EP27: Gratitude Can Change Your Brain

This is winning with wellness, a podcast about inspiring the wellness warrior in you. If you're feeling lost or alone in your wellness journey, or looking for new ideas and inspiration, you are in the right place, a place you can learn about all things wellness, in business life and living your host, Jenny rice, we'll be bringing you inspiring stories and practical tools to improve your overall wellness, personally and professionally. Imagine what living a life of wellness would be like. Thank you for joining us today.

Hi, everyone, welcome to another episode of winning with wellness, I am so thrilled to be here, you'll never guess who I'm interviewing today. me.

I'm actually here to share my passion around gratitude. It's a buzzword that we hear all the time. It's a topic that's you know, always at the forefront people like do you do a practice? Do you have gratitude, all those kinds of things. But I wanted to share from my heart, how gratitude has impacted my life and the simple things that I've done to change my pathway by using gratitude. So a couple things that I found super interesting, and I'm going to dig right into this. What I found fascinating about gratitude is I didn't realize that it actually has an impact on our overall health. So you know, I started doing gratitude practice, because basically people told me, that's what they should do you, you see people doing things you read about in books, and you're like, oh, that seems like a really good idea. I think I'm going to step into that and give it a try. As I dug in deeper and, you know, really worked into my own mindset coaching and my own mindset for myself, I wanted to understand gratitude a little bit more deeply, because I, it was something I was recommending to clients. And I was personally doing it. So I wanted to make sure it made sense and why I was doing it. So UCLA mindfulness awareness Research Center actually has done some incredible research around gratitude, and a gratitude practice. And they actually literally figured out that it changes our brain. So what's really incredibly powerful about that is it impacts the gray matter of our brain, it actually helps support its health. And gray matter is made up of the cell bodies of nerve cells. So the gray matter serves to process inflammation in the brain, which really, let's dial it down makes us healthier and happier. So anytime I can do something that's again, all about redefining wellness, connecting myself to my understanding of my health, but I can use a gratitude practice to actually impact the function of my brain. That's a really powerful thing, no drugs, right? I don't have to eat something, I don't have to take pills, I don't have to do anything other than develop a gratitude practice. So there is also Chinese researchers that found that high levels of gratitude were associated with better sleep, lower levels of anxiety and depression. So what's really powerful about understanding that is we have this tool at our ready, that's called gratitude, to help us actually heal to be healthy. And when I say heal, please do you guys understand, I am not a physician or a scientist, there are all areas of our bodies that were healing, I'm not talking just in traditional sense, I'm talking support and balance. And of course, always connect with your professional before you step into any type of practice to make sure it works for you, and is in alignment with what you what you really want to see. Another test and study that was done was through the greater good science center at UC Berkeley. And they actually did scans of people's brains. So people that contributed and wrote gratitude letters showed a higher active function in their frontal prefrontal cortex. And I don't know about you guys, I don't know much again, like I said, I'm not a scientist, but by simply expressing gratitude, it was showing lasting effects on the brain. So these are some really simple things that we can do to actually help support The function of our brain. So what's so interesting about that is gratitude has effect, like, totally on our physical health. So again, if we're for sleeping better, that impacts our immune system, it impacts your overall health or psychological well being, we're increasing our positive emotions. What's really amazing about a gratitude practice, believe it or not, it actually has an impact on our relationships. And we feel less lonely because we are connected to the things that we are doing by taking stock of what we're grateful for within the day. So some of the incredible things that you can expect from a gratitude practice are a positive mindset, decreased stress, decreased depression symptoms. And believe it or not, we become less materialistic, because we're not filling voids with other things, because we are actually acknowledging what is filling us up throughout the day. So everybody's heard about it. journal about your gratitude, I am going to invite you guys, and I'm going to encourage you, for those of you that hate writing in a journal, amen, I hear you, same boat, I want to be this a massive journaler that writes and writes and writes, it is not my strength, it is not my zone of genius. It's the first thing that I allow myself to take off the table. However, every single day, at the end of my business day, I do a gratitude. And I found that if I make it part of my closing ritual in my business, I make sure that I get it done a couple reasons. Okay, it's super important to celebrate your wins throughout the day. But I know it's now become a non negotiable a part of my lifestyle. So what are we grateful for when we do a gratitude practice, it can be one thing that you write down, it can be 10 things, but at minimum, say them in your mind, if you're not someone that's going to write them down, it's okay, there's no right or wrong way to do this. They never have to be massive, major events, it doesn't need to be difficult. It could be somebody bought you a coffee, could be somebody held the door for you, maybe you had a really delicious meal, talking to friends, or getting through a difficult challenge. It doesn't have to be this huge fireworks display of experience for it to be worth gratitude. I always wake up in the morning, and I think,

you know, I think spirit and guide whoever's listening, that I'm on the right side of the earth today. There are some people that didn't wake up today. And I'm grateful every single day that I get to experience more within that date, that can be your gratitude practice, it doesn't have to be intense, and it doesn't have to be overwhelming. Now, some of you guys that are listening might be business owners might have a team that you lead might connect with people on that level, I want to share with you that something that's really near and dear to my heart is showing gratitude in business. This is a really important way to build culture, in your community of of who works with you, who works around you. It's about spreading it out and creating a domino effect. If you're showing gratitude to the people that work with you, and the people that purchase from you, you're going to experience that and they're going to experience it, they're going to share that out. But it creates incredibly loyal customers increase employee loyalty, overall, its retention in your business. And it's extremely positive, which is incredible. So when we think about cultivating gratitude, we're really looking at intentionally focusing on developing positive thoughts and eliminating on eliminating or removing ungrateful thoughts or limiting thoughts. We don't want to take things for granted. We're blessed in so many areas of our lives. And that's what I love about a gratitude practice. If we focus on the small things, those can be big wins for us. For myself, it is literally transformed my life and the way I see the world. And I invite you to to step in and get curious about that and see what that looks like. It might be something that works for you. And it might not be and it's okay, this is the thing. It's all about trying things on and see what fits for you. So a lot of people ask me, How do I get started? Like, how do I make a gratitude practice that focuses on supporting my brain function, my health Those kinds of things. Really what you want to be looking at focusing on and and areas that are helpful is relationships, interactions and experiences, you kind of want to avoid material possessions. Like, how did I got get there? Not what I have. So how did I require the funds to buy this phone, that would be more of what I would want to focus on, or how was I able to get on this trip or the meal that I ate, etc. It's not always about the possession. So if we keep it on the experience, that's what's really gonna keep our gratitude focused in the area that we need. So how do I get started, guys, you got to retrain your brain, you just got to start, just start a couple times a week, if you are not able to step in every single day and do it, do it Friday nights, do it Sunday mornings, you can always increase. If you're going to do a journal, aim for one or two entries. If you don't have to have 15, you don't have to have five, one or two entries, or a simple act of gratitude a couple times a week, write somebody a thank you note, open the door for somebody else. Right? Even if you can't deliver that thank you note, thank somebody, you can read it out loud, it doesn't have to be big, it doesn't have to be small. But the key is to start. And that's really where I want to invite you guys, I know what it's like to start habits and feel overwhelmed by them. I encourage you to start small, you can always grow and build and make it bigger, you don't have to step in full tilt right away. So I'm going to leave you with a couple of questions I want you guys to think about around the power of gratitude, and how to focus yourself. You know, around gratitude. Okay? So what I want you to think about is, one of the great questions is how will you implement your gratitude practice? What will be the process, this is a really great way to get yourself started. How will you implement your gratitude practice and what will be the process?