How To Practice Gratitude and Its Effect on The Body [Episode #756]

This week’s topic is: How To Practice Gratitude and Its Effect on The Body

Today we have a combination of really powerful tips and takeaways as well as grounded research, so you can see that this energy of gratitude can actually flood your system with incredible energy, with feel good neurotransmitters and endorphins. It is the energy of abundance. When we feel how much good there is around it helps us to expand that instead of always looking to what’s missing or what could be better, which is very lack-based and keeps us small and constricted.

Gratitude is something that we can all learn to tap into and it can only benefit your life from a health perspective, an energetic standpoint, and an abundance in your financial realm. Of course abundance expands beyond that realm and into relationships and abundance of fulfillment, and love, and enjoyment in our lives.

It’s a very powerful energy and I wanted to dedicate today’s show with some real research behind this phenomenon of gratitude and how important it is to incorporate it into our self-care routine on a daily basis. I’ll give you some guidance and what and how much it can really benefit you and your life. And I can say from personal experience that when I started to understand energy in a deeper way and I started to understand how much lack-based energy I was putting out into the world, I started to really shift into gratitude and so much opened up in my life, in my career, and in my relationships. And it’s something that is experiential and something I believe you can experience in your own life.

Have you been wondering about this very topic? If you want to know the answer to this question sent in by a Beauty just like you, listen now to find out!

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[Question Answered]

Jennifer – Wisconsin

I hear a lot about the practice of gratitude and how it helps you in your everyday life. What are some tips for starting a gratitude practice and what are the benefits?

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Namaste loves and welcome back to our Thursday Q&A show where our topic today is How To Practice Gratitude and Its Effect on The Body. So today we have a combination as always of really powerful tips and takeaways as well as grounded research. So you can see that this energy of gratitude can actually flood your system with incredible energy, with feel good neurotransmitters and endorphins. It is the energy of abundance. And so when we feel how much good there is around it helps us to expand that instead of looking always to what’s missing or what could be better, which is very lack based and keeps us small and constricted. So gratitude as we vwill get into in our show today, is something that we can all learn to tap into and it can only incredibly benefit your life from a health perspective, an energetic standpoint, an abundance in your financial, in the financial realm.

Opportunities, of course abundance expands beyond that realm into relationships and and abundance of fulfillment and love and enjoyment in our lives. So it’s a very powerful energy and so I wanted to dedicate today’s show, as I mentioned, with some real research behind this phenomenon of gratitude and how important it is to incorporate it into our self-care routine on a daily basis. And I’ll give you some guidance there and what and how much it can really benefit you and your life. And I can say from personal experience that when I started to understand energy in a deeper way and I started to understand how much, uh, lack based energy I was putting out into the world and I started to really shift into gratitude, so much opened up in my life and in my career and in my relationships. And it’s something that is, is experiential.

You can experience the truth of this in your own life. And so, you know, we don’t have to do clinical research on our own life, but we can certainly reflect and that’s one of the powers of keeping a journal or keeping journals is where you can go back and you can see, wow, I made this shift internally and externally a lot more started to come in. There was just so many more feelings of deep fulfillment and joy and um, self-esteem coming from the inside and lots and lots of things.

Please leave a review on iTunes and Subscribe

So very excited for today’s show as you can tell. But before we get into it, a little reminder to please leave us a review on Apple, Spotify to support the show wherever you listen. If you could just take a moment out of your day, it would mean the world. You could write, you could write a one sentence review, but it’s about, about the energetic support. So thank you in advance. Please also be sure to subscribe to our show so you stay in the flow every week and share the show with anyone that you think would benefit. It could be through a screenshot or a link, but part of this gratitude we talk about expansion so much. Expansion is really where it’s at in terms of our wellbeing, in terms of our perspective, our vision. As we continue to open up our true vision through our third eye and our health. Everything is about expansion and so when we share resources and wisdom and love and all the ways in which we can help others expand, it comes back to us tenfold.

