It is important that we develop an attitude of gratitude for many reasons.\u00a0 Practicing gratitude will improve our emotional health as well providing other health benefits as well.\u00a0 The following article was written as I was thinking about Thanksgiving and the real meaning of “thanks-giving.”<\/p>\n
As people across the country gathered this week to celebrate Thanksgiving, research is proving that cultivating an attitude of gratitude and expressing those feelings every day can rewire your emotional system as well as provide other benefits that are nothing short of amazing.<\/p>\n
Psychologists and researchers agree that being in a state of gratitude is like hitting the re-set button on your entire emotional system. Michael McCullough, a University of Miami psychology professor, says \u201cWhen you are stopping and counting your blessings, you are sort of hijacking your emotional system.\u201d Your brain chemistry changes and you feel an enhanced sense of emotional well-being and are able to see everything in a more positive frame. \u201cIt does make people happier,\u201d says McCullough.<\/p>\n
Gratitude derives from the Latin word \u201cGratus<\/em>,\u201d meaning pleasing and agreeable. Dr. Wayne Dyer defines the nature of gratitude as \u201cthe complete and full response of the human heart to everything in the Universe. It is an absence of feeling alienated or separate. It represents our full acknowledgment and appreciation of the energy flowing through all things, and brings gifts to us in the form of the fulfillment of our desires. Gratitude is the way we experience the world with love rather than judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n When we are grateful, we acknowledge that nothing is to be taken for granted, and that we are connected to all things everywhere. We feel complete, and see ourselves more clearly. By giving thanks we send out a form of loving energy to the world as well as to the Creative force in all things, reflecting our interconnectedness and allowing more of what we desire into our lives.<\/p>\n Being in a state of gratitude helps you focus on what you have, not what is missing, thereby reducing stress and allowing life to flow more easily. Robert Emmons, a University of California at Davis psychology professor has found that \u201cGrateful people feel more alert, alive, interested, and enthusiastic. Gratitude also serves as a stress buffer, and grateful people are less likely to experience envy, anger, resentment, regret and other unpleasant states that produce stress.\u201d<\/p>\n There are many physiological benefits of gratitude<\/a> as well. The Heartmath Institute has proven \u201cthat positive emotions such as gratitude create harmony in the heart\u2019s rhythms and the nervous system. Other bodily functions sync up to this rhythm, which is called coherence. Coherence has many powerful and positive benefits such as increased mental clarity, creativity, resourcefulness, and functioning of the cortex is measurably improved.\u201d The physiology of gratitude<\/a> also allows for a deeper sense of peace and well-being, increased vitality, heightened perception and sensations, increased longevity, improved decision-making and problem solving, and better overall physical and emotional health.<\/p>\n The opposite is true, however, when you are in a state of \u201clack.\u201d By focusing on what you don\u2019t have, you are saying that you are not grateful for all that you do have and depreciate your life. You experience the world from judgment rather than from love. In essence, you are blocking your connection with life force which can lead to resentment, animosity, and negativity. These negative emotions can create \u201cdis-ease,\u201d resulting in physical and psychological illnesses.<\/p>\n