats show. My son came home for the weekend from interstate as well. And that is just this week. I am attracting so many wonderful things into my life.

Positive Psychology Updates

Recently psychologists in the Positive Psychology movement, as well as economists like Richard Layard, have been looking at what promotes happiness.

In the economic field, Layard and others have found that beyond a fairly basic minimum level, increases in income don't make us happier. Once our basic comfort and survival needs are satisfied, we focus on status. Plus, money matters less the more you have of it. More about this in Layard's excellent book Happiness: Lessons From A New Science.

The Education Guardian recently interviewed another 'happiness economist', Andrew Oswald :"Before we can tell how happy we are, we have to keep comparing ourselves with the neighbours. To keep up with the Joneses, we spend a vast proportion of our income on things we don't need. It's the way human beings are. But, collectively, we can't all be ahead of the average. That's the key factor in why the continued emphasis on economic growth doesn't work for the whole of society."

Keeping a Gratitude Diary stops us from comparing ourselves with everyone around us. It keeps us focussed on what is really important to us, what it is that makes us happy and gives us joy.

Sometimes It's Hard to Be Grateful

Sometimes and in some places it's hard to be grateful - so remind yourself.

Put a sticky note in your car that says, "What do I have to be thankful for?"
That way, when you're setting out on onerous errands, stuck in hellish traffic, or coming home to chaos, you have the chance to pause and reflect on that which you do consider a blessing: your health, the loved ones you're shopping for, your nice warm coat, whatever.

And you can write these blessings in your gratitude diary later on.