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Last little reminder is that our new book, baby, or the latest as I shall say, You Are More More Than You Think You Are – Practical Enlightenment For Everyday Life, is just published now in soft cover. So you can still get a physical copy but a little bit lighter, which is full of potent practices and teachings on how to really, really shift your life from the inside out, which we could say is the most powerful, the most impactful, and the most sustainable. So it really comes from the seed form energy. When we learn to see it and work with it, then our vitality can greatly increase and our peace and our love in our lives and many other things. So check it out wherever books are sold. Alright, let’s get right into our show today, how to practice gratitude and its effect on the body. So it’s really nice when we put the highlight on certain things in our life and some of these seem very simple and they’re often free and easy to use, easy to apply, being grateful, but it’s really profound when we see, wow, this is impactful, this is making a really big difference, and we start to recognize more and more that it’s not what we’ve been taught, that we need to go out and maybe change everything in our life all at once or suddenly we need to buy all these expensive devices or all this stuff. Certain things are helpful, but it really is how we work with our own energy and it comes from intention and choice and focus and commitment.

Question around the topic of: How To Practice Gratitude and Its Effect on The Body: I hear a lot about the practice of gratitude and how it helps you in your everyday life. What are some tips for starting a gratitude practice and what are the benefits?

So our question today comes from Jennifer, who lives in Wisconsin, sending you lots of love out there, my sister, where it is probably very cold, very beautiful <laugh>, thank you for being here. And you write, I hear about a lot about the practice of gratitude and how it helps you in your everyday life. What are some of the tips for starting a gratitude practice and what are the benefits? So we’ll get into the practice part in just a moment. So there is a lot of research and we’re gonna put this in the show notes over at mysolluna.com. When you start digging around, you start to see that, oh wow, this is really starting to, to gain real footing here in terms of the research, which is great because sometimes research is really only around things that people wanna sell and there’s funding behind certain studies.

Tip #1 On How To Practice Gratitude and Its Effect on The Body: Morning gratitude

But now as you’ll see, there is so much around this topic and it’s find the research is finding that gratitude helps us to just feel more happy and fulfilled in our life. From a physical body perspective, there’s even research correlating gratitude with lower blood pressure and cortisol levels. And that’s because gratitude is the antithesis of stress, lack anxiety, what’s going on, what, what could be better, what’s missing? Instead of saying, okay, right here and right now things are good. So there’s a real innate sense of presence that’s built into the quality of an of gratitude because it’s saying what is here now? And so this coming into the now moment is very healthy for your body to not be in this in between place of, you know, time that isn’t really there, the future in the past, but rather to revel in this moment and to enjoy this moment because that’s where life is.

It’s right here, right now will be, uh, research has also found that gratitude helps to improve the quality of your sleep, which makes sense as well because when we are anxiety bound, when we are constantly in our thoughts that Vata energy, that wind energy is sort of tossing our mind around, of course it’s harder to sleep and we wake up with lots of thoughts. As a vata dominant person myself, I can very much relate to this and say that when I include gratitude as part of my evening meditation, which I always do, and which we’ll get into in a moment, it really does help to settle the mind and the mind and the body work together to create deep sustainable health, wellbeing, and vitality. So this is, this is all really important for us and also research is finding that gratitude is very important for our immune system.

So now we, we start to understand this delicate balance of our immune system with our nervous system, how tied in it really is. So it goes back to this core that, you know, gratitude helps us to establish more trust in the now instead of always this perpetual worry about what’s going to happen and again, playing into the future because of some sort of pain or trauma in the past. We can just start to settle into this moment and that really helps our immunity to build. We’re not constantly in fight or flight, we’re not constantly releasing stress hormones, which really does weaken our overall system. So gratitude is practically powerful for our body and our bodies functioning. It’s also been shown to be a natural

Antidepressant and painkiller. This is really interesting research showing that people are more immune to pain when they have more gratitude in their life. And this is because of the boost of serotonin and dopamine, which comes from a gratitude practice. It is also been shown, and this is a research from 2013, that expressing gratitude to the people in our lives has been shown to actually improve our relationships, which we all know is a very important part of wellbeing and health. So we have a healthier, stronger community and tribe around us. So I could go on and on. There are many, many different, um, benefits of gratitude. If you are interested and you’ll have more of a discerning mind that likes to peruse scientific articles, please check out the notes and the links over@mysalluna.com. So yes, we know it’s great. How do we actually incorporate it? So sometimes I think that, you know, it’s easy to hear different pieces of information and we don’t really, um, practice it regularly so we don’t get the deep benefits.

It really is what we do on a consistent basis 80% of the time. So 80% of the time we remember to drink our Glowing Green Smoothie®. We make the space and the time and the effort we’re gonna benefit tremendously. If we skip sometimes on the weekends or we go out to brunch with a friend or whatever, it’s okay because the strength is in the regularity. So that’s what we wanna create with gratitude. We wanna strive for 80% of the time. So the first way in which we can practice gratitude, and to me this is a very important practice, is to start the day with a morning gratitude. Reflection. How we start the day impacts the energy of the whole day. This is why I’ve always emphasized morning meditation, drinking hot water, lemon, taking your feel good s b o probiotics. It’s important what we do in the morning, but the very first thing you can do, you can train yourself in this is as you open your eyes right there in bed, before you reach for your phone and check out TikTok or before you do any number of things that you may do in the morning, take a moment, place your hands on your heart or in prayer pose, whichever you prefer.

Tip #2 On How To Practice Gratitude and Its Effect on The Body: Gratitude throughout the day

But it’s this bringing the energy into your heart, bringing it into this present moment and take a moment to be grateful. It can be. I’m so grateful for this day for me, I include, I’m so grateful to God and gr my my masters, my teachers on this path. Thank you so much for another day to live and to evolve and to breathe and to be here. And so when we flood our bodies or you know, again, this is my personal prayer, whatever comes into the language of your heart, thank you so much for my health and my family. Thank you so much for this day. Whatever feels good to you, when you start the day with this overwhelming energy in the heart, it changes things. It puts us in this frequency of abundance and expansion. So we’re already feeling that deep, warm, fuzzy energy and there’s something to be said for that.

Like I said, there’s a lot of measurable impacts of that energy. And so I love that. Now the intangible is starting to be measurable <laugh> because it’s easy to trust, okay, here’s the food that I’m supposed to eat. Look at the rival flavin and the Omega fats, the things that we can list. But when we could start to trust that putting energy into a gratitude practice is benefiting us as well, that is powerful. So whether it is 10 seconds or 90 seconds, take a moment to start the day in this abundant place of gratitude. Number two, integrate gratitude into regular junctures of your day, like passing through a certain doorway or for me it’s every time I eat or drink something. This way gratitude gets interwoven into your day. So I’d like you to pick one thing. We wanna focus on one thing at a time.

It could be every time you walk into your, you know, kitchen door or this bathroom door or every time you eat something, just pick one regular habit and train yourself as I drink this or eat this or walk through this, it, it triggers me to think a thought of gratitude. So for me, and I have on my little podcast desk right now, which is very crowded, <laugh>, there’s a glass of water, there’s a glass of Gigi. I don’t do it every time I drink water to be honest, but every time I’m drinking my Gigi and especially the first sip, every time I am eating my wrap or whatever it is, I just take a moment to say Thank you spirit. Thank you God thank you, thank you. And so it can be tied to what you’re doing. Thank you for giving me this body, it’s healthy body to walk.

Tip #3 On How To Practice Gratitude and Its Effect on The Body: Writing gratitude in the written word

Thank you for giving me this food to eat. It’s healthy, beautiful plant food. But for me sometimes it’s really just non-specific, a non um, localized if you will, non-specific energy in this moment it’s just a chance to say thank you, I’m here, I’m alive, I’m breathing, I’m experiencing, I’m growing, I’m evolving every day. So find one juncture in your day, one thing that you tend to repeat and attach a gratitude moment into. That doesn’t have to be huge, it can be just a few seconds, but again, it brings gratitude through the day. Number three, practice gratitude in the written word. So this can mean through texts, through emails, through writing, thank you letters, but finding ways to appreciate others often is has a strengthening effect. So the, we wanna practice gratitude in all the different ways we wanna feel it in our heart. We wanna create intention, we wanna bring it into our life through the day.

And also spreading it and expanding it, writing it in the word form is also really wonderful and powerful. So you know, something happens, a colleague or whatever. Thank you so much for being really thoughtful and really showing up today. Thank you so much for being such an amazing hobby. When we give appreciation to others and it’s not always expected, it really is such an amplifier in your heart, in their heart, it really is spreading the love. So make a practice of doing that regularly, maybe every day, even to just one or a few people. And it can be a simple short text, like I said, or writing a thank you letter, but start to integrate that into your practice and it’s very powerful.

Tip #4 On How To Practice Gratitude and Its Effect on The Body: Through meditation

And the next one is in meditation. Notice that all of our practical enlightenment meditations and in gratitude, so the combination of meditating, which is stealing the thoughts and withdrawing the senses from the external world to concentrate inside of your spine and your central nervous system means that we are concentrating energy. So attached to meditation, which we already build in, if you check out our free guided practical enlightenment meditations, which are also over on the website at mysolluna.com, you will be able to integrate me gratitude every time you’re meditating, which is a really powerful way to stack habits, stack practices that are really helpful.

So you meditate, you breathe, you do the steps of practical enlightenment meditation, which include a little bit of settling in the body breath work and then the I am form of mantra. And then we sit and we marinate in this beautiful energy and at the end you bring your hands together into prayer pose and close and gratitude. So we’re building more of this energy into our life. As you can see, it’s really about building it in, working it into our self care every day.

Tip #5 On How To Practice Gratitude and Its Effect on The Body:  Journal about gratitude and use journal prompts

And the final practice is to journal and to bring in guided journaling prompts around gratitude. These can include what am I grateful for? So just opening up to this expansive energy, really asking yourself the question. Number two, who am I grateful for? Number three, what growth within myself am I grateful for?

So we wanna make sure that we’re turning gratitude into deepening our self-esteem and our self-appreciation because then we will really start to appreciate others. Once we really feel this unique power of energy inside of us known as the true self, then we start to grow in confidence and love and appreciation for others. So it’s important, this reflective part of gratitude helps us to deepen this energy in our life as well. So these are three questions we will put in the show notes as well if it’s, it’s easier for you to see in the, in the written form, but it’s nice to return to these regularly. And as you’re journaling on a daily basis, you can always just bring in a gratitude list or again, journaling what you’re grateful for and that really, um, helps to amplify that energy as well. So let’s review our key takeaway points here in practicing gratitude.

Number one, morning gratitude, reflection could be right in bed, right as you’re starting the day. Just taking a couple seconds to really start the day with the abundance of gratitude. For anything, everything can be specific, non-specific. Number two, be grateful for junctures through the day. So pick one regular item. It could be passing through a doorway or eating and incorporate that into your gratitude practice. Attaching a few seconds at least of feeling that flood of gratitude. Number three, writing gratitude in the written word through letters, emails, texts, a spreading appreciation for all others in your life through this simple but very powerful act of gratitude. Number four, practicing gratitude with meditation. At the end of your meditation, when the heart is wide open, thoughts are settled down, ego is quieted. So check out our practical enlightenment meditations where gratitude is always incorporated. And lastly for our number five, fifth tip is to journal about gratitude and use journal prompts like what am I grateful for?

Who am I grateful for? What growth within myself am I grateful for? So I hope these help to support you on your journey and sending you so much gratitude personally today. I love our show. I love these conversations, I love the questions that you offer to us. We are all connected so we are all growing and working and wrestling with the the same issues and so in different forms, in different experiential contexts. But we’re here to support each other. So I’m so grateful for you and I really am here always. So please continue to write in, let me know how I can continue to support you. You can ask questions, comments. I send you so much love and I look forward to connecting with you more this year. So I will be back here Monday for our next interview show. Sending so much love. Namaste.